356 



ON THE DRAPERY OF COTTAGES AND GARDENS. 



tion to the north or east. One of them is 

 the Japan Honeysuckle, {Lonicera japoni- 

 ca, or Jlexuosa;*) the species with very- 

 dark, half evergreen leaves, and a profu- 

 sion of lovely delicate white and fawn 

 coloured blossoms. It is the queen of all 

 honeysuckles for cottage walls, or veranda 

 pillars ; its foliage is always so rich ; it 

 is entirely free from the white aphis, (which 

 is the pest of the old sorts,) and it blooms 

 (as soon as the plant gets strong,) nearly 

 the whole summer, — affording a perpetual 

 feast of beauty and fragrance. The other, 

 is the Sweet-scented Clematis, {C. ftamTmi- 

 la,) the very type of delicacy and grace, 

 whose flowers are broidered like pale stars 

 over the whole vine in midsummer, and 

 whose perfume is the most spiritual, im- 

 palpable, and yet far-spreading of all vege- 

 table odors. 



All the honeysuckles are beautiful in the 

 garden, though none of them, except the 

 foregoing, and what are familiarly called 

 the " trumpet honeysuckles," are fit for the 

 walls of a cottage, because they harbor in- 

 sects. Nothing, however, can well be pret- 

 tier than the Red and Yellow Trumpet 

 Honeysuckles, when planted together and 

 allowed to interweave their branches, con- 

 trasting the delicate straw colour of the 

 flower tubes of one, with the deep coral-red 

 hue of those of the other ; and they bloom 

 with a welcome prodigality from April to 

 December. 



Where you want to produce a bold and 

 picturesque effect vnth a vine, nothing will 

 do it more rapidly and completely than our 

 native grapes. They are precisely adapted 

 to the porch of the farm house, or to cover 

 any building, or part of a building, where 

 expression of strength rather than of deli- 

 cacy is sought after. Then you will find it 

 easy to smooth away all objections from 



* The " Chinese twining," of some gardens. 



the practical soul of the farmer, by offering 

 him a prospect of ten bushels of fine Isa- 

 bella or Catawba grapes a year, which you, 

 in your innermost heart, do not value half 

 so much as five or ten months of beautiful 

 drapery ! 



Next to the grape-vine, the boldest and 

 most striking of hardy vines is the Dutch- 

 man's pipe, {Aristolochia sipho.) It is a 

 grand twining climber, and will canopy 

 over a large arbor in a short time, and make 

 a shade under it so dense that not a ray of 

 pure sunshine will ever find its way 

 through. Its gigantic, circular leaves, of a 

 rich green, form masses such as delight a 

 painter's eye, — so broad and effective are 

 they ; and as for its flowers^ which are 

 about an inch and a half long, — why, they 

 are so like a veritable vieerschanvi — the 

 pipe of a true Dutchman from " Fader- 

 land" — that you cannot but laugh outright 

 at the first sight of them. Whether Daphne 

 was truly metamorphosed into the sweet 

 flower that bears her name, as Ovin says> 

 we know not ; but no one can look at the 

 blossom of the Dutchman's pipe vine, with- 

 out being convinced that nature has punish- 

 ed some inveterately lazy Dutch smoker by 

 turning him into a vine, which loves nothing 

 so well as to bask in the warm sunshine, 

 with its hundred pipes, dangling on all sides. 



And now, having glanced at the best of 

 the climbers and twiners, properly so called, 

 (all of which need a little training and sup- 

 porting,) let us take a peep at those climb- 

 ing shrubs that seize bold of a wall, build- 

 ing, or fence, of themselves, by throwing- 

 out their little rootlets into the stone or 

 brick wall as they grow up, so that it is as 

 hard to break up any attachments of theirs, 

 when they get fairly established, as it was 

 to part Hector and Andromache. The prin- 

 cipal of these are the true Ivy of Europe, the 

 Virginia Creeper, or American Ivy, and ih& 



