Colony of Narcissus in properly spaced shrubbery.
How do the swarming herbs of the woods and copses of the world exist in spite of the slugs? A good protection for them is hard gravel walks and paths, where they lay their eggs without danger. Against the door one may do what one likes, but not one leaf would I ever allow removed from a clump of shrubs or trees on my lawn or in my pleasure ground. I would prefer the leaves all over the place to a dug border, but I would, if need be, meet that difficulty by scattering a light dressing of soil over them. In what I should call a properly managed shrubbery or clump, with the bushes well spaced, and their branches resting on the ground, with low shrubs between, and evergreen and other herbs, there are natural impediments to the leaves rushing about in the way you suppose. This is a subject of the greatest interest and the utmost practical importance. Our annual digging mutilation, scraping away of leaves, and exposing on bare sloppy borders plants that in Nature shelter each other, and are shielded from bitter frost and burning heat by layers of fallen leaves, gradually sinking into excellent light surface soil for the young roots, are ignorant and brutal practices that must be given up by all who really look into the needs of our hardy garden flora.
With reference to this point, I print this letter from an observer of what goes on in the woods of New England. Our own woods are full of lessons, and so it is in all countries. Mr. Falconer’s letter is very suggestive of the revolution in method which must be carried out in the gardens of the future:—
I go into the woods in the spring time, and find them carpeted with Dog’s–tooth Violets, Wood Anemones, blue and purple Hepaticas, Spring beauty, Trilliums, Blood–root, Star–flowers, False Solomon’s Seal, Gold Thread, trailing Arbutus, wild Ginger, and a host of other pretty little flowers, all bright and gay, arising from their bed of decaying herbage and tree leaves, and many of them are in perfection, too, before a tree has spread a leaf; and thus they glow and revel in their cosy bed, fed and sheltered by their tree friends. When their petals drop and their leaves are mature, the trees expand their leafy canopy and save the little nurslings from the torture of a scorching sun. And early as the earliest, too, the outskirts of the woods and meadows with hosts of Violets are painted blue and white, and speckled everywhere with Bluets, or little Innocents, as the children call them. Woodsias, tiny Aspleniums, and other Ferns are unfolding their fronds along the chinks among the stones; the common Polypody is reaching over blocks and boulders; and even the exposed rocks, with their rough and Lichen–bearded faces, are aglow in vernal pride. Every nook and cranny among them, and little mat of earth upon them are checkered with the flowery print of the Canada Columbine, the Virginia Saxifrage, and the glaucous Corydalis. But to the carpet. What can be prettier or more appropriate than the Partridge–berry (Mitchella repens), the Twin–flower (Linnæa borealis—does well with us), Creeping Winter Green (Gaultheria procumbens), Bearberry (Arctostaphylos Uva–Ursi), Cowberry (Vaccinium Vitis–idæa), Dwarf Cornel (Cornus canadensis), Fringed Polygala (P. paucifolia), the Common Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) with its shining deep green leaves, the Spotted Pipsissewa (C. maculata), the sombre–hued Pyrola and Galax, and that bright and easily–grown Club Moss (Lycopodium lucidulum)? Add to these such plants as Winter Aconite, Apennine Anemone, Creeping Forget–me–not, and the like, together with a few of the most suitable kinds of the host of bulbous ornamental plants which we now possess, and our shrubbery carpets may be replete with garden jewels. It is now generally conceded that shrubs thrive better in beds whose surface is undisturbed than where it is annually loosened by digging or pointing. This, coupled with a yearly top–dressing of decayed leaf–soil or light rich vegetable heap compost, is equally beneficial for the shrubs and their carpet.
The American White Wood–Lily (Trillium grandiflorum) in Wild Garden, in wood bottom in leaf–mould.
“One day last spring, when strolling through the Medford wood, I came upon an open meadow with a high bank—cleared timber land—on one side. Adown this bank in a rough and rocky course, came a little stream of water, bordered on both sides with streaks and patches of Blood–root in its gayest state. The large and showy blossoms, clasped erect in their own leaf–vases and sparkling in the sun, while the sward and other vegetation around were yet dormant, had a cheerful influence indeed. True, near by in the hollow, the malodorous Skunk Cabbage was rank in leaf and flower, and the Indian Poke was rushing out its plaited, broadly oval leaves, and away in the streamlet a few Marsh Marigolds glittered on the water. But the Blood–root is neither an aquatic nor a bog plant, but most at home in the leaf–mould beds and linings of rich woodlands.”
“Hereabout, a little wild flower (Erythronium americanum) more commonly known as Dog’s–tooth Violet, is a charming plant, with variegated handsome leaves, and comely flowers in earliest spring. In low copses in rich deposits of vegetable mould it grows around here in the utmost profusion. In one place by the side of a wood is a sort of ditch, which is filled with water in winter but dry in summer, and wherein is collected a mass of leaf–soil. Here the Erythronium runs riot, and forms the densest kind of matted sod, all bespeckled with yellow blossoms before a bush or tree has spread a leaf. Then blackberry bushes get a growing and sprawling everywhere, the trees expand their leafy shade, and Grass and weeds grow up and cover the surface of the earth. But all too late for evil, the Adder’s–tongue’s mission for a year is ended; it has blossomed, matured, and retired. The next densest mass I know of is in a low piece of cleared timber land, where, besides the profusion in the hollow, the carpet extends, thinner as it ascends, for many yards up the slope of the hill. As garden plants they are at home anywhere, underneath bushes, or in any out of–the–way corner, merely praying to be let alone. But what I desire to urge is their naturalisation in your rich woodlands, where Anemones and Primroses, Buttercups and Violets, grow up and flower together.”