KEW GARDENS IN MAY.
PEOPLE who can only manage to come once to Kew Gardens during the month of May do well to time their visit so as to hit off the moment when the hardy azaleas are in flower, and the wild hyacinths are making a blue carpet in the beech-wood that neighbours the plot of garden where these delightful shrubs grow. It is not every year that the bluebells and the azaleas are out at the same time. That only happens in fortunate springs. But this year spring is very fortunate, and the two events are coinciding perfectly. The azaleas will outlast the bluebells. The grey-blue haze that makes the little copse look as if the sky had dipped down into the grass, will have passed away long before the reds and pinks and oranges of the azalea garden are over. But at this moment both the wild flowers and the cultivated ones are in their prime; and we do not remember having ever seen their effects more happily combined. The colours of the azaleas are, or seem to be, unusually brilliant this year, while the recent spell of hot, dry weather has allowed their flowers to open without any disturbance. Neither the tints nor the forms of the blossoms have been spoilt by rain. Not a single flower has yet fallen ; and though of the mass of buds upon the shrubs only a small proportion have yet opened, there is blossom enough to make the parterre a blaze of wonderfully lovely colour ; and the brilliancy of this centre of glory is delightfully set off by the freshness and delicacy of its surroundings.
Mid-May, when alternate rain and sunshine have done their parts as they have done this year, is an exquisite moment for foliage. The trees are full, but they have not ceased to be transparent. Green is a colour still, not yet an obscurity. There is no trace of dust or dryness ; not yet the grey oppression of midsummer density. All is delicate, vivid, diaphanous, fresh. The horse-chestnuts, the thorns, the lilacs, the laburnums are in flower. Lawns are powdered with daisies, longer grass is crowded with fieldrusb, butter- cups, and ground-ivy. The oaks and the Spanish chestnuts have advanced to the point of delicately defined leaf ; while the beeches, though they have come out of that early ethereal stage when they seem rather to be sprinkled with green than clothed with leaves of definite shape and consistency, are still so slightly covered that little is lost of the stately forms of their grey boles, while new beauties are gained by the breaking up of the sunshine into dancing lights and shadows. The leaves are still small enough for the outline of each to complete itself distinctly to the eye; there is as yet no merging of detail in mass and group, and the general effect is bright and merry, like the flecking of mackerel clouds on a summer sky.
There is no part of the Gardens from which the eye may not take its fill of the vivid greens that belong especially to spring. But if we want to enjoy at one glance the greatest variety of tints, and the most striking contrasts of colour, we must follow the walk that leads between the Azalea Garden and the beech-grove where the bluebells are, cross the low-lying shrubbery where the rhododendrons grow,. climb the slope on the further side, and take our stand with the river to the left, and the beech-wood to the right, and the rhododendron valley in front of us. So we shall be able to see all at once the irregular screen of Scotch firs, cedars, and dusky hollies, that makes a dark foreground to the grove of light-green beeches ; the deep-red, pale mauve and opal-white of the few rhododendrons, already in flower, which show up so finely against the green masses of their slower-flowering neighbours ; the flame-colours of the azaleas ; the warm and tender pink of the young leaves of the copper- beeches that are scattered so generously about this part of the plantation ; and the blue gleaming of the river through the belt of fine trees that girdles the grounds.
But though this spot commands at this moment the most beautiful view in the Gardens, and the blaze of azaleas in flower makes the most splendid show of all the year,—yet there is about it all just that touch of sadness that belongs to any climax. It is the best, but it is also the last show of spring. The next changes, the next showers will usher in the summer. Not only will the foliage be never again through all the year so tender, so vivid, and so varied as it is now, but so many flowers are already over, so many beautiful pages of the year are turned. The wild daffodils that made a little while ago such charming pre-Raphaelite pictures all• about the Gardens are quite gone. So are all the rarer kinds of the same family that filled the formal beds a. little later, and contributed so handsomely to the yellow effects that make an essential part of the radiance of spring. The fine magnolia that stood like a white beacon in the centre of the Azalea Garden in the beginning of the month, has shed almost all its flowers. The Siberian crabs have shed theirs also, though some of their cousins from China and Japan are only now coming into bloom. Over, too, is the splendid show of tulips that filled the space between the round pond and the Palm House. And though a few tulip-beds near the hot- houses still keep their brightness, the flowers are mostly over- blown, and their magnificence is degenerating into garishness. One is not sorry to pass from them to the rock walk and enjoy the contrast of the quiet beauties of the multitude of interesting plants, common and uncommon, springing up is its crannies. Periwinkles, white and blue, scillas and fritillaries, a few lingering primroses, common dog-violets,. ferns, familiar and unfamiliar, uncurling their rough and tender fronds ; saxifrages, columbines, forget-me-nots, lilies of the valley, white and yellow alyssums—all our common shrubbery friends mingle here in studied disorder with rare foreign plants. One of the first things to attract attention as we enter the walk, is the exceedingly tiny and ex- ceedingly brilliant flower of the white sandwort from New Zealand, the minute foliage of which clings to the stones like moss, while each little blossom stands out with the distinctness of enamel. Another white flower of very different character that no one could pass without admiration, is the noble Trillium grandijlorum from North- America. A week ago the most beautiful object in the whole rockery was a lovely double peach, covered with deep-pink blossom, which stood like a sentinel at the far end of the walk, seeming to guard the little defile. Now that also has lost its glory, and one passes its place almost without noticing that there is a tree there. But if some blossoms are passing away, others are still opening. Every-
where about the Gardens, the common yellow broom is coming into flower, and two magnificent bushes of the earlier flowering variety, known as Genista praecox, are still (or were when the writer saw the Gardens a day or two ago), in full beauty. With the afternoon sun shining upon them they flash and radiate like immense fires, but seen later in the evening, the coolness and tenderness of their pale yellow strikes one most. Some excellent effects of colour are got in beds without the use of a single flower by mixing the copper varieties of nut, plum, berberus, and beech, with variegated ribes, euonymns, dogwood, and maple, and a most beautiful blood-red shrub that well deserves its name of Ater eanguineum. Everywhere there is an extraordinary profusion and variety of colour to delight the eye. And sight is not the only sense to be delighted in this seductive paradise. The air is sweet with most delicious scents, and the groves are riitisical with the songs of birds.
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