122 WALL AND WATER GARDENS 



Moreover, in the naturally silted bog there will pro- 

 bably be already that handsome groundwork of great 

 tussocks of Sedge or stretches of Reed or Rush that 

 will secure that valuable sense of unity and cohesion 

 of the whole place, while at the same time they will 

 make a distinct and easy separation between any such 

 group of flowering plants as one may wish to see 

 undisturbed by the view of the group that is next to 

 follow. 



It will be greatly to the advantage of a portion of 

 this region if there is a copse-like growth of something 

 that will give summer shade ; for many are the lovely 

 plants that are not exactly marsh plants, but that like 

 ground that is always cool and rather moist. In the 

 wettest of this would be a plantation of Primula den- 

 ticulata, a grand plant indeed when grown in long 

 stretches in damp ground at the edge of a hazel copse, 

 when its luscious leaves and round heads of lilac 

 flower are seen quite at their best. Several others of 

 the Asiatic Primroses like such a place better than any 

 other. Next to it, and only divided by some clumps of 

 Lady Fern, would be the equally wet-loving P. sik- 

 khnensisy and then a further drift of P.japonica. 



The two latter kinds come easily from seed ; P. 

 denticulata increases so fast and divides so well that 

 there is no need to grow it from seed. The type 

 colour of P. japonica, a crimson inclining to magnate, 

 is unpleasant to my eye and to that of many others, 

 but seedlings of a much better, though quite as bright 

 a colour, have been obtained, and also a pretty low- 

 toned white, with many intermediate pinkish shade. 



