Like William Kent, Dame's Rocket leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden

Having visited a very interesting nursery ( Fiddlehead Nursery in Kimberly, Ontario , which specializes in rare perennial vegetables) we were driving back on a rural road, when we saw a sign for a nature reserve with a water falls. We stopped to look at it and were pleased to discover that an unadvertised premium came with the water falls: an abandoned garden.I do not know how long it has been abandoned, but some of the plants have had time to run amuck. The most spectacular was Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) which covered a few acres and was a sight to see. You can just imagine the heady perfume such a lot of blooms produce. I had not realized Dame's Rocket could be so invasive. It is a beautiful place, very peaceful, with, among tall grass and ferns, the garden plants that have been able to survive in complete neglect. There were some late blooming tulips which looked very good among ferns.There were long drifts of day lilies and phlox that were not yet in bloom, but the drifts of irises and the flowering shrubs were at their best.One is tempted to speculate about what did not survive. There must have been some lilies and some hostas when the garden was tended, but there are no trace of any of them now.The most unexpeted plants are probably the tree peonies. There are at least ten of these, all white or purple, that are fighting for their place in the sun through the grass. I was especially surprised that no one had dug them up.As expected, the real thugs have established a good foothold.But some plants you would think would be thugs barely survive. This is the case of Euphorbia polychroma and Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum).The few aquilegias were the double pink and the double blue often called "Granny's Bonnets", which grow on road shoulders around here. You would not think such delicate and attractive flowers could hold its own.At first we thought the house must have burned down, but we did not find any trace of it. We concluded that the garden had been made from the start in the country, far from any house (perhaps by the family who gave the land for this reserve).The pump that must have been used to water the garden was still in perfect working order.What about the falls? My photos of the water falls were not very good but you can see it through this link