OF WILD GARDENS 87 



a one in my own garden, over and through which 

 a single rose grows rampantly. Each summer the 

 slender curving trails fling their great clusters of 

 milk-white flowers across the background of the 

 green wall, and make a picture very hard to beat 

 in its unfettered grace. 



But, it may be objected, these are mere frag- 

 ments, instances of isolated patching and mend- 

 ing. A wild garden, to have any true significance, 

 must mean much more than this. Probably every- 

 one, according to opportunity and environment, 

 has his own ideal of what a wild garden ought 

 to be. Let us take an example from an ideal 

 accomplished. 



One of the most delightful of English gardens 

 lies hid in the heart of picturesque Surrey. It was 

 carved, by the brain and hand of its accomplished 

 owner, out of some fifteen acres of wild woodland, 

 where hollies and silver-stemmed birches, and 

 beech trees of mighty girth are native to the soil. 

 On a cleared space stands the house a house 

 which, with its commingling of almost conventual 

 simplicity, its artistic detail, and its quintessence 

 of modern comfort, has perhaps no match. All 

 about it are low terraced walls, with broad steps 

 leading to smooth green lawns and shrubbery and 

 flowery borders a garden where a stranger may 

 easily wander away, and lose himself in some deli- 

 cious nook, canopied with birch boughs and car- 

 peted in springtime with primroses of rare tints 

 of cream and gold. Or he may stray into un- 

 expected corners set apart for special flowers of 

 every season carnations or peonies or Michael- 



