16 
The Fern Garden . 
showing how the bracken grows on the rubbish heaps in 
nooks amongst the walls. The whole scheme is planted 
with ferns, and various flowering Alpine and rock 
plants, every position having forms of vegetation suited 
to it. Thus, at the base, where the walk passes through, 
there are great tufts of lastrea and lady fern; on the 
summit, crowning the work, and rooting into the great 
mass of earth, the common polypody thrives as bravely 
as on the pollard alders and oaks in Epping Forest. 
High up in dry positions, on the face of the wall, grow 
the Wall Hue, Asplenium ruta-muraria, the Maidenhair 
spleenwort, Asplenium trichomanes, with many varieties 
of sempervivum, sedum, thyme, and other plants that 
love such positions. On the smaller knolls, and in 
half-shaded bays, where there is a good depth of earth, 
may be seen lovely tufts of the Parsley fern, Allosorus 
crispus , the most choice tasselled varieties of Harts- 
tongue, the delicate Bladder fern, Cystopteris fragilis. 
On the banks around, the giant bracken towers up 
above our heads, and other ferns of large growth con¬ 
gregate in rich masses. 
My bastion is part of a screen formed to separate the 
pleasure division of the garden from the experimental, 
and with it are connected a number of features, such 
as a rustic house used as a summer reading-room, a 
bee-house, some great tree butts planted with ferns, 
ivies, and grasses. I am satisfied that where space can 
be afforded the imitation of a ruin is the best possible 
central idea out of which to develop a fernery. 
We shall have to refer to rockeries again in various 
ways, but as I am resolved to make no long, tedious 
