Part 16

To the north is the small garden still inclosed by the moat. Straight along it is a broad grass walk with flower borders on both sides, leading to a thatched summer-house that looks out upon the moat. Lesser paths lead across and around among vegetables and old fruit-trees. At one corner is a venerable Mulberry.

The space within the quadrangle of the building is turfed and has cross-paths paved with stone flags. Bushes of hardy Fuchsia mark their outer angles of intersection. At the foot of the walls hardy Ferns are in luxuriance, and nothing could better suit the place. There are a few climbing Roses, but they are not overdone; the beautiful building is sufficiently graced, but not smothered, by vegetation. So it is throughout the place both within and without; house and garden show a loving

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MR. GEORGE S. ELGOOD]

reverence for the grand old heritage and that sound taste and knowledge that create and maintain well and wisely.

From the portions of the site of the old moat that are now grass, a turf slope rises to a height of about eight feet. On the upper level is a gravel walk, and beyond it a yew hedge about four feet high, with ornaments of peacocks cut in it at the principal openings, and of ball and such-like forms at other apertures. This is on the level of the main parterre. A wide gravel path divides the garden into two equal portions, swinging round in the middle space to give place to a circular grass-plot with a sundial.

This beautiful place offers so few details that can be adversely criticised that these few are the more noticeable. The sundial has a handsome shaft, but should stand upon a much wider step. The introduction of pyramid fruit-trees at concentric points, both here and in other parts of the design, is an experiment of doubtful value, that will probably never add to the pictorial value of the design. The garden critic may also venture to suggest that the pergola, which is well placed at the eastern end of the parterre, deserves better piers than its posts of fir. Here would be the place for some simple use of specially made bricks, such as a pier hexagonal in plan built of bricks of two shapes, diamond and triangle, two inches thick, with a wide mortar joint. Each course would take two bricks of each shape, and their disposition, alternating with each succeeding course, would secure an admirable bond.

The great parterre has main divisions of grass paths twelve feet wide, each subdivision--four on each side of the cross-walk and sundial--of eight three-sided beds disposed Union-Jack-wise, with bordering beds stopped by a clipped Box-bush at each end. Narrow grass walks are between the beds. The borders are roomy enough to accommodate some of the largest of the good hardy flowers, for the garden is given to these, not to “bedding stuff.” Here are some of the tall perennial Sunflowers, eight feet high; the great autumn Daisy (Pyrethrum uliginosum); bushes of Lavender with Pentstemons growing through them--a capital combination, doing away with the need of staking the Pentstemons; the last of the Phloxes; for the time of the picture, which was painted in this part of the garden, is September.

This bold use of autumnal border flowers invites the exercise of invention and ingenuity; for instance, August is the main time for the flowering of Lavender, and, though a thinner crop succeeds the heavier normal yield, yet the bushes then look thin of bloom. Clematises, purple, lilac and white, can be planted among them, and can easily be guided, by an occasional touch with the hand, to run over the Lavender bushes. The same capital autumn flowers should be planted with the handsome white Everlasting Pea. The Pea is supported by stout branching spray and does its own good work in July. When the bloom is over it is cut off, and the Clematis, which has been growing by its side with a support of rather slighter spray, is drawn close to the foliage of the Pea and spreads over it.

The working out of such simple problems is one of the many joys of the good gardener; and every year, with its increased experience, brings with it a greater readiness in the invention of such happy combinations.

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF

MRS. KENNEDY-ERSKINE]

PALMERSTOWN

The Earl of Mayo’s residence in County Kildare, Ireland, lies a few miles distant from the small market town of Naas. The house is of classical design, built within the nineteenth century. Around it is extensive park-land that is pleasantly undulating, and is well furnished with handsome trees both grouped and standing singly. In the lower level is a large pool with Water-lilies, and natural banks fringed with reeds and the other handsome sub-aquatic vegetation that occurs wild in such places.

There was an older house at Palmerstown in former days, whose large walled kitchen garden remains. It is a lengthy parallelogram, divided in the middle into two portions, each nearly a square, by a fine old yew hedge with arches cut in it for the two walks that pass through. The paths are broad, and some width on each side has been planted as a flower border, giving ample space for the good cultivation and enjoyment of all the best of the hardy flowers, so willing to show their full growth and beauty in the soft genial climate of the sister island.

It is a place that shows at once the happy effect of wise and sure direction, for Lady Mayo is an accomplished gardener, and the inclosure abounds with evidences of fine taste and thoughtful intention. One length of border is given to Lavender and China Rose, always a delightful and most harmonious mixture. There is a length of some twenty yards of this pleasant combination--the picture shows one end--with a few groups of taller plants, such as Bocconia, behind. Fruit-trees, trained as espaliers, form the back of the border, or sometimes there is a hedge of Sweet Pea. Vegetables occupy the middle portions of the quarters. The flower-bordered paths pass across and across the middle space, with others about ten feet within the walls and parallel with them. Quite in the middle the path passes round a fountain basin, and there are four arches on which Roses and Clematis are trained.

