[Illustration: _MALE FERN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
The dark trees on the right have rambling Roses growing into them--Paul's Carmine Pillar and the Himalayan _R. Brunonis_. The red Rose does not flower so freely here as on a pillar in sunlight, but its fewer stems clamber high into the Holly and the bloom shows in thin natural wreaths that are even more pleasing to an artist's eye than the more ordered abundance of the flowery post. At the foot of the Hollies hardy Ferns grow luxuriantly in the constant shade. A little later a few clumps of Lilies will spring up from among them; the lovely pink _rubellum_, the fine yellow _szovitzianum_, and the buff _testaceum_.
On the left-hand side, behind the sunny bank, a Garland Rose comes through and tumbles out of a Yew, and some sprays of an old bush of the single _R. polyantha_, that has spread to a circumference of one hundred and fifty feet, have pushed their way through the Ilex.
The Hollies and Ilexes all round are growing fast, and before many years are over the little garden will become too shady for the well-being of the flowers that now occupy it. It will then change its character and become a Fern garden.
All gardening involves constant change. It is even more so in woodland. A young bit of wood such as mine is for ever changing. Happily, each new development reveals new beauty of aspect or new possibility of good treatment, such as, rightly apprehended and then guided, tends to a better state than before.
Meanwhile the little tree-embowered garden has a quiet charm of its own. It seems to delight in its character of a Hidden Garden, and in the pleasant surprise that its sudden discovery provokes. For between it and its owner there is always a pretty little play of pretending that there is no garden there, and of being much surprised and delighted at finding, not only that there is one, but quite a pretty one.
The Hidden Garden is so small in extent, and its boundaries are already so well grown, that there is no room for many of the beautiful things of the time of year. For May is the time for the blooming of the most important of our well-known flowering shrubs--Lilac, Guelder Rose, White Broom, Laburnum, and _Pyrus Malus floribunda_. But one shrub, as beautiful as any of these and as easily grown, seems to be forgotten. This is _Exochorda grandiflora_--related to the Spiræas. Its pearl-like buds have earned it the name of Pearl Bush, but its whole lovely bloom should before now have secured it a place in every good garden.