598 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
May 22, 1886. 
tiums, and having Pelargoniums of different sorts 
behind. This is the time to prepare for these arrange¬ 
ments. "When your annuals begin to decline, at once 
remove them, say next September or October, and 
plant bulbs of various kinds—Crocuses, Snowdrops, 
Daffodils, Hyacinths, &e., and you will have a simple 
succession at trifling cost the whole year round. This 
is an illustration of how one can be agreeably amused 
who may have but a window-stool to grow plants on. 
An indispensable requisite for this purpose beside the 
box is some good loamy soil, not always easy to be had 
in towns. So much for plants outside windows, suit¬ 
able varieties for which could be counted by the 
hundred. 
3. In-door or Room Plants. 
I will now refer to indoor or room plants. These are 
most varied. Personally, I am aware without any 
forcing arrangements, plants of various kinds can be 
had in bloom the whole year round, from Chrysanthe¬ 
mums and late Fuchsias during October and November; 
early Hyacinths and Lily of the Talley at Christmas ; 
Narcissi or Daffodils, Dielytra, and the beautiful Nile 
Lily—best of all room plants—during the spring 
months ; Pelargoniums, Tea and Perpetual Roses, with 
Fuchsias and the delightful Japanese and American 
Lilies —• capital room and window plants — during 
summer ; while for variety, many of the foliage plants 
named, with Yuccas, Myrtles, Aloes, Cyclamen, Aspi¬ 
distra, Choisya, Grevillea robusta, and several of the 
hardier Palms, as; Phoenix sylvestris and P. reclinata ; 
Chamserops excelsa and C. Fortuni, with proper treat¬ 
ment and attention to their wants, last healthy for 
years. In fact any plant with a fleshy or coriaceous 
foliage, will stand well the dry atmosphere. Generally, 
in conclusion, I may say that small pots are to be pre¬ 
ferred ; some one member should take charge of the 
plants ; sponging or syringing of the foliage is most 
desirable; and, lastly, water should not remain in 
saucers with the one exception of the Musk plant. 
Although I have but touched on the fringe of the 
subject, I shall conclude as I begun, by saying that 
gardening and the love of plants and flowers, whether 
the space extends to several acres or is limited to the 
windows of a room, with which I have been dealing, 
is the purest and most self-satisfying of pleasurable 
occupations. Give a man, and still more a woman, 
this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you 
have given them a pleasing and healthy occupation for 
life ; something to think of during the hours of labour, 
and to which they may judiciously return when their 
mental or bodily toil has ceased, as to a refreshing 
variety—an oasis always welcome on the tiresome road 
of life. 
-- 
ON MAKING A BOG GARDEN.* 
Given —you have a piece of quashy, water-charged 
bog land, on which you dare not tread for fear of going 
in over your shoe-tops, worthless except to produce a 
few Rushes, and, maybe, an Alder or 'Willow stub— 
Can it be made into an attractive garden ? Yes —but 
it takes turn or three years to do it, to get rid of its old 
in-dwellers and fully establish the new-comers, and to 
find out what will and what will not do, for I do not 
think we know very much about the likings of moisture- 
loving hardy plants. 
The Site. 
My experiment was tried at High Beech, and this is 
how the bog garden was made. The site was one of 
those depressions which are found on the Bagshot Sand 
hill-tops, upon the Wimbledon, Epping Forest, and 
Hampstead Heathlands. Between two ridges of raised 
ground, and on the falling slope, occur spewy springs 
issuing from the higher ground above, and soaking 
down the hollow, widening and gathering moisture till 
the water issues in a small rill at the bottom of the 
decline. Droseras, Ivy-leaved Campanula, and other 
native bog plants are found with the sphagnum and 
Rushes in the wet springy ground. 
The successful growth of Sarracenias and Dionsea 
first led to carrying out the idea more fully. There are 
many hardy plants, v T hich from the want of continuous 
moisture of such a site, and which they enjoy in their 
native haunts, do not succeed year after year in the 
ordinary herbaceous or garden border ; a hot summer 
comes and they are not—to instance some Calthas, the 
double sorts of the glorious Marsh Marigolds now 
brightening our Lea Marshes, Sarracenias, Primroses 
* A paper read by Mr. George Paul, of Cheshunt, at the meeting 
of the Horticultural Club, held on Tuesday, May 11th. 
from Himalayan bogs, Spirieas, and others. The idea 
was to show these plants in their natural way, and so 
to see them in their full beauty. 
