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There has been some misunderstanding as to the term �Wild Garden.� It is applied essentially to the placing of perfectly hardy exotic plants in places and under conditions where they will become established and take care of themselves. It has nothing to do with the old idea of the �wilderness,� though it may be carried out in connection with that. It does not necessarily mean the picturesque garden, for a garden may be highly picturesque, and yet in every part the result of ceaseless care. What it does mean is best explained by the winter Aconite flowering under a grove of naked trees in February; by the Snowflake growing abundantly in meadows by the Thames side; by the perennial Lupine dyeing an islet with its purple in a Scotch river; and by the Apennine Anemone staining an English wood blue before the blooming of our blue bells. Multiply these instances a thousandfold, illustrated by many different types of plants and hardy climbers, from countries as cold or colder than our own, and one may get a just idea of the wild garden. Some have erroneously represented it as allowing a garden to run wild, or sowing annuals promiscuously; whereas it studiously avoids meddling with the garden proper at all, except in attempting the improvements of bare shrubbery borders in the London parks and elsewhere; but these are waste spaces, not gardens.
I wish it to be kept distinct in the mind from the various important phases of hardy plant growth in groups, beds, and borders, in which good culture and good taste may produce[viii] many happy effects; distinct from the rock garden or the borders reserved for choice hardy flowers of all kinds; from the best phase of the sub�tropical garden�that of growing hardy plants of fine form; from the ordinary type of spring garden; and from the gardens, so to say, of our own beautiful native flowers in our woods and wilds. How far the wild garden may be carried out as an aid to, or in connection with, any of the above in the smaller class of gardens, can be best decided on the spot in each case. In the larger gardens, where, on the outer fringes of the lawn, in grove, park, copse, or by woodland walks or drives, there is often ample room, fair gardens and wholly new and beautiful aspects of vegetation may be created by its means.
