Large-flowered Meadow Rue in the Wild Garden, type of plant mostly excluded from the Garden.

About a generation ago a taste began to be manifested for placing a number of tender plants in the open air in summer, with a view to the production of showy masses of decided colour. The subjects selected were mostly from sub-tropical climates and of free growth; placed annually in the open air of our genial early summer, and in fresh rich earth, every year they grew rapidly and flowered abundantly during the summer and early autumn months, and until cut down by the first frosts. The showy colour of this system was very attractive, and since its introduction there has been a gradual rooting out of all the old favourites in favour of this "bedding"system. This was carried to such an extent that it was not uncommon, indeed it has been the rule, to find the largest gardens in the country without a single hardy flower, all energy and expense being devoted to the production of the few exotics required for the summer decoration. It should be distinctly borne in mind that the expense for this system is an annual one; that no matter what amount of money may be spent in this way, or how many years may be devoted to perfecting it, the first sharp frost of November announces a yet further expense and labour, usually more heavy than the preceding.

Its highest results need hardly be described; they arc seen in all our great public gardens; our London and many other city parks show them in the shape of beds filled with vast quantities of flowers, covering the ground frequently in a showy way, or in a repulsively gaudy manner : nearly every private garden is taken possession of by the same things. I will not here enter into the question of the merits of this system; it is enough to state that even on its votaries it is beginning to pall. Some are looking back with regret to the old mixed-border gardens ; others are endeavouring to soften the harshness of the bedding system by the introduction of fine-leaved plants, but all are agreed that a great mistake has been made in destroying all our old flowers, from Lilies to Hepaticas, though very few persons indeed have any idea of the numbers of beautiful subjects in this way which we may gather from every northern and temperate clime to adorn our gardens under a more artistic system.

My object in the Wild Garden is now to show how we may have move 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 tails 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 hear 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.