LANDSCAPE BEAUTY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23023, 28 April 1938, Page 5

LANDSCAPE BEAUTY

DOWN THE GARDEN PATII FAMOUS AUTHORS' EXHIBITS SOME NOVEL PRESENTATIONS [from our own correspondent] LONDOX, April 6 "Down vlie Garden Path with Famous Authors" gives the title to a very beautiful series of small gardens which a number of popular authors, with the assistance of some of the foremost British landscape specialists, prosent for the delight of visitors to the Ideal Home Exhibition this year. Mr. Beverley Nichols' garden brings to all who have read his best-seller, which gave its name to this section of the exhibition, something of the joy which tlio writer shared with his readers as he made his own garden Here, against a background of the

thatched cottage and village church in the fen country, is that well-known path, the little formal beds, the lawn with its statue of Antinous, the heather garden, and the pond with the willow trees—a welcome springtime picture with its crab apples and flowering cherries shining against the sombre hedgerows; daffodils and tulips, wallflowers and polyanthus, iris and bluebells, all making a brilliant effect with the gayest of colourings. A Sussex Setting Dr. A. J. C'roniu, perhaps the most discussed novelist of recent years, discloses that his favourite garden is situated among the fine rolling downs of Sussex not far from Chanctonburv Ring.' A commanding strawberry tree (arbutusV in the foreground and an elegant group of pines frame a picture in which are a converted barnhouse, a small pond and an old gate leading through an opening in the garden wall. Undulating lawns with drifts of daffodils and other spring bulbs and groups of rhododendrons and azaleas complete the scene. Sir Hugh Walpole has gone to the other end of the country —to the quietgrandeur of Cumberland, his favourite county, for his inspiration. The result is a peaceful and intimate bower in which a pool with fountains and rose beds and a garden house roofed with Cumberland slates are enclosed by a plantation of flowering and foliage trees and shrubs. ... an altogether appealing conception. Women Have Their Say Adam may have been the first gardener, but in the matter of moderii horticultural prestige, our women novelists give the men some keen competition. Lady Eleanor Smith's garden is an unusual one based upon a scene in Sicily which strongly impressed her. Broken pillars of a ruined temple, a stone scat and a little statue surrounded by dark forest, stand in the background and convey an atmosphere of mystery and solitude. Stone steps lead from a path to a lilypond above which stands a figure of the god Pan, and surrounding walks lead through plantations of ornamental trees and shrubs, heather and rock plants, which add a touch of colour to the picture. Miss Rebecca "West prefers the wild and informal, and her garden is built against a background of Scots pines,' birch and beech in the Lakeland countryside. Miss Clemence Dane chose a rock and water garden, Miss Susan Ertz a richly-hued rose garden with a low stone wall and oaths of crazy paving, Miss Agatha Christie a pleasant formal garden in the romantic tradition., All these different gardens, and many others too, so full of beauty and colour and contrast, are harmoniously ' combined to make one vast rambling landscape garden interlaced with paths, along which one can stroll at will, forgetting for a moment the huge city in the midst of which it is set.