Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 2 August, I900 No. 20 
NOTES OF A WILD GARDEN. 
G. U. Hav. 
PossiBLy some of the readers of RHODORA may be interested in the 
experiment of a wild garden which I planned and started some twelve 
years since, on a two-acre lot about eleven miles from the city of St, 
John, New Brunswick. The plan was somewhat ambitious, being 
intended to show within this small area all the flowering plants and 
ferns, and their allies of New Brunswick, with possibly a few others, 
trees and shrubs from other latitudes, for the purpose of comparison. 
The latter are kept quite distinct from the * Natives" in the culti- 
vated or open portions of the garden. 
The abundant shade of a fine grove, with a northern exposure and 
a depression running through it, in which is retained ample moisture 
during the dry season, furnishes a suitable habitat for ferns and other 
plants requiring shade and moisture. The rocks and miniature gorges 
of the grove have welcomed the ferns especially ; and, almost without 
effort, beyond the transplanting, these interesting plants of the prov- 
inces, with but few exceptions, have flourished in the natural home 
provided for them. And here it may be said, the whole aim in the 
management of the garden has been to let nature have a free hand 
with the exception of necessary clearing and pruning, and to obey her 
more obvious dictates. 
In one corner of the garden is a meadow very suitable for the plants 
from the alluvial river bottoms of the upper St. John and its tributa- 
ries, and the Restigouche and other rivers of the Province. This 
meadow represents considerable toil as well as pleasure, but the results 
have not always been what my too sanguine hopes led me to expect. 
The meadow was teeming with yegetation when I began, and the 
original inhabitants have made a stern fight against extirpation in 
