THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



obtainable forms is just as precious, as it blooms so early, it will grow 

 almost anywhere, and it brightens up a landscape as no other plant 

 does. We have only to place it in any rough spots to enjoy it 

 without care. Native shrubs should not be neglected ; the wild single 

 Guelder Rose is as pretty a shrub as any from across the sea, while 

 all the hardy kinds may give us good and bold effects grouped with 

 or near such bushes as Deutzias, Weigelas, Mock Oranges — all plants 

 of high value and much variety. 



From an artistic point of view nothing is better than groups of our 

 hardy Heaths in any open place where room can be found for them, 

 including white heather and all other strong varieties of heather, as 

 well as all other kinds of hardy Heaths. After planting they give 

 little trouble, and they are good in colour even in winter, being 

 generally happiest out of the garden proper, where any other wild 

 plants may be allowed to grow among them. No doubt, the choicest 

 and smallest of these Heaths deserve careful garden culture, but for 

 effect the forms of our common Heather, the Cornish and Irish 

 Heaths, are the best, and in bold masses not primly kept, but, once 

 well rooted, allowed to mingle with any pretty wild plants. We 

 might even assist this idea by sowing or planting other things, such as 

 Foxgloves, Harebells, or the small Furze, among the Heaths. When 

 Heaths are grown in this way their bloom is charming from the first 

 peep of spring, when the little rosy Heath of the mountains of central 

 Europe begins to open, till the autumn days, and even the mild winter 

 ones, when the delicately tinted Portuguese Heath (E. codonodes) 

 blooms in the south and west of England. 



We take little notice of such minor things as the Fire-bush, so 

 lovely in Cornwall, and pretty also in other seashore districts, as it 

 may not be enjoyed in the country generally, and we also leave out 

 some others, like the Witch and Japan Hazels, the Winter-sweet, and 

 the x^llspice bushes, which, though pretty seen near at hand, do not 

 give us those definite effects in the garden landscape which it is well to 

 seek if we wish to get out of the fatal jumble of the common shrub- 

 bery. The Escallonias, though very precious in seashore gardens and 

 in the south on warm soils, are apt to go into mourning after hard 

 winters elsewhere. So many of our island gardens are near the sea 

 that we must not undervalue these shrubs, but a constant source 

 of waste is the planting of things not really hardy in districts where 

 they perish in hard winters, such as the Arbutus about London and in 

 the midlands. And, even where things seem hardy, some of them, 

 like Fuchsias, never give the charming effects we get from them in 

 the west of Ireland, in Wales, and in warm coast gardens, whatever 

 care we take. Such facts should not discourage, because they only 

 emphasise the lesson that the true way in a garden is for each to do 



