304 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



and simple borders, and every nook and corner has its appropriate 

 flower ; in a word, it is just such a garden as one would expect a 

 scholar to possess who has sympathy for all that lives or breathes and 

 who has given us such a book as " The Plant Lore and Garden Craft 

 of Shakespeare." The garden at Bitton Vicarage is no new garden, 

 for it was famous more than half a century ago, when Haworth and 

 Herbert, Anderson, Falconer, Sweet, Baxter and others took such an 

 interest in bulbs and hardy flowers. By the same token it is by no 

 means a new-fangled garden ; there is all due and proper keeping, but 

 it is patent to any plant-lover that its owner thinks more of seeing 

 his plants happy and healthy than he does of any unnecessary 

 trimness. — F. W. B. 



Reserve Garden. — We have an example in this plan of what 

 is meant by a reserve garden. An oblong piece of ground having 

 the walls of the kitchen garden for two of its boundaries, and a Yew 

 hedge sheltering it from the east winds, while the other is screened 

 by evergreen trees, with which are intermingled hardy plants of tall 

 growth. The plants are set in beds without reference to the general 

 effect, and all the borders, being edged with stone dug on the place, 

 give no trouble after the stones are properly set ; when old and moss- 

 grown the stones look better than anything else that could be used — 

 the dwarfer plants being allowed to run over them and break the 

 lines. Every year the plan of such a garden may be varied as our 

 tastes vary and as the flowers want change. A similar garden ought 

 to be in every place where there are borders to be stocked and 

 maintained in good condition, and particularly where there is a 

 demand for cut flowers. 



Such a garden may be made in any shape which is convenient for 

 cultivation, for access and for cutting ; but some general throwing of 

 the ground into easily worked beds is desirable. The more free and 

 less hampered with gravel, permanent edgings, and the like, the better 

 it will be for future work. The gardener is often hindered by need- 

 less impedimenta in the flower garden, but in the reserve garden, 

 where only the cultivation of flowers has to be thought of, he should 

 be able to get to work at any time with the least possible difficulty, 

 and in dry and good soils it would not be necessary to have much 

 more than a beaten walk for the foot. It would be possible to do 

 without edgings ; but where edgings are used they should be of a 

 kind that might be removed at any time, the best for this end 

 being of natural stone. The drainage should be good, and if possible 

 the place should be not too far to the manure heap, while the soil 

 should in all cases be good, as very often it has to give two crops a 

 year ; in the case of bulbs that perish early it is easy to get after crops 

 of annuals or ornamental grasses. 



