13 The Wild Garden. 



are as follows : first, because hundreds of the finest 

 hardy flowers will thrive much better in the places 

 I recommend for them than ever they did in the 

 old-fashioned border. Even comparatively small 

 ones, like the ivy-leaved Cyclamen, a beautiful 

 plant that we rarely find in perfection in gardens, 

 I have seen perfectly naturalized and spread all 

 over the mossy surface of a thin wood. Secondly, 

 because they will look infinitely better than ever 

 they did in gardens, in consequence of fine-leaved 

 plant, fern, and flower, and climber, ornamental 

 grass and dwarf trailing shrub, mutually relieving 

 each other in ways innumerable as delightful. Any 

 one of a thousand combinations, which this book 

 will suggest to the intelligent reader, will prove as 

 far superior to any aspect of the old mixed border, 

 or the ordinary type of modern flower-garden, as is 

 a lovely mountain valley to a country in which the 

 eye can see but canals and hedges. Thirdly, be- 

 cause, arranged as I propose, no disagreeable eff'ects 

 result from decay. The raggedness of the old mixed 

 border after the first flush of spring and early sum- 

 mer bloom had passed was intolerable, bundles of 

 decayed stems tied to sticks making the place look 

 like the parade-ground of a number of crossing- 

 sweepers with their " arms piled." When Lilies are 



