"Sweet Alyssum, Mignonnette, the pretty blue Nemophila and bright colored Phlox Drummondii seemed to cover the ground. Morning Glories of every shade and delicate Cypress vines tried to cover the fences and run up every tree. Quaint little yellow and green Gourds appeared in the most unexpected places, and the whole bed seemed to be ablaze with the orange and yellow of the Eschscholtzia, Marigolds, Calendula Officinalis and Zinnias. One of the chief charms of this wild flower bed was the variety and change—not from season to season, but from day to day. Every morning would find some new, unexpected, and previously forgotten flower in bloom."
The packet of Flower Seeds for the "Wild Garden" consists of more than a hundred varieties, sufficient for a square rod of ground. There must needs be a peculiar charm in the "Wild Garden." When one wearies of the monotonous ribbon beds and geometrical designs so long in fashion, they can turn to the spot where flowers run riot at their own sweet will, and give daily surprises because sown broadcast without any regard to their names and location. Multitudes there are, who, with abundance of land at their command, can have one on a large scale, others can have, but a small spot. There are many who have ground specially adapted by its wildness for the blending of the cultivated flowers with those which grow in their native dells or woods. Wild shrubs, wild flowers, wild climbers, can be transplanted to situations quite like their own. There can be ferneries and rockeries, beds of violets and wild evergreens, and combined with careless grace, such tropical plants and brilliant annuals as would give the most pleasing effect and afford a beauty wholly unique.
Make your home beautiful—bring to it flowers;
Plant them around you to bud and to bloom;
Let them give light to your loneliest hours—
Let them bring light to enliven your gloom;
If you can do so, O make it an Eden
Of beauty and gladness almost divine;
'Twill teach you to long for that home you are needing,
The earth robed in beauty beyond this dark clime.
"The flowers we love?—They are those we gathered
Years ago, when we played at home!
Flowers by the door stone, dropped and scattered
Here and there as a child would roam."