386 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



an enumeration of the difficulties I have had in planting them 

 in somewhat difficult places and under exceptional circum- 

 stances, and to giving a description of a very pretty and successful, 

 if a comparatively small, water-garden which my friend Mr. 

 M. F, Campbell has made at Hoddesdon. I will append a list 

 of plants which I have found to be useful. In the first place, I 

 was led to pay special attention to hardy bog-plants from 

 possessing a small patch of natural bog, which, as a haunt of 

 Rushes and Sphagnum, was an eyesore in an otherwise well- 

 cultivated garden. Such a patch is to be found in most large 

 gardens and pleasure-grounds situate on the hillsides of our 

 valleys — a springy patch developing into a tiny marsh, and 

 beautiful with masses of such flowers as the Yellow-rattle and 

 the Cuckoo-pint, or covered with big Docks, Rushes, or giant 

 Hemlock. 



Then turning to many of the moisture-loving perennials, such 

 as the Spirseas, I was struck with their great beauty of develop- 

 ment when by chance they found a moist and favourable spot, 

 whereas when planted as usual in the mixed herbaceous borders 

 one never saw their full beauty ; with the setting in of dry weather 

 they failed to finish their growth or to produce their flowers 

 satisfactorily, and if subjected to two dry autumns consecutively 

 many of them died out altogether. Here there were two things — 

 a site wanting furnishing and plants seeking such a site, for there 

 are few more lovely plants in their full beauty than the Spira3as, 

 to name only one family of plants. From the common Meadow- 

 sweet of our valley marshes all over England, through the 

 beautiful Japanese forms, such as S. jjcdmata and its white 

 variety, up to the gigantic hamtschatica exhibited two years ago 

 in this hall, with spikes six to eight feet high of light feathery 

 flowers, all are plants of great beauty when fully developed, and 

 to attain this development a moist, boggy spot is essential. 



There are several families of plants, which I will enumerate 

 later on, which lend themselves to a like cultivation. I have made 

 two bog-gardens, both devoted to the growth of bog and mud 

 plants. The first was a natural Sphagnum and Drosera-pro- 

 ducing bog on the Bagshot sand formation, which with some little 

 difficulty was brought into cultivation, so that I may perhaps 

 briefly describe the process. 



It was a spongy piece of land about twelve yards square, about 



