secret, for Kew keeps the same charm for one who
has come fresh from the broad aisles and avenues of some great country
garden. Is it the rarity and the wealth of the Kew museums and
houses--the orchid houses with their strange, lovely, uncanny
inflorescences, flowers that have fancies and wilfulnesses, flowers that
would people the dark with faces; or the lily-houses and the superb
_Victoria regia_ that would cradle a water-baby; or the great palm
houses, where you may walk in a gallery among enormous leaves and
tropical creepers as if you were back again with your grandfathers in
the tree tops? That is an attraction, but it is not all of it. Nor is it
the achievement of the gardens in the separate spheres of gardening. The
sheets of crocuses in the low March sunlight, and of daffodils shaking
in an April wind, add a glory to the spring at Kew, but it is a glory
that can belong to other lawns and other vistas of flowers. The Kew
rose-garden has a wealth of roses, but it has, too, a wealth of old tree
stems and broken branches which a garden meant for nothing but roses
would hide. The herbaceous border grows luxuriant phloxes and
delphiniums, but the background of glass houses sets a wrong light about
it. The rock garden shows more rock and fewer masses of Alpine flowers
than other English gardens more lately made, with better knowledge of
what wall and rock flowers need.

Then what is the abiding charm? To me, at all events, Kew has much the
same appeal as the Londoner finds in Richmond Hill. It is a London
garden, the garden of a town, perfectly made for its purpose. It can
never, even with its glorious trees and its wide spaces of grass, have
the peace or know the spirit of a country garden. Too many feet tread
its lawns; too many voices chatter in its walks. It may spread its wild
flowers and grow its curious blossoms for those who know where and how
to look for them; but its main effects must be of ordered gravel, of
shaven grass, of patterned beds, of flowers that will suit artificial
lakes and buildings and stone balustrades. The keynote of Kew is by the
wide pond, with the smooth green turf and the white stone, and the
masses of pansies and heliotrope and brilliant red geraniums. Those are
the flowers which suit best the steps down to the water, and the
fountains, and the swimming ducks and the birds on the banks. There is
the right touch of artificiality about them; the right note of London.
The birds are Lond