The walks in the garden are bordered with yew tree boards rounded on the edges, instead of stone: these have been found to last ten years without repair. The beds are overgrown with shrubs or otherwise in an unsuitable state, the family not having resided here for several years. To have the proper effect, such a garden ought to be planted with low growing flowers, each compartment a mass of one sort, and every sort removed as soon as it goes out of flower, and supplied by another. The garden would then be looked down upon like a carpet from the library, and from the terrace walk which borders it on two sides. Proceeding from this garden to Holbein's porch, there is a strip of shrubbery on the right, the front of which is exceedingly well managed, in respect to the variety of outline by the formation of bays and recesses. The trees and shrubs are of common kinds, but the finest sorts might be introduced in the same style of disposition. What we greatly approve of is, that there is no dug space in front of this shrubbery, the turf losing itself under the branches; There is not, as we have shown at length, Vol. XI. p. 412., a greater deformity in modern gardening than that produced by digging the margins of shrubberies, and planting roses and flowers in them, which from the exhaustion of the soil by the roots of the shrubs, and the stagnation of the air and shade produced by the intermixed trees, can never be otherwise than sickly. It ought to be laid down as a rule, never to be departed from, that no rose bush or flower should ever be planted but in open airy situations where they would come to perfection. This would greatly limit the labours of the gardener, and he would be able to do what he did in the way of cultivating flowers well. Surely there is no one who has attended to this subject who will not allow that it would be a great improvement in pleasure-ground scenery to get rid of those tawdry borders of sickly straggling flowers, leaving nothing in their place but turf and shrubs, or for a few years while the shrubs were young, shrubs on a dry surface ! We have long tried to effect this innovation, and if we could only succeed in doing so, we are sure we should equally benefit gardeners and their employers, and add much to the beauty of every country seat.
