SOME TALK ABOUT WILD GARDENS. 



47 



SOME TALK ABOUT WILD GARDENS. 



By H. Selfe Leonard, F.R.H.S. 



When I somewhat hastily acceded to a request that I would write a paper 

 about the Wild Garden, I had not in mind the fact that Mr. Robinson 

 had long ago published a short, but too neglected, book upon the subject. 

 Had I had that book in mind I should not probably have thus agreed. 

 However, there is perhaps left unfilled a corner of the subject ; and 

 for the rest, I shall not be ill employed in introducing to those to whom 

 the subject may be new, the thoughts and the message of Mr. Robinson 

 and his school. 



The term "wild garden" is clearly one with different meanings for 

 different persons. 



^ To one it means a beautiful and wholly natural wildness, unplanted 

 and untouched by man, a mere piece of nature in fact. To another, a 

 garden or planting of purely native plants or wild flowers, as distinct 

 from exotics. To a third, a wilderness, or waste place, within a garden, 

 but studiously unkempt and uncared for. To Mr. Robinson himself it 

 seems, if I mistake not, to mean a whole estate or extensive pleasure 

 ground, planted as naturally and informally as may be with -hardy exotic 

 plants, in such fashion that the plants are left to grow pretty much as 

 they will. 



To me the term has generally meant not quite either of these things. 

 My notion of a wild garden differs somewhat from Mr. Robinson's in 

 this, that while he seemingly thinks of it as comprising the whole garden, 

 even the whole estate, and the transforming of these by natural planting, 

 I have thought of it more often as but a part of, or as an incident in, the 

 garden or the estate ; that while he thinks of it as a re-modelling of a 

 place already formally planted, I think of it more as the creation of a 

 wholly fresh and detached piece of natural garden beauty. I am not the 

 least concerned to argue that my use of the term is more proper or exact 

 than his, nor do I care how that may be. 



But, at all events, by the term " wild garden " in this paper I mean, 

 a certain extent of ground within an estate or within a garden, furnished 

 both with native and with hardy exotic plants, shrubs, or conifers, beautiful 

 in flower or in leaf, in such fashion that they may grow^ practically 

 unrestrained, and with the minimum of future aid from art. 



It will be obvious that in arranging such a planting we shall need 

 to regard those just principles of natural gardening, which Mr. Robinson 

 and his school have in these latter days expounded, as much as if our 

 purpose were, like his, to reform a whole estate or a whole garden already 

 existing. Both on this ground therefore, as also for their inherent value, 

 let me remind you in summary of some of his essential teachings. With 

 these, I may say once for all, I am generally in thorough agreement. 



" Away " (he says in substance) " from our gardens, with bedding-out 

 and trim flower borders, with the yearly digging and forking of shrubberies, 