Such flower borders give ample opportunity for the practising of good gardening. The task is the easier in that only one of the pairs of borders can be seen at a glance, and a definite scheme of colour progression can easily be arranged. Such schemes are well worth thinking out. The writer’s own experience favours a plan in which the borders begin with tender colourings of pale blue, white and pale yellow, with bluish foliage, passing on to the stronger yellows. These lead to orange, scarlet and strong blood-reds. The scale of colouring then returns gradually to the pale and cool colours.

It is by such simple means that the richest effects of colour are obtained, whether in a continuous border or in clump-shaped masses. A separate space of flower-border may also be well treated by the use of an even more restricted scheme of colouring. Purple and lilac flowers, with others of pink and white only, and foliage of grey and silvery quality, the darkest being such as that of Rosemary and Echinops, make a charming flower-picture, with a degree of pictorial value that any one who had not seen it worked out would scarcely think possible.

The right choice of treatment depends in great measure on the environment. When this, as at Palmerstown, consists of old walls and a grand hedge of venerable yews, a suitable frame is ready for the display of almost any kind of garden-picture.

The yews are ten feet high and six feet through. Over a seat one of them is cut into the form of a peacock. To the left of the green archway in the Lavender picture, the yew takes the form of the heraldic wild-cat, the Mayo crest. Outside the garden is a yew walk of untrimmed trees; they show in the picture to the right, over the wall. Here, in the heat of summer, the coolness and dim light are not only in themselves restful and delightful, but, after passing along the bright borders, where eye and brain become satiated with the brilliancy of light and colour, the cool retreat is doubly welcome, preparing them afresh for further appreciation of the flower-borders.

ST. ANNE’S, CLONTARF

There is perhaps no place within the British islands so strongly reminiscent of Italy as St. Anne’s, in County Dublin, one of the Irish seats of Lord Ardilaun. This impression is first received from the number and fine growth of the grand Ilexes, which abound by the sides of the approaches and in the park-land near the house. For there are Ilexes in groups, in groves, in avenues--all revelling in the mild Irish air and nearness to the sea.

The general impression of the place, as of something in Italy, is further deepened by the house of classical design and of palatial aspect, both within and without, that has that sympathetic sumptuousness that is so charming a character of the best design and ornamentation of the Italian Renaissance. For in general when in England we are palatial, we are somewhat cold, and even forbidding. We stand aloof and endure our greatness, and behave as well as we are able under the slightly embarrassing restrictions. But in Italy, as at St. Anne’s, things may be largely beautiful and even grandiose, and yet all smiling and easily gracious and humanly comforting.

As it is in the house, so also is it in the garden; the same sentiment prevails, although the garden shows no effort in its details to assume an Italian character. But apparent everywhere is the remarkable genius of Lady Ardilaun--a queen among gardeners. A thorough knowledge of plants and the finest of taste; a firm grasp and a broad view, that remind one of the great style of the artists of the School of Venice--these are the acquirements and cultivated aptitudes that make a consummate gardener.

The grounds themselves were not originally of any special beauty. All the present success of the place is due to good treatment. Adjoining the house, at the northern end of its eastern face, is a winter garden. Looking from the end of this eastward, is a sight that carries the mind directly to Southern Europe; an avenue of fine Ilexes, and, at the end, a blue sea that might well be the Mediterranean. Passing to the left, before the Ilexes begin, is a walk leading into a walled inclosure of about two acres. Next the wall all round is a flower-border; then there is a space of grass, then a middle group of four square figures, each bordered on three sides by a grand yew hedge that is clipped into an outline of enriched scallops like the edge of a silver Mentieth; a series of forms consisting of a raised half-circle, then a horizontal shoulder, and then a hollow equal to the raised member.

The genial climate admits of the use of many plants that generally need either winter housing or some special contrivance to ensure well-being. Thus there are great clumps of the blue African Lily (Agapanthus); and Iris Susiana blooms by the hundred, treated apparently as an ordinary border plant.

The picture shows a portion of a double flower-border in another square walled garden, formerly a kitchen garden, and only comparatively lately converted into pleasure-ground. Yews planted in a wide half-circle form a back-ground to the bright flowers and to a statue on a pedestal. The intended effect is not yet finished, for the trellis at the back of the borders is hardly covered with its rambling Roses, which will complete the picture by adding the needed height that will bring it into proper relation with the tall yews. There is a cleverly invented edging which gives added dignity as well as regularity, and obviates the usual falling over of some of the contents of the border on to the path; an incident that is quite in character in a garden of smaller proportion, but would here be out of place. A narrow box edging, just a trim line of green, has within it a good width of the foliage of Cerastium. The bloom, of course, was over by the middle of June, but the close carpet of downy white leaf remains as a grey-white edging throughout the summer and autumn.

Though this border shows bold masses of flowers, it scarcely gives an