290 How to Make a Flower Garden 



grass, and bloomed. Exquisite in colour and fragrance they were, but it 

 was easy to see that in the adverse conditions in which they were 

 placed they were not the "fittest " that were destined to survive. With the 

 flowers of more vigorous habits I succeeded better. The Joe Pye weed grew 

 like the fabulous beanstalk. The blue flag was a mass of colour, and right 

 in the midst of it a sturdy buttercup scattered its golden disks in all directions 

 This illustrates one of the happy accidents of wild gardening, for many a root 

 is brought in unawares, to grow to maturity and surprise us some morning 

 by flaunting its unexpected flowers in our face. The tall meadow-rue and 

 the jewel-weed made a combination of considerable beauty. But the cardinal 

 flower surpassed them all. Ordinarily, too few buds open at once, and conse- 

 quently the one-sided racemes, in spite of their brilliance of colour, present 

 a ragged and incomplete appearance. But, owing to some magic of soil or 

 sun, my flowers burgeoned out rich and full. Such magnificence of colour, 

 such compactness of bloom, I have never seen. The flowers actually over- 

 lapped one another like scales, and the inflorescence was without a break. 

 For whole weeks they stood there like tapers of vermilion flame ; and day 

 by day I watched them as, with the advancing bloom, the superb colour 

 crept slowly up the stems, until at length the last glory flickered at the top 

 and died. And all that was left were a number of unsightly stalks on which 

 the seed-cases were already beginning to turn brown. 



Of course, I had many disappointments; but these are not so pleasant 

 to dwell upon. Many a specimen transplanted with tender care never came 

 up. Moles beneath the surface, and rabbits above, had to be reckoned with. 

 Once a workman hired to clear out the weeds eradicated a thriving colony 

 of the beautiful though ephemeral day-flower; and occasionally when I 

 returned at night I found that during the day my junior assistant had dug 

 up my most cherished possession. 



Nevertheless, in spite of all drawbacks, the making of the wild garden 

 has been a pleasure. Holidays, vacations, and many an hour snatched before 

 and after the business of the day, have been devoted to its care. Woods 

 and meadows and mountains have been explored, and the search after the 

 hiding-places of the rarer flowers has had about it some of the keen enjoyment 

 of the chase. In the three years that it has been a-building quite a deal has 

 been accomplished. From the time the first hepatica opens its eyes until 

 the last gentian shrivels in the frost some eighty species bloom within its 

 narrow boundaries. And most of these have been brought there, in basket 



