Colony of the Summer Snowflake, on margin of shrubbery.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF HARDY EXOTIC FLOWERING PLANTS FOR THE WILD GARDEN.
Wherever there is room, these plants should be at first grown in nursery beds to ensure a good supply. The number of nursery collections of hardy plants being now more numerous than they were a few years ago, getting the plants is not so difficult as it once was. The sources of supply are these nurseries; seed houses, who have lists of hardy plant seeds—many kinds may be easily raised from seed; botanic gardens, in which many plants are grown that hitherto have not found a place in our gardens, and were not fitted for any mode of culture except that herein suggested; orchards and cottage gardens in pleasant country places may supply desirable things from time to time; and those who travel may bring seeds or roots of plants they meet with in cool, temperate, or mountain regions. Few plants, not free of growth and hardy in the British Islands without any attention after planting, are included here:—
Bear’s Breech, Acanthus.—Vigorous perennials with noble foliage, mostly from Southern Europe. Long cast out of gardens, they are now beginning to receive more of the attention they deserve. In no position will they look better than carelessly planted here and there on the margin of a shrubbery or thicket, where the leaves of the Acanthus contrast well with those of the ordinary shrubs or herbaceous vegetation. Though quite hardy in all soils, they flower most freely in free loamy soils. Not varying very much in character, all obtainable hardy species would group well together. The most vigorous kind at present in cultivation is one called A. latifolius, almost evergreen, and a fine plant when well established. Few plants are more fitted for adorning wild and semi–wild places, as they grow and increase without care, and are for foliage or bloom unsurpassed by any of the numerous plants that have been so long neglected through their not being available in any popular system of “flower gardening.”[ill121]
The Monkshood, naturalised by wet ditch in wood.