THE WISLEY GARDEN 53 



a colony of lilies, a hillock there to be crowned 

 with some choice free-flowering shrub, or again 

 a level space, moss-grown, through which in spring 

 a crowd of blue chionodoxas might spear their 

 way, or earliest rosy-flowered cyclamens spread out 

 their tiny round leaves. So the woodland garden 

 grew bit by bit, and every variety of soil and aspect 

 was used for the group of plants most likely to 

 succeed in it. Space was ample, and from giant 

 lilies to the tiny creeping partridge berry all plants 

 were colonised in breadths and the idiosyncracy 

 of each carefully studied. It was Mr Wilson who 

 recommended that white Madonna lilies, sometimes 

 so stubborn, should be " conquered by kindness," 

 viz. by liberal feeding. Perhaps it was he who 

 discovered the love of gentianella for a hard gravel 

 bed; at any rate, it used to grow to perfection 

 in such quarters at Wisley, and probably does so 

 still. The May Beauty (Epigoea repens), so dear 

 to the heart of the Canadian or Nova Scotian, but 

 so baffling to the skill of the Briton who would 

 naturalise it, learned to grow rampantly in the 

 oak wood. The parsley fern, another coy denizen, 

 not of the forest, but of the bare and rocky moun- 

 tain side, contrived to find a home amongst the 

 ferns on the edge of the woodland. By one means 

 or another thousands of the beautiful plants of 

 other lands, or the scarce wildings of our own, like 

 the rare cypripedium of northern limestone districts 

 or the dainty Linncea borealis of Scottish fir woods, 

 were in time made happy, and throve as they 

 seldom have done away from their native habitats. 

 But the converse was no less true ; for plants that, 



