WILD GARDENS AND FLOWER MEADOWS 93 
should have a place there, and all should be thoroughly adapted to the 
soil and situation. The wild garden is not the place to carry on 
struggles with refractory subjects. Each plant should possess to a 
considerable extent the faculty of taking care of itself. Thus, whilst 
the dwarf, finely-bred tea, and hybrid tea roses would have no 
chance, some of the strong rambling sorts of the Ayrshire, musk, 
and other types are admirable, alike for their grace and beauty 
and for their vigorous self-assertion. The planting of the wild 
garden must be done on broad and spacious lines. Small, 
“ dotted ” effects should be avoided. Bulbs should be planted 
in ample but broken masses, herbaceous plants in informal groups. 
In a place like Kew, resorted to by throngs of people, wild garden- 
ing has unfortunately to be confined to portions of the grounds 
railed off from the public, or to others but thinly frequented. This 
is necessary, because the young flower-buds of daffodil and many 
other bulbs used in this work are very easily crushed just as they 
are peeping through the ground and as yet scarcely visible. A single 
careless step may destroy half-a-dozen future blossoms. 
The most ambitious attempt at wild gardening at Kew is on 
the mound or little hill surmounted by the Temple of Aiolus, just 
Th Wld w ifhin the Cumberland Gate. This piece of ground 
Garden at covers about two acres and, being completely surrounded 
Kew by gravel walks, can conveniently be viewed in all its 
aspects at all times. On every side the ground slopes 
up from the walks to the temple on the summit. One side is well 
wooded, and whilst the trees give shade and variety, their dark trunks 
rising from the masses of blossom, especially in daffodil-time, add 
much to the general beauty of this spot. 
The shady lower part of the wooded slopes is planted with a 
collection of British ferns. It is amongst these ferns that the first 
flowers of the wild garden appear in December and 
January. They are the Christmas roses or helle- 
bores, whose pure white blossoms are peculiarly suggestive of the 
season when they appear. Rising out of the brown dead leaves of 
a year now past, they are the first harbingers of a spring, still dis- 
tant perhaps, but promising warmth, sunshine, and flowers again. 
Somewhat later, the dainty cyclamens of Southern Europe send up 
their red or white flowers. Here, nestling among the fronds of 
fern or at the base of the tree-trunks, they are perfectly at home. 
Plants Used. 
