Wild garden

“ An interesting point in favour of the wild garden is the succession of effects which it may afford, and which are suggested by the illustrations on the next pages, both showing a succession of life on the same spot of ground. In gardens in early summer at present the whole of the portion devoted to flower–gardening is dug up raw as a ploughed field, just when the earth is naturally most thickly strewn with flowers. ”

“ The old grass land orchard, filled with picturesque standard trees, is capable of being made a wild garden of true beauty. In early spring we may have troops of golden daffodils and silvery narcissi, making vistas of colour among the lines of grey trunks. Ropes of purple and white clematis may festoon the trees, and some of the semi-wild roses, with their rich foliage and single flowers will fill the hedges and ramble over the banks. ”

“ But let us suppose for a moment that there was no other object for the wild garden in America than growing the many lovely wild flowers that inhabit the land, it is sufficient. Here some of your wildlings are the darlings of our rock–garden growers, though we are far from possessing all the bright flowers and graceful trailers that adorn the bogs and woods and heaths of the Eastern States. ”

“ What first suggested the idea of the wild garden, and even the name to me, was the desire to provide a home for a great number of exotic plants that are unfitted for garden culture in the old sense. Many of these plants have great beauty when in flower, and perhaps at other seasons, but they are frequently so free and vigorous in growth that they overrun and destroy all their more delicate neighbours. ”

“ In the garden the news is coming up from below, borne by those unfailing outriders of the spring, the snowdrop and the winter aconite. A modest company; but in their pennons is the assurance of the many-coloured host that is falling unseen into the vast pageant of summer and will fill the woods with the trumpets of the harebell and the wild hyacinth, and make the hedges burst into foam, and the orchard a glory of pink and white, and the ditches heavy with the scent of the meadowsweet, and the fields golden with harvest and the gardens a riot of luxuriant life. ”

“ It must not be thought that the wild garden can only be formed in places where there is some extent of rough pleasure–ground. Excellent results may be obtained from the system in comparatively small gardens, on the fringes of shrubberies and marginal plantations, open spaces between shrubs, the surface of beds of Rhododendrons, where we may have plant–beauty instead of garden–graveyards. I call garden–graveyards the dug shrubbery borders which one sees in nearly all gardens, public or private. ”

“ Part I—Flowers I. A Wild Garden and its Tenants This is the story of a wild garden that was found near a public school on the edge of a big city. None of the children had the tiniest garden, and they were not allowed to pick flowers in the park, even to use in the school room for nature study. So this wild garden, where they could pick armsful of flowers, where they could pull plants up by the roots, where they could gather seed cases and cocoons, and watch insects at work, was a wonder and delight. ”

“ How far the wild garden may be carried out as an aid to, or in connection with, any of the above in the smaller class of gardens, can be best decided on the spot in each case. In the larger gardens, where, on the outer fringes of the lawn, in grove, park, copse, or by woodland walks or drives, there is often ample room, fair gardens and wholly new and beautiful aspects of vegetation may be created by its means. ”

“ No old–fashioned garden yields its beauty so early in the year, or over a more prolonged season, than the wild garden, as there is abundant evidence here; but our impressions shall be those of the day only. ”

“ A part of the arboretum is more particularly devoted to this kind of decoration, and will eventually form a very wild wood and wild garden, where the Poet’s Narcissus may be found among Sweet Briers, Lilacs, and many kinds of fragrant–flowering shrubs and vigorous perennials. While carrying out the scheme of wild gardening, pure and simple, that is to say, the naturalisation of foreign hardy plants, opportunity has been taken to establish beautiful native kinds where they do not happen to be present in sufficient abundance. ”

“ Surfaces that naturally support a very sparse and dwarf vegetation are valuable in a garden, as they permit of the culture of a series of free–growing alpine and [96] rock plants that would not be able to hold their own among Grass and ordinary weeds and wild flowers. One of the happiest features of this wild garden results from the way in which dead trees have been adorned. Once dead, some of the smaller branches are lopped off, and one or more climbers planted at the base of the tree. ”

“ He advises "little walks and paths running through such pastures as adjoin the gardens, passing through little paddocks, and corn fields, sometimes through wild coppices, and gardens, and sometimes by purling brooks, and streams; places that are set off not by nice art, but by luxury of nature." And again, "these hedge-rows mixed with primroses, violets, and such natural sweet and pleasant flowers; the walks that thus lead through them, will afford as much pleasure, nay, more so, than the largest walk in the most magnificent and elaborate fine garden." ”

“ And yet, to the true lover of Nature, wild flowers have a charm which no garden can equal. Cultivated plants are but a living herbarium. They surpass, no doubt, the dried specimens of a museum; but, lovely as they are, they can be no more compared with the natural vegetation of our woods and fields, than the captives in the Zoological Gardens with the same wild species in their native forests and mountains. ”

“ If with this water–garden we combine the wild garden of land plants—herbaceous, trailers, etc.—some of the loveliest effects possible in gardens will be produced. The margins of lakes and streams are happily not upturned by the spade in winter ”

“ In a large collection one frequently finds species most suited for full liberty in woods. The many subjects good in all positions, may increase in these borders till plentiful enough for planting out in some quantity in the wild garden. The wild garden here has been wholly formed by the owner, who planted with his own hands the various subjects that now adorn it throughout the year. It has been done within four or five years, and therefore many of the climbers have not as yet attained full growth. ”

“ They were more beautiful than they are in borders or beds, not growing in such close stiff tufts, and mingling with and relieved by the trees above and the shrubs around. Little more need be said to any one who knows and cares about such plants, and has an opportunity of planting in such neglected places. This case points out pretty clearly that one might make wild gardens from the mere parings and thinnings of the beds and borders in autumn, in any place where there is a collection of good hardy plants. ”

