62 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



The Brooms have many effective plants, and none more so than, 

 the common and the Spanish Brooms, which should be massed on 

 banks, or where they will come into the picture, and some of the 

 smaller Brooms are excellent for rock gardens. The Furze in all its 

 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 

 Hardy Heaths, 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 prpper, 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, Hairbells, 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 Allspice 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 

 shrubbery. 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 



