In large gardens that have architectural features I sometimes end an 
important flower border with a rectangular bed raised by two feet of 
walling, the same width as the border, and plant it wholly with Yuc- 
cas. The plants themselves have a certain monumental effect that 
fits them for such treatment, and the quiet dignity of the group of 
one fine thing is a distinct refreshment to the mind after the more per- 
plexing and constantly varying interest of the flower border. This in 
itself is difficult to keep quiet enough and it can only be satisfactorily 
done by a proper proportion and sequence in the grouping and colour- 
ing. On this there is so much to be said that I shall hope to make it 
the subject of a later article. But whenever it can be practiced, the 
rule of restraint, of doing one thing at a time and doing it well, is a 
good one to have in mind. I may illustrate it by a short description 
of the planting of the edges of a moat that I have lately planned. The 
moat surrounds the garden of a fine house built in the days of Queen 
Elizabeth; it encloses a square of some acres, so that its whole length 
is not much under half a mile. Here is an opportunity of doing some 
planting so that anyone going leisurely along the path within a few 
feet of the water on the outer side should meet with a succession of 
pleasant plant pictures — never of many kinds at a time, but so 
arranged that each group, growing apparently naturally and accom- 
panied by the wild flags and grasses of the place, should lead pleas- 
antly to the next, giving time for deliberate enjoyment of each suc- 
cessive flower picture. Where the carriage road enters by a bridge on 
the north western side, a high garden wall rises straight out of the 
moat and the outer side has also a low wall. Here are some groups of 
water-lilies, white and rose, and the only other planting is of some near 
groups of Water Elder (Viburnum Opulus), the beautiful berrying 
bush whose round, white, ball-flowered garden variety is the familiar 
Guelder-rose. The walls cease at the angle and there the moat-edge 
planting begins. First, next the quiet corner, are long drifts of cool, 
green ferns; the graceful Lady Fern (Athyrium Filix-fosmina), and 
on the opposite bank Struthiopteris, the handsome Fern of shuttle- 
cock shape. Each of these groups occupies a span of from thirty to 
forty feet. After the Struthiopteris comes a long drift of the hand- 
some purple Cranesbill (Geranium grandiflorum) thickly planted at 
the water's edge and streaming away from it out into the grass, to 
right and left. Then the yellow Mimulus, which delights in stream 
edges, and the double form of the wild Meadowsweet (Spiraea Ul- 
maria), followed, after an interval of unplanted bank, by a bold mass 
of Spircea Aruncus throwing up its great white plumes to a height 
of seven or eight feet. It is the plant that is so beautiful by Alpine 
torrents. In the case of the moat planting it is placed where it is seen 
