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CLUB 



GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



THE 



HORTICULTURIST. 



DEVOTED TO HORTICULTURE. ARBOR/CULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 



Edited by THOMAS MEEHAN. 



Volume XXV. 



JANUARY, 1883. 



Number 289. 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Asking a friend, who had a beautiful rural resi- 

 dence, why she did not plant vines, or creepers as 

 the English would say, over the walls, she replied 

 by referring to a mutual acquaintance who had 

 done so with the result of making the walls so 

 damp that the vines had to be cut away. It so 

 happened that we knew all about the affair. The 

 vines were allowed to cover the eaves, over the 

 gutters and push their way in under the shingles 

 of the roof. Thus obstructed, the water made its 

 way down into the wall, froin the top under the 

 roof, and of course the wall was wet. Vines 

 should always be kept cut down below the roof 

 It is a little trouble to do this once a year, but we 

 cannot get even our shoes blacked without some 

 trouble. Those who know how beautiful and how 

 cosy looks a vine-covered cottage will not object 

 to the few hours' labor it requires to keep vines 

 from stopping up the gutter. Vines really make a 

 wall dry. The millions of rootlets by which they 

 adhere to the wall absorb water ; and an examina- 

 tion will prove a vine-covered wall to be as "dry 

 as an old bone." One great advantage of a vine- 

 covered cottage, not often thought of, is that it- is 

 cooler in summer and warmer in winter than when 

 there is but a mere naked wall. There are only a 

 few vines that will cling of their own accord. 



These are the varieties of the English Ivy, the 

 Trumpet vine, and the different kinds of Ampelop- 

 sis ; and even the English Ivy will not stick to 

 smooth walls. But if the Trumpet vine or the 

 Ampelopsis be planted with the ivy, the latter will 

 cling to the other vines as well as to the wall, and 

 then keep safe hold. The evergreen Euonymus 

 makes a good self-climbing vine, though not as 

 much used as it really deserves to be. In order 

 to have the beauty of variety which the great 

 number of hardy vines affords, it is best to have 

 trellises over the face of the walls. These are best 

 made of strong galvanized wire. Iron hooks 

 should be fastened, by melted sulphur, into stones 

 sunk under ground, and others up under the eaves, 

 and the wires attached to these. Cross wires can 

 then be fastened to these, so as to make the meshes 

 about a foot apart. Properly done these wires will 

 last a lifetime, and the vines will, with a very little 

 help, make their way of their own accord up the 

 wires. Recently the writer noted a plant of the 

 red-berried Pyracantha' trained up over wires in 

 this way. Evergreen, and covered by bright red 

 berries, few things could make a cottage wall more 

 gay. Wires, trellises, and other preparations can 

 be . made .for this vine planting before the spring- 

 time comes. 



The chief enjoyment in this department at this 

 season, lies in planning out the necessary improve- 



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