19.8 The Wild Garden. 



bank nurseries at Edinburgh a few years ago, and 

 there found a large piece of ground covered with their 

 exquisite tints, and looking like a most refined flower- 

 garden. But if all this beauty did not exist, the 

 charms of the usual form of the species, as spread out 

 on our sunny heaths, should suffice to warrant their 

 culture on the rockwork or among dwarf shrubs. 



As for the Ericas, all are worthy of a place, 

 beginning with the varieties of the common ling 

 (Calluna vulgaris) — the commonest of all heaths. 

 It has " sported" into a great number of varieties, 

 many of which are preserved in nurseries, and 

 these are the kinds we should cultivate. Some of 

 them are better, brighter, and different in colour ; 

 others differ remarkably in habit, some sitting close 

 to the ground in dense, green, tiny bushes ; others 

 forming fairy shrubs of a more pyramidal character, 

 and all most interesting and pretty. These tiny 

 shrubs and their allies in size might form a sort of 

 edging or marginal line round a bed of choice 

 shrubs planted in peat, as they frequently are and 

 must be in gardens. I will merely mention the 

 varieties pygmsea, pumila, and coccinea. Then we 

 have the "Scotch heather" (Erica cinerea), the 

 reddish purple showy flowers of which are very 

 attractive, but far surpassed in beauty of colour by 



