AIR AND SHADE. 353 



and preventing all chance of light and shade, and even shutting out 

 air and beauty. 



We cannot do much good, in such cases, unless we first destroy 

 the Privet and facile evergreens, like Laurels, which overrun every- 

 thing, and then comes the question of the plants which will grow best 

 in such places, as shade in gardens varies whether it comes from 

 light-leaved or heavy-leaved trees, and there are so many different 

 degrees of shade. We should think of the plants that grow in woody 

 places naturally, as in our woods we may see handsome tall Grasses, 

 Foxgloves, large Ferns, herbaceous plants like the French Willow 

 and the Ragwort, tall Harebells, and many ground plants like 

 Primroses and Bluebells. There is not any hard and fast line 

 between plants that grow in shady places and other herbaceous plants, 

 although some difference exists, and there are so many varieties of 

 climate, elevation, and conditions of soil that the plants often vary in 

 their ways. Foxgloves and Bracken, which are seen happy in the 

 woods of the south, thrive on sunny rocky places in the north, so that 

 there is an interplay among these things which helps us in making 

 our gardens more varied. Not only we have to consider wood plants, 

 but the fact that a great many plants of the northern world grow in 

 partial shade, and we could arrange our borders, if we get out of stiff 

 ways, so as to let the plants often run from the light into the shade. 



In making borders through groves or shrubberies, it would be easy 

 to have no hard line at the back of the border, but simply let 

 the plants run in and enjoy the shade here and there. Where there 

 might be some doubt of choice herbaceous plants thriving in shade 

 there need be no doubt as to the larger woodland ferns and such 

 plants as Solomon's Seal. 



Among the interesting plants that thrive in shade are alpine and 

 mountain plants. Many of these, being shrouded in clouds and 

 enduring much rain in cool gorges, very often rejoice in shady places, 

 as the varieties of the Irish Rockfoil (Saxifraga Geum), which carpet 

 the ground in places that the sun never touches. Other Rockfoils 

 have the same habit, including the large Indian kinds and their 

 varieties. The Irises are often very beautiful in half-shady places, 

 German Irises especially. By planting, too, in various aspects, shade 

 and open, we get a succession of favourite flowers, that under a hot 

 sun last but a short time. In the cooler light their colours have a 

 greater charm — the blues more tender, the deeper colours still richer. 



Paeonies are never handsomer than in subdued light, their colours 

 richer and longer lasting than when bleached by the sun. This is 

 true especially of the frailer single forms, which open out quickly 

 under a hot sun and are gone all too soon. Many beautiful plants are 

 happiest in the shade — not too dense — but where the sun's rays filter 



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