HARDY WATER AND BOG PLANTS. 



389 



as to the second garden made on an entirely different site and 

 strata, and in a different manner. I venture to think that such 

 a place may be made in any of the damp, springy spots such as 

 I spoke of as existing in most gardens, or indeed wherever 

 the clean waste from a pump, a tap, or from the house-top can 

 be led. I wanted soil to raise what my friend Mr. D'ombrain 

 has facetiously styled " The Broxbourne Alps," and as I had 

 only a flat surface to deal with, I formed a square pond at the 

 foot of the line of one side of this projected hillock, using the 

 earth for the hillock. I kept to the terrace formation, making 

 about three levels, and into them I led the drains from the paths, 

 adjoining the nursery quarters, taking means also for artifi- 

 cially flooding them occasionally, in case of drought. After very- 

 heavy rains the beds on all three levels are entirely covered with 

 water, which gradually sinks down into the pond-like hole in the 

 centre, in which Bulrushes, the giant Dock, and the Water Iris, 

 flourish. 



It will be noticed that the idea of the clay banks is preserved,, 

 to retain the water a short time in the upper reaches of the 

 pond. This pond was carefully puddled, as the loam resting on 

 gravel is thoroughly porous. All the beds were then filled up 

 with black peat and leaf-soil, into which the plants were put- 

 Most of the kinds thriving at High Beech do well here, and have 

 the advantage of more space. The bolder foliage plants, suck 

 as the Bamboos Metake, viridis, glaucescens, and the large 

 Polygonum sachaliense, attaining 8 to 10 feet in height ; the- 

 dwarfer varieties P. compactum and molle, with their Spiraea-like 

 blooms, are useful at this time of year. Then two or three of 

 the American plants, such as the Andromeda pulverulenta and 

 the dwarf Ledums, are beautiful winter evergreens and love 

 the moisture. Primula farinosa and involucrata or Munroii r 

 Asclepias tuber osa and its pink form, are at home, and the 

 Astrantias are almost too free. Claytonia sibirica becomes a weed. 

 Corydalis nobilis and lutea, in the higher beds, form beautiful 

 yellow patches, and the Trillium and Cypripedium do well in 

 peat on the banks just above the water-levels. Dielytra spec- 

 tabilis assumes quite another form to that usually seen, and 

 Dodecatheon Jeffrey anum is a foot and a half high. The Willow 

 Herbs have to be banished, from their determination to mono- 

 polise all the space. Euphorbia, Cyperus, and Stylophorum 



