The Mixed Garden 



where the bedded-out borders are in all their 

 splendour. Such is not my idea of a mixed 

 garden. I mean a garden which is entirely made 

 up of mixed borders, except in the case of very 

 large places, where a formal garden may some- 

 where easily find its fitting place. And such a 

 garden may be of any size, from the three 

 hundred acres or more at Kew (probably the 

 finest mixed garden in Europe), to the small 

 square that forms the back garden of most 

 suburban villas. But whatever the size, the less 

 formal it is, and the less uniform in the positions 

 and shapes of the different borders the better. 

 Milton described the river of Paradise as 



" Visiting each plant, and fed 

 Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 

 In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 

 Poured forth profuse ; " 



and Sir Henry Wotton laid down the rule 

 that there was " a certain contrariety between 

 building and gardening ; for as fabricks should 

 be regular, so gardens should be irregular, or at 

 least cast into a very wild regularity." It is this 

 " wild regularity " which forms to my mind the 

 real charm of a good mixed garden ; and it is 

 this, and not the large collection of different 

 plants in it, which distinguishes it from other 

 gardens, because plants grown in such a way may 

 be allowed to grow in their fullest vigour, and to 

 develop each its own shape, colour, and character, 

 without any fear of its transgressing the lines of 



