242 The Wild Garden 



artistic way is to form bold masses of these Heaths 

 without the garden proper, on rough banks and the 

 outer parts of the grounds. It is an error to sup- 

 pose that peat is required for these plants. Even in 

 1893 — the year of many sunny months and days — 

 I often saw the Heather in bloom on stony railway 

 banks in Sussex, often facing the sun; and that 

 same year too when staying at Coolhurst I saw the 

 prettiest possible foreground to a house in the home 

 counties at Newells — a field of Heather in full bloom 

 with the rich weald seen across it. This field had, 

 I think, come of itself Where we seek to establish 

 the heaths in the way named above it is best to get 

 them in some quantity from growers who offer them 

 in liberal numbers: to set my picturesque beds I 

 plant in large masses in well-dug ground, but once 

 established leave the beds alone, and allow them to 

 grow together in their own way. I must state here 

 for those who will not take the trouble to understand, 

 that these Heath beds are not in my flower garden. 



Nearly allied to the Heaths we have the interesting 

 bog Vaccinium, which may be cultivated in marshy 

 or peaty ground. To these belong the cranberry, 

 bilberry, and whortleberry; and for some of these 

 and the American kinds, people have ere now made 

 artificial bogs in their gardens. The little creeping 

 evergreen, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, or bearberry, is 

 neat in the rock-garden. It is found in hilly districts 

 in Scotland, northern England, and Ireland. Then 



