262 The Wxld Garden 



are the' tree willows, there is scarcely one which 

 is not right by the water side; and for all who live 

 in cool or mountain districts and have any kind of 

 rock garden, the dwarf willows of our own mountains 

 are charming, such as the Creeping Willow in its 

 various forms, and the Woolly Willow, a dwarf silvery 

 shrub of easy culture and a very pretty rock shrub : 

 also the Netted Willow. 



British Orchids. Orchids everywhere beautiful 

 and singular, whether showy, as in the hot or moist 

 East, or tiny on the Kent and Surrey hills, where the 

 Bee Orchis is often frequent, — it is most interesting to 

 collect our native Orchids and to cultivate them. If 

 we can succeed in growing the British Orchids, we are 

 not likely to fail with any other hardy plants. They 

 are the most difficult to cultivate, but amongst the most 

 interesting things which can be grown. I have cultivated 

 the Bee Orchis and the Fly Orchis and the Hand 

 Orchis, and a number of other British Orchids, for 

 several years, and flowered them annually. Devoting 

 a small bed to their culture, in an open spot, digging 

 some chalk into the bed, so as to give the plants the 

 soil in which they are found most abundantly, I suc- 

 ceeded with all except those kinds that are parasitic 

 on the roots of trees. 



The difficulty was to imitate the state of the surface 

 of the ground which exists where they live in a wild 

 state. I knew that the surface-dressing of stunted, 

 storm-beaten grass among which they nestle prevents 



