SOME RESULTS. 93 



embellishment in one way at a season when there is a great 

 blank in many gardens — the time of "l)ed(lnig out." Tlie 

 maker of this had no favourable or iu^'iting site with 

 which to deal ; no great variety of surface, which makes 

 attempts in this direction so much easier and happier ; no 

 variety of soil, which might enable plants of widely different 

 natural habitats to be grown ; only a neglected plantation, 

 with rather a poor gravelly soil and a gentle slope in one 

 part, and little variety of surface beyond a few gravel banks 

 thrown up long before. The garden is, for the most part, 

 arranged on each side of a Grass drive among rather open 

 ground, few trees on the one hand and rather shady ground 

 on the other. The most beautiful aspect at the end of IMay 

 of a singularly ungenial spring, which had not allowed the 

 I'ieonies to unfold, was that of the German Irises, with 

 their great Orchid-like blossoms seen everywhere through 

 the wood, clear above the Grass and other herbage, stately 

 and noble flowers that, like the Daffodils, fear no weather, 

 yet with rich and delicate hues that could not be surpassed 

 by tropical flowers. If this wild garden only should teach 

 this effective way of using the various beautiful and vigorous 

 kinds of Iris now included in our garden flora, it would do 

 good service. The Irises are perfectly at home in the wood 

 and among the Grass and wild flowers. By-and-by, when 

 they go out of flower, they will not be in the way as in a 

 " mixed border," tempting one to remove them, l»ut grow and 

 rest quietly among the grass until the varied blossoms of 

 another year again repay the trouble of substituting these 

 noble hardy flowers for some of the familiar weeds and wild 

 plants that inhabit our plantations. 



