My object in the Wild Garden is now to show how we may have more of the varied beauty of hardy flowers than the most ardent admirer of the old style of garden ever dreams of, by naturalising innumerable beautiful natives of many regions of the earth in our woods and copses, rougher parts of pleasure grounds, and in unoccupied places in almost every kind of garden.
I allude not to the wood and brake flora of any one country, but to that which finds its home in the vast fields of the whole northern world, and that of the hill–ground that falls in furrowed folds from beneath the hoary heads of all the great mountain chains of the world, whether they rise from hot Indian plains or green European pastures. The Palm and sacred Fig, as well as the Wheat and the Vine, are separated from the stemless plants that cushion under the snow for half the year, by a zone of hardier and not less beautiful life, varied as the breezes that whisper on the mountain sides, and as the rills that seam them. They are the Lilies, and Bluebells, and Foxgloves, and Irises, and Windflowers, and Columbines, and Rock–roses, and Violets, and Cranesbills, and countless Pea–flowers, and mountain Avens, and Brambles, and Cinquefoils, and Evening Primroses, and Clematis, and Honeysuckles, and Michaelmas Daisies, and Wood–hyacinths, and Daffodils, and Bindweeds, and Forget–me–nots, and blue–eyed Omphalodes, and Primroses, and Day Lilies, and Asphodels, and St. Bruno’s Lilies, and the almost innumerable plants which form the flora of the northern and temperate portions of vast continents.
It is beyond the power of pen or pencil to picture the beauty of these plants. Innumerable and infinitely varied scenes occur in the wilder parts of all northern and temperate regions, at many different elevations. The loveliness and ceaselessly varying charms of such scenes are indeed difficult to describe or imagine; the essential thing to bear in mind is that the plants that go to form them are hardy, and will thrive in our climate as well as native plants.
Such beauty may be realised in every wood and copse and shrubbery that screens our “trim gardens.” Naturally our woods and wilds have no little loveliness in spring; we have here and there the Lily–of–the–valley and the Snowdrop, and everywhere the Primrose and Cowslip; the Bluebell and the Foxglove sometimes take nearly complete possession of whole woods; but, with all our treasures in this way, we have no attractions in or near our gardens compared to what it is within our power to create. There are many countries with winters as cold as, or colder than, our own, possessing a rich flora; and by taking the best hardy exotics and establishing them in wild or half–wild spots, we may produce beautiful pictures in such places. To most people a pretty plant in a free state is more attractive than any garden denizen. It is taking care of itself; and, moreover, it is usually surrounded by some degree of graceful wild spray—the green above, and the moss and brambles and grass around.
By the means presently to be explained, numbers of plants of the highest order of beauty and fragrance, and clothed with pleasant associations, may be seen perfectly at home in the spaces now devoted to rank grass and weeds, and by wood walks in our shrubberies and ornamental plantations.
Night effect of large evening Primrose in the Wild Garden (Œnothera Lamarkiana)
Among my reasons for advocating this system are the following:—