How to form an Outdoor Fernery. 17 



chapters if I can help it, I will here offer a few general 

 advices on the formation of ferneries out of doors. 



Provide as many aspects and degrees of declivity as 

 possible within certain limits. One slightly irregular 

 hank is to be preferred to a number of paltry ins and 

 outs, but if you have space and materials sufficient, let 

 the work be somewhat intricate in order to obtain a 

 variety of conditions to suit the various habits of the 

 ferns you intend to grow. 



Large bodies of soil are absolutely necessary, as it 

 is impossible to keep the roots moist enough during 

 the hottest months of the year if they are in shallow 

 soil, of which a large surface is exposed to the atmo- 

 sphere. It is particularly important to bear this - in 

 mind in constructing the walls of a ruin, if it is in- 

 tended to plant ferns on or in the walls. A space of 

 one foot clear, filled in with earth, between the two faces 

 of the wall, is the least that should be allowed in the 

 smallest construction of the kind ; two or three feet of 

 earth will be required in a ruin of dimensions large 

 enough to serve as a garden-house or reading-room. 



Aim at wildness" and apparent neglect in the arrange- 

 ments up to a certain point. Dirt and disorder are 

 as injurious to the ferns as to the morals of those who 

 encourage such things, but primness is not desirable 

 in a fernery ; the effects should tend towards the rustic 

 rather than to the refined, and the materials used 

 throughout should be of the quietest colours ; no gew 

 gaws, no plaster casts, no blocks of coral or shiny 

 shells should be mixed up with the work. 



Robust-growing ferns planted on banks and mounds 



2 , 



