7 SEPTEMBER 1951, Page 18

In the Garden

How often gardens profit by and transcend an awkward or unfavour- able geographical environment! I know one on the bank of the Middle Nye overlooking one of its reaches whose waters- are skimmed by sandpipers and visited by_cormorants, great crested grebes and occasionally goosanders in winter. The garden is hemmed in to a narrowing strip between river and road, while the end of the wedge is hidden by a row of nut-trees, and one walks towards it on a level with the crowns of tall alders, originally planted there for the clog-makers- This garden is exquisite with cyclamen in spring, Davidiana and other of the rarer clematises in summer and golden Stembergia in autumn.

H. J. MASSINOHAM.