16 



THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



salmagundi of gardening, whatever amount of cash and 

 labour may be bestowed on horticultural incongruities. 

 But with unity of design and a leading idea consistently 

 carried out in all its details, failure is scarcely possible ; 

 for, even should any blemishes result from accident while 

 laying out the plan or from neglect in the parties who 

 have to realize it, they will be so easy to remedy, 

 when once the object in view is clearly defined, that 

 a stranger will be scarcely aware of their having existed 

 at all. 



On coming into possession of an old or neglected villa 

 garden, wait a good twelvemonth before commencing 

 alterations of any importance, even such as changing the 

 line of a gravel walk. Tou will thus have time to study 

 its original character, and to make what you find grow- 

 ing there take their place in what you propose to do. 

 Often, you will rescue treasures that otherwise would 

 have been destroyed, or thrown out as rubbish. Pig- 

 trees may send up strong shoots, that will produce fruit 

 in a year or two, from stumps that have been cut down 

 to the ground, and left for dead ; in damp out-of-the-way 

 corners you may find exquisite moss roses, perhaps the 

 White Bath, or the Pompone Moss; or, some thorny 

 bush that ignorant eyes mistake for a bramble, may be 

 the Yellow Cabbage Eose; choice Tulips, Hyacinths, 

 Anemones, and Dog's-tooth Violets, may spring up and 

 flower from offsets and fragments left by persons who 

 meant to have removed the whole original stock of roots ; 

 curious perennials, like the Dragon Arum, after being 

 crushed and trodden under foot for years, may gratefully 

 repay a summer's kind treatment by sending up a stem 

 and inflorescence which will be the wonder and admira- 

 tion of half the parish. In short, with an old villa gar- 

 den, cultivate it as it is, and wait. Draining, however, 

 where required, can only be productive of good. The 

 same of trenching two-spade deep, or at least some- 

 what lower than the top spit, which has been cropped 

 perhaps for successive years without renewal. In old 

 gardens, plants that have been lost are sometimes thus 



