"Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house, 

 Between the river and the wooded hills, 

 Within a valley where the Springtime spills 

 Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs; 

 Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows 

 With bramble roses, and where Autumn fills 

 Her lap with asters, and old Winter frills 

 With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.'* 

 — ''Here is the Place . . . ." — Madison Cawein. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



Wild Gardens and Wild Flowers 



THERE is perhaps no better definition of the 

 wild garden than the simple statement that 

 it reproduces Nature with her own materials. 

 As distinguished from the naturalistic garden, it 

 does not entertain hybrid forms nor improved 

 forms of any plant, nor does it admit — in its 

 rigid interpretation — plants from another clime. 

 It is composed wholly of aboriginal species and 

 kinds, in other words; hence it is the one gar- 

 den that, once established, may be left to itself 

 — save for such elimination of weeds as all 

 gardens must have, occasionally. In one way [it 

 may be said to seize the materials at hand and 

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