Towards the north of London there are many small gardens which are bright and attractive, and without going so far as Hampstead, pleached walks and small but tastefully arranged grounds are met with. Within Regent's Park there are several charming gardens round the detached villas, which have been already noticed in the chapter on that Park. The two most interesting from a horticultural point of view are St. Katharine's and St. John's Lodges. The fountain in the former is the frontispiece to this volume, and that view says more than any elaborate description. It might be in some far-away Italian garden, so perfectly are the sights and sounds of London obliterated. On a still, hot day, when the fountain drips with a cool sound and there is a shimmering light of summer over the distant trees beyond the terrace, the delusion is perfect. Most of the herbaceous plants which take kindly to London grow in the border-hollyhocks, day lilies, poppies, peonies, pulmoneria and lilies, while there is a large variety of flowering shrubs-ribes, lilacs, buddleias, shumachs and Aralia spinosa. The kitchen-garden produces good crops of most of the ordinary vegetables. The garden is arranged with a definite design; there is nothing specially formal, no cut trees or anything associated with some of the formal ideas in England, but there is method in the design; the trees and plants grow as Nature intended them, but they are not stuck about in incongruous disorder and meaningless, distorted lines, as is so often thought necessary, in designing a garden or "improving" a park.
St. John's Lodge has also a well-thought-out garden, some of it of a distinctly formal type. The coloured illustration of it is taken from a part of the garden enclosed with cut privet hedges, with a fountain in the centre, on which stands a statue of St. John the Baptist, by Mr. Johnes. Between the four wide grass walks there are masses of herbaceous plants, backed by rhododendrons, which, as the picture shows, stand out with brilliant colour in summer against the green background. This garden opens into a bowling-green enclosed by cut lime trees, and a cool walk for summer shaded by pleached lime trees. A seductive broad walk bordered with fruit-trees is another feature. This attractive garden has been made within the last eighteen years. The conception of it was due to Lord Bute, and the designing and carrying out to Mr. Schultz. The other side of the house, with a wide terrace and park stretching down toward the water, has no special horticultural feature, but the formal garden is full of charm, and the plants are thriving and trees growing up so fast there is no trace of its newness. It only shows how much can be done where knowledge and good taste are displayed.
