Foremost of all the illustrations of spring gardening I have been privileged to look upon this season, stands that almost unrivalled garden in the grounds of the Holte Hotel, Lower Grounds, Aston, Birmingham. Better than Belvoir, with its vast and elaborate arrangements; better than Clieveden, with its immense masses of colour and its grand surroundings of rich scenery and woodland; better than Nuneham, with its much more minute and artistic arrangements; better than all these in this, that the Aston garden is an outcome of private enterprise - designed, planted, and sustained as a place of public resort, to which can come the almost teeming multitudes that inhabit the immense borough of Birmingham, and see, in all their simplicity of beauty, how wondrously attractive common flowers may be made, where an enterprising genius, a true artist in the exquisite arrangement of harmony and distribution of colours, and the large heart of a true social philanthropist, wields the almost magic wand by which so much of freshness and beauty woos, and woos successfully, the sons and daughters of toil to gaze on that which to them is full of new wonder and delight, and capable of satisfying aspirations and awakening capacities the bountiful heart of nature has committed to such agencies to call into active and harmonious play.

The grounds of the Holte Hotel are a part of the Aston Park estate, but divided from it by the main road which runs from Aston to another of the wealthy suburbs of Birmingham. It is simply a place of public resort for the people of Birmingham, where amusements and sources of recreation are provided, with delightful walks and charming gardens, but without the admixture of a single coarse feature. It is a kind of Sydenham Palace, having all the characteristics of the outer grounds without the palace of glass, but yet having musical and other features of a high and elevating order. There are two great lakes of several acres in extent - one kept as a home for wild-fowl and ornamental water-fowl, with overhanging umbrageous trees, under which are shady and pleasant walks; the other, for boating and fishing. There are also archery, croquet, cricket, bowling, and quoit grounds; a large concert-hall for public gatherings, theatricals, concerts, and, under the strictest and most severe supervision, dancing. There are also extensive refreshment-rooms, where large parties can be entertained; and in addition to these, charming pleasure-grounds and promenades, and a first-class band of music performing every day.

Thousands enter these gardens the year through, and it is always pleasant to note what a chief source of attraction are the gardens, with their vari-coloured beds, and specimen ornamental trees, and extensive greensward -

"With singing birds and balmy flowers, Creatures of beauty and delight," where the visitors love to linger in the calm twilight -

" When the fragrance of flowers is lightly Awaft on the soft evening breeze, Whilst the pale moon is glinting so brightly With silver the tremulous leaves".

There is also another use in these grounds: they serve as a kind of school of instruction for many of the surrounding gardeners, who are far removed from the centres of horticultural enterprise and activity. The proprietor, Mr H. G. Quilter, although not a practical horticulturist, is yet alive to the importance of introducing any new feature into his bedding-out system; and new designs and new agencies are instantly seized upon as soon as they present themselves, if they can be turned to account, with the best possible results. Even subtropical gardening is here extensively carried out and much appreciated, though it is amusing in the highest degree to stand by one of the raised beds in which the curious Echeveria metallica plays an important part, and listen to the altogether unique criticisms which fall from the lips of some of the excursionists from the "black country," of which Birmingham may be regarded as the metropolis.

In the centre of the grounds stands a walled-in garden of 4 acres, in shape a square, and formerly the kitchen-garden belonging to Aston Hall. While flower-gardening is largely carried out in various directions outside this central garden, it is within it that it is most elaborated. Broad gravel-walks, running from east to west and from south to north, and intersecting each other in the centre, form a kind of Maltese cross; and at a certain distance from the centre, each arm of the cross opens out, as it were, and embraces a large oval bed, occupying the centre of the walk. A border some 8 feet in width is on either side of the gravel-walks, and rises from the path-level to a height of 3 feet in the middle, forming a kind of ridge, and falls away to the ground-level on the other side. This gives an 18-feet border, raised considerably in the centre. This raised border and the gravel-walks form the cross, the angles being filled with turf, on which are flowerbeds of various shapes and sizes, specimen trees, ornamental shrubs, etc. The centre of this garden appears in the plan on next page.

The outer border of the plan represents one-half of the sloping bed - that falling inwards to form the centre of the cross.

This central garden, as given in the plan, is to some extent complete in itself, as the summit of the sloping bed (forming the exterior of the plan) has a kind of fence of galvanised iron, the top of which hangs in the form of festoons, like the "slack rope" on which an acrobat performs. Each circle on the exterior of the plan represents a standard plant of Acer negundo variegata, immediately under the silvery-foliaged head of which the extremities of the festoons meet. This iron fence is covered with Irish Ivy, and gives an admirable background to the flower-beds in front and at the back of it. The openings made by the walks are overarched by strong and elegant wire archways of ornamental designs, and from the centre of each is suspended a handsome hanging basket of plants. These arches are covered by Hops, quick-growing Climbing Roses, Clematises, etc. As the wire arches spring from the back of the border as given in the plan, the corresponding corners where the path opens out from the circle are occupied by vases of flowering plants fixed on pedestals. Inside the Ivy fence is a circular line of Yews, forming a hedge about 4 feet in height, and at intervals standard Roses are planted in the hedge.