16 The Fern Garden. 



showing how the bracken grows on the rubbish heaps in 

 nooks amongst the walls. The whole scheme is planted 

 with ferns, and various flowering Alpine and rock 

 plants, every position having forms of vegetation suited 

 to it. Thus, at the base, where the walk passes through, 

 there are great tufts of lastrea and lady fern ; on the 

 summit, crowning the work, and rooting into the great 

 mass of earth, the common polypody thrives as bravely 

 as on the pollard alders and oaks in Epping Forest. 

 High up in dry positions, on the face of the wall, grow 

 the Wall Rue, Asplenium ruta-muraria, the Maidenhair 

 spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes, with many varieties 

 of sempervivum, sedum, thyme, and other plants that 

 love such positions. On the smaller knolls, and in 

 half-shaded bays, where there is a good depth of earth, 

 may be seen lovely tufts of the Parsley fern, Allosorus 

 crispus, the most choice tasselled varieties of Harts- 

 tongue, the delicate Bladder fern, Cystopteris fragilis. 

 On the banks around, the giant bracken towers up 

 above our heads, and other ferns of large growth con- 

 gregate in rich masses. 



My bastion is part of a screen formed to separate the 

 pleasure division of the garden from the experimental, 

 and with it are connected a number of features, such 

 as a rustic house used as a summer reading-room, a 

 bee-house, some great tree butts planted with ferns, 

 ivies, and grasses. I am satisfied that where space can 

 be afforded the imitation of a ruin is the best possible 

 central idea out of which to develop a fernery. 



"We shall have to refer to rockeries again in various 

 ways, but as I am resolved to make no long, tedious 



