INTRODUCTION 



3 



left severely alone to win the mastery over the estab- 

 lished occupants of the soil or to succumb as fate may 

 will. In many cases, such as that of the stronger 

 Narcissi, this let alone policy may be followed with suc- 

 cessful results but in others a certain amount of solicitude 

 is advisable in order to aid the successful establishment 

 of the plants. It is often desirable to provide a deep 

 and rich root-run and to root out all strong-growing 

 herbage for three feet around the proposed site of the 

 plant. Even in good borders herbaceous plants often 

 fail to become established the first season, and in untitled 

 ground, perhaps poor and certainly filled with the roots of 

 the natives of the soil, it is courting disaster not to give the 

 new introduction the best start possible. If it is worth 

 planting it is worth the endeavour to give it such assist- 

 ance that it may become permanently naturalised. Her- 

 baceous paeonies may be cited as providing a case in 

 point, since a rich and deep root-run and deliverance 

 from competing herbage of a rank nature will compass 

 their establishment in a far shorter space of time than 

 if they were planted in unprepared ground, and sub- 

 sequently left alone, when they might very possibly 

 succumb instead of forming masses of bright colour in 

 the early summer year after year. Even such a rampant 

 grower as Clematis montana, an invaluable climber for 

 garlanding trees and rough places in the wild garden, 

 shows its appreciation of liberal treatment at the start — 

 and it must be remembered that with all plants a good 

 start is half the battle — by clambering to a height of 

 thirty feet, while another, planted at the same time, but 

 in poor unmanured soil, will have ascended scarcely ten 

 feet. Having put in a plea for the good planting and 

 after care of the newly introduced occupants of the wild 

 garden until they have become established and are able 

 to hold their own with the native vegetation, the ques- 

 tion of the procural of the plants arises. To purchase 



