Violets like sunny banks, and, as they are of social habit, they should be permitted to grow in clumps and allowed to spread freely over the ground 
The Wild Garden 
BY E. O. Calvene 
Photographs by Ella M. Boult 
Editor s Note. —Most people have some peculiar prejudice in favor of a certain type of garden. This may be influenced by personal tastes or by the exigencies of loca¬ 
tion. But the fact remains that there are different kinds of gardens to choose from as well as there are different styles of architecture. The purpose of this series is to show 
what types are available. This article describes a garden retreat that approximates nature in the wild. Previous articles were The Utility Garden, The Garden of Annuals and 
7'he Formal Garden. Other types will follow in subsequent issues. 
I T is extremely doubtful if anyone ever made for himself a truly 
wild garden. Like the historic giraffe of which the farmer 
declared, after observing the creature long and seriously, “they 
ain’t no such animile,” wild gardens usually “ain't.” For it is 
almost impossible, even with the purest of intentions, to prevent 
oneself from using plants that are distinctly not wild, and never 
were wild in this fair land. So let us use the term “wild garden” 
advisedly, and examining the question, know for a certainty when 
we are talking about actual wild gardens, and when about gar¬ 
dens in which plants are arranged to grow as if they were wild. 
The true wild gar¬ 
den may not, in the 
very nature of things, 
harbor any plant 
which is not a native 
to this continent; and 
if one is to be very 
exact in planting, im¬ 
proved strains and ar¬ 
tificial hybrids o f 
even the common na- 
t i v e wild flowers 
should not be intro¬ 
duced, either. The 
wild garden should 
consist of native 
plants, arranged ac¬ 
cording to their habit 
of growth under wild, 
or natural conditions; 
and this is the garden 
which we will con¬ 
sider first, taking up 
subsequently that 
pseudo-wild garden 
wherein all sorts of 
things both wild and 
tame are planted, “wildly,” so to speak, with no sort of system. 
Every land is rich in wild flowers of course, for every flower is 
a wild flower somewhere. (Excepting those artificial hybrids be¬ 
fore mentioned, and even these are traceable to their wild ances¬ 
tors usually, without much difficulty). We are not therefore 
limited as to bloom in the wild garden, even though we put the 
strictest interpretation upon the term; and as we have every phase 
of physical circumstances for flowers to live under, here in 
America, we shall be able to meet any physical condition in se¬ 
lecting the plants for a particular place. Therefore why not a 
wild garden in the 
true sense, if we are 
to undertake one at 
all ? Why not conform 
its planting as well as 
its arrangement to the 
wilderness? Let us 
naturalize elsewhere 
as many things and as 
many kinds of things 
as we choose, and 
have space for; but 
let us have the wild 
garden wild. 
There can be no 
rule for arranging, 
nor for planting, a 
wild garden. Each 
gardener that makes 
such must be, first of 
all, a genius — or grow 
into one — hence a rule 
unto himself. And 
each must have the 
closest sympathy with, 
and consequent un- 
derstanding of, 
The delicately tinted blossoms of the hepatica take kindly to woodsy soil and partial shade 
and will reappear from season to season 
( 22 ) 
