CHAPTER V 
WILD GARDENS AND FLOWER MEADOWS 
A Definition. 
The Wild Garden — perhaps a somewhat contradictory term — is not 
a garden run wild. It is a piece of ground set apart for the accom- 
modation of native or foreign plants, which shall 
establish themselves and grow, flower, and increase 
in their own way ; a spot, in other words, where plants — whether 
shrubs, bulbs, annuals, or herbaceous plants — should grow with- 
out any evidence at all of formality or design. A wild garden may 
be a piece of grass planted with daffodils, a shady bank where fox- 
gloves and primroses have been made to grow, or a piece of woodland 
carpeted with wild hyacinth and anemone ; or it may be all these, 
and more, in one. The ordinary work of the garden — the sweeping, 
the staking, the trimming — has no place here. But whilst the gar- 
dener’s hand should not be evident — his highest art, indeed, appears 
when it is quite hidden — it is as necessary in its proper degree here 
as elsewhere. Although a “ wild ” garden, the plants in it should 
be selected for their beauty, and it is not every plant of beauty that 
can fight its way unaided. Weeding, for instance, has to be done. 
The bramble and elder, so aggressive in their methods, have to be 
restricted, the dock and hemlock need appear but seldom, and 
the nettle and gout-weed not at all. The gardener’s part in 
the wild garden is that of the benevolent despot, encouraging and 
helping the worthy, repressing the unworthy. 
In a wild garden the one great aim to be kept in view is to imitate 
Nature at her best ; it may even be said to idealise Nature. A 
N t d garden should concentrate in itself as many as 
the Wild possible of Nature’s choicest effects. Nature herself 
Garden may not look like our wild garden, but one may recall 
Turner’s reply to the critic of “The Fighting Temeraire” 
who had never seen the Thames “ look like that,” — “ Don’t you 
wish you had ? ” Only those plants which will grow easily and well 
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