810 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to the cultivation of these plants. You cannot expect a plant from 

 a boggy situation, for instance, to grow in a desert. Unless 

 common sense is used in cultivation the plants soon attain that 

 condition known to gardeners as "miffy." This becomes dis- 

 couraging, and many despair of ever growing such plants at all. 

 However, this is the sort of plant I like to take up myself and 

 endeavour to find a means of growing it successfully. It must 

 grow somewhere, and a man who is afraid to try to grow it can 

 hardly be called a gardener. Of course, everyone is not in a 

 position to grow these difficult examples, and it is in order that 

 we may reap the wisdom of those who have successfully mastered 

 them that this Conference has been called. I am quite sure that 

 if all who attend this Conference, and the others which are to 

 follow, can at the end honestly say that they have learnt some- 

 thing, the Council will be more than repaid for the trouble they 

 have been put to in connection with these meetings. 



I will now call on the Secretary to read Mr. Robinson's 

 paper. 



WILD GARDENING IN MEADOW GRASS. 



By Mr. W. Robinson, F.L.S. 



Having during the past five years planted several hundred 

 thousand bulbs and roots in meadow grass, the results may, 

 perhaps, be suggestive to others. An advantage of this method is 

 the delightfully artistic arrangements of which it permits. It 

 is also a deliverance of flower-beds from the poor thing known 

 as spring bedding. This system of " bedding," which began in 

 France, and is there still seen in all its bareness, spread to many 

 of our gardens — consisted of putting out in formal masses a few 

 biennial plants, such as the Wood Forget-me-not and Silene. 

 This necessitated a complete change in the contents of the beds 

 every year, or, rather, twice a year, and therefore prevented 

 their being given to the nobler kinds of flower gardening. It is 

 possible to have all the flower-beds proper devoted to noble and 

 enduring plants, such as Tea Roses, Carnations, and the various 

 plants that require time for development, by the adoption of 

 this system. Perhaps the result will be more clearly seen if we 



