202 The Wild Garden 



trees once fallen, they soon begin to appear again and cover 

 the ground with beauty. 



Take a spreading old summer-leafing tree, and scatter 

 a few tufts of the winter Aconite beneath it, and leave them 

 alone. In a very few years they will have covered the ground ; 

 every year afterwards they will spread a pretty carpet beneath 

 the tree ; and when the carpet fades there will be no eyesore 

 from decaying leaves as there would be on a border— no 

 need to replace the plants with others ; the tree puts forth 

 its leaves, covering the ground till autumn, and in early 

 spring we again see our little friend in his glossy coat and 

 yellow buttons. There are other plants of which the same 

 is true. We have only to imagine this done in a variety of 

 cases to see to what a beautiful result it would lead. Given 

 the bright blue Apennine Anemone under one tree, the spring 

 Snowflake under another, the bright and many coloured 

 Crocuses, and so on, we should have a spring garden of 

 the most beautiful kind. The plan could be carried out 

 under the branches of a grove as well as under those ot 

 specimen trees. Pretty mixed plantations might be made 

 by dotting tall plants, like the large Jonquil and other Nar- 

 cissus, among dwarf spreading plants like the blue Anemone. 

 The following are selected as among the most suitable for 

 such arrangements as that just described, with some little 

 attention as to the season of flowering and the kind of soil 

 required by some rather uncommon species. A late-flowering 

 kind, for example, should be planted under late-leafing trees, 

 or towards the points of their branches, so that they might 

 not be obscured by the leaves of the tree before perfecting 

 their flowers. 



Anemone angulosa. I Anemone blanda. ! Anemone fulgens. 



„ apennina. I „ Coronaiia. ,, Hepatica. 