“ Can either you or Evan tell me more of them and why we do not see them here? Before long I shall go garden mad, I fear; for after grooming the place into a generally decorative and floriferous condition of trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, etc., will come the hunger for specialties that if completely satisfied will necessitate not only a rosary, a lily and wild garden, a garden—rather than simply a bed—of sweet odours, and lastly a garden wholly for the family of pinks or carnations, whichever is the senior title. ”

“ Just such, in all but the gooseberries and currants, was the wilderness of our garden: you came on it by a sudden labyrinthine twist at the end of a narrow alley of yew, and a sudden door in the high wall. My uncle said he liked well to see roses in the kitchen-garden, but not gooseberries in the flower-garden, especially a wild flower-garden. Wherein lies the difference, I never quite made out, but I feel a difference. My main delight in the wilderness was to see the roses among the heather—particularly the wild roses. ”

“ The surface which is dug and wasted in all our parks, and in numbers of our gardens, should be occupied with this varied life; not in the miserable old mixed border fashion, with each plant stuck up with a stick, but with the plants in groups and colonies between the shrubs. In the spaces where turf would not thrive, or where it might be troublesome to keep fresh, we should have irises, or narcissi, or lupines, or French willows, or Japan anemones, or any of scores of other lovely things which people cannot now find a place for in our stiff gardens. ”

“ Usually flower beds and borders are in the full sun—a very proper arrangement in a cool country. But even in our climate, there are in the warm months many days in which the woodland shade is sought in preference to the open lawn, and when the fully–exposed garden is deserted. Therefore, it is clearly desirable that we have flowers in shady as well as sunny places. Many plants, too, love the shade, and we only require to plant the most suitable of these to enjoy a charming wild garden. It need not be pointed out to Americans that a vast number of herbaceous plants naturally inhabit woods. ”

“ The limitations of the soil of my garden and surroundings serve as the basis of an experience that, however, I have found carried out practically in the same way in the larger gardens of the Bluffs and in many other places that Evan and I have visited. So that any one thinking that a hardy garden, at least of herbaceous plants, is a thing that, once established, will, if not molested, go on forever, after the manner of the fern banks of the woods or the wild flowers of marsh and meadow, will be grievously disappointed. ”

“ This reminds us of certain subjects that should be introduced with caution into all but the remotest parts of the wild garden. Such plants as Heracleum, Willow Herb, and many others, that overcome all obstacles, and not only win but destroy all their fellows in the struggle for life, should only be planted in outlying positions, islands, hedges, small bits of isolated wood or copse, where their effects might be visible for a season, and where they might ramble without destroying. ”

“ Roses on grass are a pleasant feature of the wild garden. No matter what the habit of the rose, provided it be free and hardy, and growing on its own roots, planting on the grass will suit it well. So treated, the more vigorous climbers would form thickets of flowers, and graceful vigorous shoots. They will do on level grass, and be still more picturesque on banks or slopes. ”

“ But now 'green grow the rushes,' and the cuckoo-flower thrusts its pale petals up among the rising grass. Till that grass reaches maturity, the women in meadow districts can find no field employment. The woods are now carpeted with acres upon acres of the wild hyacinth, or blue-bell, and far surpass in loveliness the most cultivated garden. ”

“ At length, perceiving a large door open into the garden, we bolted out, and striking into a labyrinth of myrtles and laurels, got rid of our pursuers. The garden, which is about a mile and a half in circumference, contains, besides wild thickets of pine and bay-trees, several orchards of lemon and orange, and two or three parterres more filled with weeds than flowers. ”

“ In America, where shade is such a necessity, the wild garden in the shade will be the most delightful retreat near the country house. In it many of the plants common in the gardens of all northern countries will, without wearisome attention, flower in the spring. ”

“ Hydrangeas in Tubs, in a part of the same Garden.
Even the better ways of gardening do not wholly escape the debasing influence of fashion. Wild gardening is a delightful, and in good hands a most desirable, pursuit, but no kind of gardening is so difficult to do well, or is so full of pitfalls and of paths of peril. Because it has in some measure become fashionable, and because it is understood to mean the planting of exotics in wild places, unthinking people rush to the conclusion that they can put any garden plants into any wild places, and that that is wild gardening. ”

“ A wild-flower garden is a joy each year, because up it comes without constant replanting of seed. It is a hardy garden. As Nature often covers her wood-flowers over with leaves preparatory to winter, so you might copy her and do the same. ”

“ But soon fierce Nature claims the place for her own, and covers it with thick grass or giant weeds, or nurses some sapling in it till its branches shade the ground. Be warned, and tend your garden to the utmost, till you can pass away utterly and let it return to Nature and become the wind-blown plain where the wild-flowers grow. ”

“ But the prettiest results are only attainable where the grass need not be mown till nearly the time the meadows are mown. Then we may have gardens of Narcissi, such as men never dared to dream about a dozen years ago; such as no one ever thought possible in a garden. In grass not mown at all we may even enjoy many of the Lilies, and all the lovelier and more stately bulbous flowers of the meadows and mountain lawns of Europe, Asia, and America. ”

“ The turf walk is lost, after a break of Golden Yew, in a little wood—a few paces round—just large enough [Pg 11] for the birds to build in, and with room for half-a-dozen wild Hyacinths and a dozen Primroses under the trees; with moss, Wood Sorrel, and white and puce-coloured Periwinkles, and many a wild thing, meant to encourage the delusion of a savage wild! I am afraid I never can be quite serious about a garden; I always am inclined to find delight in fancies, and reminiscences of a child’s garden, and the desire to get everything into it if I could. ”