PEAT GARDENS 79 



all winter, whether its leathery leaves be bronze or green; partridge- 

 berry and wintergreen, which have beautiful red fruits that show 

 all winter against the background of their evergreen leaves; the 

 American cranberry which has the same attraction, plus bronzy 

 colours in winter; and last, but not least, Shortia, a plant of 

 romantic history and exquisite beauty. (Plate 101.) 



Next to the heaths in interest come the hardy orchids. Most 

 people have the idea that orchids are air plants and have to be 

 grown in greenhouses. Yet there are fully a hundred species that 

 we could grow outdoors in the North. Of the fifty-six that grow 

 wild in the eastern United States, more than half can be bought 

 from our own nurserymen. Thirty-two Japanese species are 

 catalogued by one firm in New York and the Dutch bulb cata- 

 logues offer about three dozen European orchids. Of course, 

 many of these are more curious than beautiful, but many of them 

 are altogether lovely. The showiest hardy orchid in the world 

 is our own Cypripedium spectabile, pictured on plate 33. Its pink- 

 ish moccasins are about two inches long. People often dig up 

 the plants in the woods and move them to their gardens, where 

 they do well for a few years and then die. Sentimentalists are 

 sometimes said to be the worst vandals. They mean the best, 

 but know the least. Barbarians do not destroy flowers, but 

 sentimentalists dig up the rarest and most exquisite plants of 

 damp, cool woods (on the plea of saving them) and move 

 them to hot, sunny gardens, where, of course, they die. If 

 these people were sincere they would put their money into 

 peat gardens. For that is the only way of growing most of these 

 treasures. 



Another unique group suited only to the peat garden is com- 

 posed of insect-destroying plants, such as the sundews and butter- 



