5 OCTOBER 1951, Page 25

In the Garden

One of the very loveliest of English gardens I know is that of Hidcote Bartrim Manor on the northern edge of the Cotswolds. Its principal charm is a long turf walk, bordered by clipped yew hedges and her- baceous borders of differently planned colour-schemes, diversified by gazebos and a range of stone steps, closed by a splendid cedar at one end and opening out to the Vale of Evesham at the other. All along it are miniature enclosed vistas on either side and, at the highest point, hedges of clipped and squared hornbeams on slender and naked Jrunks.

The season for picking pears is vastly complicated by its lateness and the libidinous onsets of the wasps. The russet Conference should always be picked"when it is hard, early in the fourth week of September. But how was one to guess the right time this year ? As for Beurre Hardie, picked in mid-September to save it from the wasps, it tasted worse than