Beyond the bog-garden, on drier ground, is a garden of heaths, and, returning by the pathway on the other side of the pond, is the kitchen garden, a strip of pleasure-ground being reserved between it and the pond. Here is the subject of the picture. The pergola runs parallel with the pond, which, with the house and inclosed garden, are to the spectator’s right. To the left, before the vegetable quarters begin, is a capital rock-garden of the best and simplest form—just one long dell, whose sides are set with rocks of the local Bargate stone and large sheets of creeping and rock-loving plants. Taller green growths of shrubby character shut it off from other portions of the grounds.
The picture speaks for itself. It tells of the right appreciation of the use of the good autumn flowers, in masses large enough to show what the flowers will do for us at their best, but not so large as to become wearisome or monotonous. Roses, Vines and Ivies cover the pergola, making a grateful shade in summer. Each open space to the right gives a picture of water and water-plants with garden ground beyond, and, looking a little forward, the picture is varied by the background of roof-mass with a glimpse of the timbered gables of the old house.
The new garden is growing mature. The Yews that stand like gate-towers flanking the entrance of the green covered way, have grown to their allotted height, doing their duty also as quiet background to the autumnal flower-masses. In the border to the left are Michaelmas Daisies, French Marigolds, and a lower growth of Stocks; to the right is a dominating mass of the great white Pyrethrum, grouped with pink Japan Anemone, Veronicas and yellow Snapdragon. Japan Anemones, both pink and white, are things of uncertain growth in many gardens of drier soil, but here, in the rich alluvial loam of a valley level, they attain their fullest growth and beauty.
BULWICK: AUTUMN
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF Lord Henry Grosvenor
BULWICK HALL
Bulwick Hall, in Northamptonshire, the home of the Tryon family, but, when the pictures were painted, in the occupation of Lord and Lady Henry Grosvenor, is a roomy, comfortable stone building of the seventeenth century. The long, low, rather plain-looking house of two stories only, is entered in an original manner by a doorway in the middle of a stone passage, at right angles to the building, and connecting it with a garden house. The careful classical design and balustraded parapet of the outer wall of this entrance, and the repetition of the same, only with arched openings, to the garden side, scarcely prepare one for the unadorned house-front; but the whole is full of a quiet, simple dignity that is extremely restful and pleasing. Other surprises of the same character await one in further portions of the garden.
Passing straight through the entrance gate there is a quiet space of grass; a level court with flagged paths, bounded on the north by the house and on the east and west by the arcade and the wall of the kitchen garden. The ground falls slightly southward, and the fourth side leads down to the next level by grass slopes and a flight of curved steps widening below. Trees and shrubs are against the continuing walls to right and left, and beds and herbaceous borders are upon the grassy space. The wide green walk, between long borders of hardy plants, leading forward from the foot of the steps, reaches a flower-bordered terrace wall, and passes through it by a stone landing to steps to right and left on its further side. A few steps descend in twin flights to other landings, from which a fresh flight on each side reaches the lowest garden level, some nine feet below the last. The whole of this progression, with its pleasant variety of surface treatment and means of descent, is in one direct line from a garden door in the middle of the house front.