348 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



there are so many in the level country, is that which is perhaps the 

 most easy of all to keep cool, airy and sunny too. 



But in large open flower gardens, which are often bare and hard, 

 it is better to have some light shade. Great areas of gravel and flat 

 beds everywhere are most tiresome to the eye, and in many large 

 flower gardens, it would be an improvement to have covered ways 

 of Rose and Jasmine or wreaths of Clematis and alleys of graceful 

 trees such as the Mimosa-leaved Acacia, or other light and graceful 

 trees. In that way we should get some of the light and shade 

 which are so much wanted in these large chessboard gardens, and in 

 getting the shade we might also get trees beautiful in themselves, or 

 carrying wreaths of Wistaria or other climbers. 



Among the most beau|;iful shade-giving trees are the weeping 

 ones, which in our own day are many and beautiful, among them, the 

 Weeping Ash, of which we see many trees even in the London 

 squares. We are all so busy with exotics from many parts of the 

 world, that the native tree does not always get a fair chance, and 

 yet no deciduous tree ever brought to our country is for form and 

 dignity finer than the mountain or Wych Elm. Trees over twenty 

 feet round are not rare, and, being a native of the mountains of 

 Northern England, its hardiness need never be in doubt. This tree 

 is the parent of the large-leaved Weeping Elm (of which there are so 

 many good trees to be seen), and the wild tree itself in its old 

 age has also a weeping habit. But the weeping garden form is quite 

 distinct and a tree of remarkable character and value, and like other 

 weeping trees, it increases in beauty with age, like the grand old 

 Weeping Beeches at Knaphill. The various Weeping Willows afford 

 a w^elcome shade, and the White Willow and any of its forms give a 

 pleasant light shade. 



A fine kind of shade is that given by a group of Yews on a lawn 

 near the house on a hot day — a living tent without cost, and this is 

 almost true of any spreading tree giving noble shade, as the great Oak 

 in the pleasure ground at Shrubland. There are many noble Horse 

 Chestnuts which give great shade, as at Busbridge, and the Plane tree 

 in Southern England gives noble shade. 



There is no more beautiful lawn tree than the Tulip tree, and 

 nothing happier in our country on an English lawn, in which its 

 delightful shade and dignity are very welcome in hot weather, 

 as at Esher Place and Woolbeding. Petworth also has a fine tree, 

 but rather closed in by others. Owing partly to the attractive 

 catalogues of conifers and other trees not of half the value of this 

 from any point of view, young trees of these fine deciduous things are 

 not so often planted as they used to be ; and why should not a tree 

 like this be grouped now and then, instead of being left in solitary state ? 



