44 



The Wild Garden 



grass in a thin wood is lovely. 

 The Golden Rods and Michael- 

 mas Daisies used to overrun 

 the old mixed border, and were 

 with it abolished. But these 

 seen together in a New England 

 wood in autumn are a picture. 

 So also there are numerous 

 exotic plants of which the in- 

 dividual flowers may not be so 

 striking, but which, grown in 

 colonies, afford beautiful aspects 

 of vegetation. When I first 

 wrote this book, not one of 

 these plants was in cultivation 

 outside botanic gardens. It 

 was even considered by the 

 best friends of hardy flowers 

 a mistake to recommend them, 

 for they knew that it was the 

 mastery of these weedy vigorous 

 plants that made people give up 

 hardy flowers for the glare of 

 bedding plants. The ' wild 

 garden ' then, in the case of 

 these particular plants, opens up 

 to us a new world of infinite 

 beauty. In it every plant 

 vigorous enough not to require 

 the care of the cultivator or 



\^\ 



THE GIAKT SCABIOUS (8 feet high). 

 (Cephalaria procera.) Tail herba- 

 ceouB plant, beat fltted for the Wild 

 Garden. 