How Best to Use the Site—Requirements. 
The chief thing to do was to husband and use 
thoroughly the water running into and accumulating 
in the bog. A temporary deep drain was made right 
up the centre, and the work was done in a dry early 
autumn, allowing the men to move on the surface. 
This, husbanding the water, was done by forming beds 
following the circular shape of the depression, and so 
made that the upper set received all the issuing spewy 
springs that could be found issuing from the surround¬ 
ing banks on to the surface of the bog. A 2^ ft. wide 
bank of clay was then put in and trodden firmly on the 
lower side of the beds, defining the beds and keeping 
the moisture in them until allowed to escape. 
A second series of beds was a foot lower. A third a 
few inches below this, and one bed of this series had all 
the peat removed until the clay which (except here and 
there where water oozed up through clayey sand) formed 
the bottom of the bog, was reached, thus making a 
small pond to receive the overflowings from the upper 
beds. A fourth series of beds received the overflow 
from the pond and upper beds, as well as one or two 
^dependent springs from the sides, and eventually the 
water ran off into the brook or ditch in a small clay- 
lined channel built across the so to speak miniature 
valley. 
The small difficulties I had to overcome were in 
making the clay walls to the beds. Towards the sides 
of the hollow a firm bottom was found, but when the 
bottom was springy the water simply oozed up through 
the clay and does so more or less still, but the dams or 
walls do their work—that is, they keep the moisture in 
the several levels well. They act also as paths to let 
you walk in comfort about the space (which, by-the-bye, 
is 60 ft. square), the chief thing to make a bog garden 
useable and enjoyable in all weathers and seasons. But 
the paths at first did not answer, for you found yourself 
up to the knees in miry clay. A surface crust of gravel 
and cement concrete was tried, but the water sponged 
up through it, the clay swallowed it; so something had 
to he done to keep the clay down and get a safe path. 
The foreman suggested, and a wood clearing close by 
furnished, the remedy. For the spewey places some 
small Beech trunks were split in two, laid round side 
downwards along the paths, and short split branches 
(smaller) were laid across them, making corduroy paths 
2J ft. wide. A little gravel between the logs keep 
them in place ; they are a perfect, comfortable, and 
lasting path, and keep the clay down and in place. I 
forgot to say that from each series of beds water above 
a certain level flows in small drain pipes into the next 
level, enabling the height of the water in each bed to 
be regulated. 
In the middle of one or two of the largest central 
beds an upright post is driven, the top just on the 
surface, to receive the one end of three split trees, and 
so allow every plant in the bed to be reached. So far 
we have gained control of the water, enlarged and 
retained the full boggy space, and have means of 
moving comfortably about the moist area. 
Preparing the Beds for Planting. 
Owing to enlarging the area there was not sufficient 
peaty material, foreign peat and leaves had to be 
furnished to make lg ft. of good soil in each bed. 
Small rills drawn with a hoe to the mouth of the over¬ 
flow pipe allow the bog to be controlled, a stroke of 
the hoe retains moisture, or allows the surface and 
crowns of the plants to be kept dry or raised out of 
the water. The beds are sub-divided by small peat 
banks, on which plants liking their toes or root- 
extremities in water, but their crowns to live in drier 
regions, are fixed. 
The chief enemies have been the principle of the 
“fittest surviving,” in the shape of the rushes and 
water-loving grasses striving to resume possession ; an 
occasional and timely weeding conquers this. The 
Liverwort tries to surface the whole, to the detriment 
of the smaller plants, such as Soldanellas, Violas. It 
wants a careful, and now and again, scratching away. 
The birds, tempted by the loose peat surface after hoeing 
or weeding, come and scratch for food, and some smaller 
winter-resting plants, such as Dionseas, Droseras, Pin- 
guicula, are apt not to be forthcoming when looked for 
next spring. Just a word as to full exposure to sun¬ 
light. The space is open, except for a slight shade in 
the shape of a row or two of 6-ft. Hollies to the south, 
but my experience is that with moisture at the roots, few 
plants object to this. In this the garden differs from 
Mr. Wilson’s interesting experiments at Wisley, where 
many of the plants are under, or shaded by % over¬ 
hanging trees. In other ways our experiments differ ; 
besides, it is not everyone who can devote a wood to 
gardening. 
