SPRING GARDENS. 107 



among the plants that have been set out in hard lines in flower 

 gardens, but it is easy to have better effects from them in groups, 

 and even in broken lines and masses, or as carpets beneath bushes, 

 thus giving softer and more beautiful, if less definite, effects. Happy 

 always on castle wall and rocks, the Wallflower is most. welcome 

 in the garden, where, on warm soils and in genial climates, it does 

 well, but hard winters injure it often in cold and inland districts, and 

 'it is almost like a tender plant in such conditions. Yet it must 

 ever be one of the flowers best worth growing in sheltered and warm 

 gardens ; and even in cold places one may have a few under the eaves 

 of cottages and on dry south borders. 



The Windflowers are a noble group among the most beautiful of 

 the northern and eastern flowers, some being easily naturalised 

 (like the blue Italian and Greek Anemones), while 

 The Windflowers the showy Poppy Anemones are easily grown 

 where the soils are light and warm, and in genial 

 warm districts ; but they require some care on certain soils, 

 and are among the plants we must cultivate and even protect 

 on cold soils in hard winters. The same is true of the brilliant 

 Asiatic Ranunculus and all its varied forms Persian, Turkish, and 

 French, as they may be called, all forms of one wild North African 

 buttercup, unhappily too tender to endure our winters in the 

 open air, but they should be abundantly grown on the warm 

 limestone and other soils which suit them, as about our coasts 

 and in Ireland. There is no more effective way of growing these 

 than in simple 4-foot beds in the kitchen or reserve garden. The 

 Wood Anemone is so often seen in the woods that there is rarely 

 need to grow it ; but some of its varieties are essential, most beautiful 

 being A. Robinsoniana, a flower of lovely blue colour, and a distinct 

 gain in the spring garden grown in almost any way. The Hepatica 

 is a lovely little Anemone where the soil is free, though slow in some 

 soils, and where it grows well all its varieties should be encouraged, 

 in borders and margins of beds of American bushes as well as in the 

 rock garden. The Snowdrop Windflower (A. sylvestris) is most 

 graceful in bud and bloom, but a little capricious, and not blooming 

 well on all soils, unlike in this way our Wood W'indflowers, which are 

 as constant as the Kingcups. The Pasque-flower is lovely on the 

 chalk downs and fields of Normandy and parts of England in spring, 

 but never quite so pretty in a garden. It would be worth naturalising 

 in chalky fields and woods or banks. 



Columbines are very beautiful in the early part of the year, and 

 if we had nothing but the common kind (Aquilegia vulgaris) 

 and its forms, they would be precious; but there are many others 

 which thrive in free soils, some of which are very graceful in forrn 



