106 THE WILD GARDEN. 
in patches amongst these the Red Campion, together with every other 
pretty wild flower we could obtain—Forget-me-nots, Globe-flowers, 
Columbines, Anemones, Primroses, Cowslips, Polyanthuses, Campanulas, 
Golden Rods, ete. All the bulbs which have bloomed in the green- 
houses are planted out in these spaces, so that there are now large 
clumps of choice sorts of Crocus, Tulip, Narcissus, and Hyacinth. We 
have also planted bulbs very extensively, and as they have been 
allowed to grow on undisturbed we have now large patches of Daffodils, 
Narcissi, and other spring flowers in great beauty and exuberance. 
When we trim the garden all the spare plants are brought here, where 
they form a reserve, and it is thus gradually getting stocked, and all 
the bare ground covered with foliage and flowers. Lastly, for autumn 
blooming we raised large quantities of Foxgloves in every colour, and 
the larger Campanulas, and these were pricked out everywhere, so that 
we have a glorious show of Foxglove flowers to close the year worth all 
the trouble. A wild garden of this sort is a very useful reserve 
ground, where many a plant survives after it has been lost in the 
borders. Such spare seedlings as the Aquilegias, Campanulas, Primulas, 
Trolliuses, and -other hardy plants can here find space until wanted 
elsewhere, and one can frequently find blooms for bouquets in the 
dell when the garden flowers are over. The Lily of the Valley and 
Sweet Violet also flourish here, creeping over heaps of stones, and 
flower more freely than they do in more open situations. Visitors 
often say that the dell beats all the rest of the garden for beauty, and 
it certainly gives less trouble in the attainment. 
Brockhurst, Didsbury. In Garden. Wm. BRockBANK. 
THE WILD GARDEN IN AMERICA. 
Probably many of your readers will ask, “ What ¢s a wild garden ?” 
When I came to London, about fifteen years ago, “ flower-gardening” 
had but one mode of expression only, viz. “ bedding out,” and that in its 
harshest form—ribbons, borders, and solid masses of flowers of one 
colour and one height. The old hardy flowers had been completely 
swept away ; the various and once popular race of so-called florist’s flowers 
were rarely or never seen. As a consequence, gardens were indescrib- 
ably monotonous to any person with the faintest notion of the in- 
exhaustible charms of the plant world. This kind of flower-gardening 
has the same relation to true art in a garden which the daubs of colour 
1 A letter written by request, in the Rural New Yorker, July 1876. 