The Plants. 
Of the plants first put in there were many died. The 
water supply of the several parts was unknown ; some 
were drowned, some were too dry. The best survivors 
of the first plantations are Calthas, double forms, the 
monstrous, the Palustris plena, and the later dwarf and 
double form. Of the Sarracenias, purpurea flowers and 
seeds freely about. S. Drummondiis the next hardiest. 
S. flava, S. rubra, and psittacina seem to live, hut get 
weaker after each winter. I am sorry that some in¬ 
teresting hybrids sent me by Mr. H. Yeitch and Mr. 
Wrigley have not survived. The white Pilewort is a 
splendid plant in the bog. Lobelia siphilitiea and the 
American Osmundas flourish well together. On an 
extreme jutting out into the small pond Saxifraga 
cordata flowers gloriously ; the golden Lysimachia has 
to be restrained, or would cover the surface. The 
striped Viola and V. pedata, Ranunculuses, including 
the beautiful little one, Pamissifolius, thrive. Dondia 
Epicactis, Valeriana phu aurea, the Trollius, and more 
especially the varieties of American Cowslip, Dodeea- 
theon Jeffreyanum, and others are quite at their best. 
Of the taller-growing plants, the Thalietrums, Achillea 
ptarmica fl. pi., the American Liatris, Lysimachia 
cletliroides, Lychnis of sorts, Gentiana pneumonanthe 
and macrophylla thrive ^freely. Pyrola rotundifolia, 
the Mandrake with its curious two-legged roots, Pyrola 
rotundifolia, Trientalis europasa. On the slighly raised 
banks the Arctic Bramble and the R. Chamiemorus 
have established themselves, and fight were they join 
for supremacy with the American Cranberry from the 
Wisbey 'Wood. Droseras, Diomea, and Pinguicula 
have been disturbed this winter by the birds. Orchis 
foliosa seems to rejoice in a water-teeming bed, and is 
there quite hardy. No doubt other Orchis would 
succeed. 
Primulas have a bed to themselves, forty or fifty of 
the Alpine and Himalayan kinds were planted, but 
probably from the want of limestone or from not having 
been planted on shaly slopes charged with water, only 
the following have survived and thriven. P. japonica 
and denticulata are becoming the self-sowing weeds of 
the garden. P. rosea and its large-flowered variety, 
P. Wulfeana and the varieties of minima, P. viscosa 
nivalis, glutinosa needs shade ; P. villosa and Stuartii; 
Munroi needs the moistest place. A large bed is given 
up to Spirceas, such as Aruneus, palmata, and japonica, 
they are mixed with the American Lilies of the parda- 
linum type, which attains 6 ft. to 8 ft. Mr. Bull’s 
Astilboides and the white form of palmata thrive apace. 
The Zebra and corkscrew rushes need to be kept in 
bounds. Of Irises, I took council with Professor Foster; 
the stronger varieties of Iris Kiempferi are at home in 
the wet bog, but occasionally a sort disappears in winter. 
They seem quite at home in the clay banks of the rill. 
I should occupy too much time if I gave all the 
failures ; the result of the experiment has appeared to 
be a success. If my remarks lead some others to make 
a trial in this direction I shall be glad. So many have 
more experience than I have had. Will they tell us 
something about it ? 
Birds . Nests. —One often hears of robins building 
in unlikely places. Last spring a robin built on the 
top of a pot of Adiantum cuneatum, which was hidden 
by the fronds, and in this position hatched and brought 
up its young. I was careful not to deluge the plant, 
so as not to chill the eggs. This season another—or, 
perhaps, the same—robin built, and has now four 
young birds nearly fit to fly, on the top of a Pelargonium- 
pot. The mother bird has been rather destructive to 
young Lettuce-plants grown on a border close by; I was 
not aware before they were fond of salad, but seeing is 
believing ; whilst another found a snug little corner in 
which to build her home in the pony's boots, but as 
soon as it became known, I suppose too many visits 
were paid to the nest, and she forsook it. — E. Dumper. 
Heavy Rainfall in Shropshire. —In forty-eight 
hours the rainfall here was—May 13th, 1.98; May 14th, 
2.91 ; total, 4. S9. This is the heaviest fall of rain we 
have had for the last seven years.— Onslow. 
