A beautiful accident.—A colony of Myrrhis odorata, established in shrubbery, with white Harebells here and there. (See p. 60.)
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COMMON SHRUBBERY, WOODS AND WOODLAND DRIVES.
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. Every shrubbery and plantation surface that is so needlessly and relentlessly dug over by the gardener every winter, may be embellished in the way I propose, as well as wild places. The custom of digging shrubbery borders prevails now in every garden, and there is in the whole course of gardening no worse or more profitless custom. When winter is once come, almost every gardener, although animated with the best intentions, simply prepares to make war upon the roots of everything in his shrubbery border. The generally–accepted practice is to trim, and often to mutilate the shrubs, and to dig all over the surface that must be full of feeding roots. Delicate half–rooted shrubs are disturbed; herbaceous plants are destroyed; bulbs are displaced and injured; the roots as well as the tops of shrubs are mutilated; and a sparse depopulated aspect is given to the margins, while the only “improvement” that is effected by the process is the annual darkening of the surface by the upturned earth.
Illustrations of these bad practices occur by miles in our London parks in winter. Walk through any of them at that season, and observe the borders around masses of shrubs, choice and otherwise. Instead of finding the earth covered, or nearly covered, with vegetation close to the margin, and each individual plant developed into something like a fair specimen of its kind, we find a spread of recently–dug ground, and the plants upon it with an air of having recently suffered from a whirlwind, or some calamity that necessitated the removal of mutilated branches. Rough–pruners precede the diggers, and bravely trim in the shrubs for them, so that nothing may be in the way; and then come the diggers, plunging their spades deeply about plants, shrubs, or trees. The first shower that occurs after this digging exposes a whole network of torn–up roots. There is no relief to the spectacle; the same thing occurs everywhere—in botanic gardens as well as in our large West–end parks; and year after year is the process repeated.
While such is the case, it will be impossible to have an agreeable or interesting margin to a shrubbery or plantation. What secrets one might have in the central hidden portions of these now dug and bare shrubberies—in the half–shady spots where little colonies of rare exotic wildlings might have their first introduction to our wild garden! Of course all the labour required to produce this miserable result of dug borders is worse than thrown away, as the shrubberies would do better if let alone, and by utilising the power thus wasted, we might highly beautify the positions that are now so ugly.
Large White Achilleas spread into wide masses under shade of trees in shrubbery.