WATER GARDENS 117 



trivance is required to keep even this primitive 

 water garden well supplied ; for water must be 

 laid on, probably, in some artificial way. Granted 

 that a simple reservoir can be constructed out of 

 sight it need be no more than a big butt, though 

 filled from an unfailing source a series of tubs 

 sunk at different levels may be arranged to afford 

 endless pleasure. Two inches or so of gravel at 

 the bottom of each tub, which should be then half- 

 filled with fibrous loam roughly pulled to pieces 

 mixed with a portion of the well-seasoned remains 

 of an old hot-bed and covered with water, will com- 

 plete the preparations. In a few days, when all 

 is well settled, the planting may be done, after 

 which more water can be gently added to within 

 a few inches of the brim. The idea is fully worked 

 out in a delightful book on water gardens by Miss 

 Jekyll, which should be in the hands of everyone 

 who has water-garden ambition. The larger water 

 lilies are, of course, too robust in growth for the 

 close quarters of a tub, but there are plenty of 

 suitable plants. Amongst them may be classed 

 the tiny white Nymphcea pygmcea and its pale 

 yellow variety, N. Helvola, one of M. Latour- 

 Marliac's hybrids, the Cape water hawthorn 

 (Aponogeton), so named from its sweet scent, the 

 pickerel weed before mentioned, besides several of 

 our British water plants, like the fringed buck 

 bean, the water violet, the pink flowering rush and 

 villarsia, which are so little known that few would 

 guess them to be native plants, though they may 

 soon cease to be so, for they are becoming scarcer 

 with every year that passes. 



