16 THE WILD GARDEN. 
alive to the real charms of a garden too, scarcely notice Spring 
Bulbs at all, regarding them as things which require endless 
trouble, as interfering with the “bedding-out ;” and in fact, as 
not worth the pains they occasion. This is likely to be the 
case so long as the most effective and satisfactory of all 
modes of arranging them is unused ; that way is the placing 
of them in wild and semi-wild parts of country seats, and in 
the rougher parts of a garden, no matter where it may be 
situated or how it may be arranged. This way will yield 
more real interest and beauty than any other. 
Look, for instance, at the wide anid bare belts of grass 
that wind in and around the” shrubberies in nearly every 
country place; frequently, they never display a particle of 
plant-beauty, and are merely places to be roughly mown now 
and then. But if planted here and there with the Snowdrop, 
the blue Anemone, the Crovus, Scillas, and Winter Aconite, 
they would in spring surpass in attractiveness the gayest of 
spring gardens. Cushioned among the grass, these would 
have a more congenial medium in which to unfold than is 
offered by the beaten sticky earth of a border; in the grass of 
spring, their natural bed, they would look far better than ever 
they do when arranged on the bare earth of a garden. Once 
carefully planted, they—while an annual source of the 
ereatest interest—occasion no trouble whatever. 
Their leaves die down so early in spring that they would 
scarcely interfere with the mowing of the grass, if that were 
desired, but I should not attempt to mow the grass in such 
places till the season of vernal beauty had quite passed by. 
Surely it is enough to have a portion of lawn as smooth as a 
carpet at all times, without sending the mower to shave the 
