8o 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



the necessary level and often formal 

 spaces about a house. I wrote the 

 " Wild Garden " to save, not to destroy, 

 the flower-garden ; to show that we 

 could have all the joy of spring in 

 orchard, meadow, or wood, lawn or 

 grove, and so save the true flower- 

 garden near the house from being torn 

 up twice a year to effect what is 

 called spring and summer "bedding." 

 The idea could be made clear to a 

 child, and it is carried out in many 

 places easy to see. Yet there is 

 hardly a cobbler who rushes from his 

 last to write a book on garden design 

 who does not think that I want to 

 bring the wilderness in at the win- 

 dows, I who have given all my days 

 to save the flower-garden from the 

 ridiculous. A young lady who has 

 been reading one of these bad books, 

 seeing the square beds in my little 

 south garden, says : " Oh, why you 

 have a formal garden ! " It is a small 

 square embraced by walls, and I could 

 not have used any other form to get 

 the best use of the space. They are 

 just the kind of beds made in like 

 spaces by the gardeners of Nebuchad- 

 nezzar, judging by what evidence re- 

 mains to us. And he no more than I 

 mistook stones for bushes or bad car- 

 pets for flowers, but enjoyed vine and 

 fig and flower as heaven sent them. 

 All this wearisome misunderstanding 

 comes from writers not taking the 

 trouble to understand the simplest ele- 

 ment of what they write about. 



The real flower-garden near the 

 house is for the ceaseless care and 

 culture of many and diverse things 



often tender and in need of protec- 

 tion in varied and artificial soils, stak- 

 ing, cleaning, trials of novelties, study 

 of colour effects lasting many weeks, 

 sowing and movings at all seasons. 

 The wild garden, on the other hand, 

 is for things that take care of them- 

 selves in the soil of the place, things 

 which will endure for generations if 

 we suit the plants to the soil, like 

 Narcissi on a rich orchard bottom, or 

 blue Anemone in a grove on the lime- 

 stone soil as in much of Ireland. This 

 garden is a precious aid to the other, 

 inasmuch as it allows of our letting 

 the flower-garden do its best work 

 because relieved of the intolerable and 

 ugly needs of the bedding system in 

 digging up the garden twice a year. 



Very often now terms of garden- 

 ing are misapplied, confusing the mind 

 of the student, and the 



Misuse of terms. . . r r 



air is run or a new 

 term — the " formal " garden. For 

 ages gardens of simple form have been 

 common without anyone calling them 

 " formal" until our own time of too 

 many words confusing thoughts. See- 

 ing an announcement that there was 

 a paper in the Studio on the " Formal 

 Garden in Scotland," I looked in it, 

 seeking light, and found plans of the 

 usual approach es necessary for a coun- 

 try house, for kitchen, hall door, or 

 carriage-way. And we gardeners of 

 another sort do not get in like the bats 

 through the roof, but have also ways, 

 | usually level, to our doors, but we 



ido not call them " formal gardens." 

 There are gardens to which the term 

 I " formal " might with some reason be 



