7 o THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



Pretty fences and dividing screens may also be easily formed by 

 hardy climbers. The wild kinds of Clematis are charming, and, 

 apart from their use in the garden, they should be encouraged for 

 trees and banks. 



The Ivy of our northern woods has broken into a number of 

 beautiful varieties often distinct in form and even in colour; they 



deserve far more attention for evergreen bowers, 

 Ivies. evergreen fences, and dividing lines, apart from 



their growth on walls and trees. The bush forms 

 of these may make broken hedge-like garlands 2 feet to 3 feet 

 high round little isolated flower gardens, Almost equally beautiful 

 plants in form of leaf are the Green Briers (Smilax). some of which 

 are hardy in England, but seen in few gardens, and rarely treated 

 in an artistic way, though excellent for walls and rocks. In the 

 eastern counties they may be seen doing well in the open ground, 

 as in Cambridge. 



Of the beauty of the Jasmine of all climbers there is least need 

 to speak, yet how rarely one sees the old white Jasmine made good 

 use of in large gardens. It should be in bold wreaths or masses 

 where it thrives, and so also the winter Jasmine, which is a precious 

 thing for our country, should not be put in as a plant or two in 

 bad conditions, but treated as a fine distinct thing in masses round 

 cottages and outhouses. The finest of hardy climbers, the Wistaria, 

 is much more frequently and rightly planted in France than in our 

 gardens, though it thrives in the Thames valley as well as in the 

 Seine valley. It should be, in addition to its use on walls and 

 houses, made into bold, covered ways and bowers and trained up 

 trees, and even along Oak fences. 



It is not only that stout climbers are more beautiful and 

 natural, and show their form better growing amongst trees, but it 



is the best way that many of them can be grown 

 Climbers on trees, with safety owing to their vigour. The way the 



common Ivy wreaths the trees in rich woods, 

 and the wild Clematis throws ropes up trees on the chalk hills, shows 

 what the larger hardy climbers do over trees or rough or open 

 copses, or even now and then in hedgerows. Some vigorous climbers 

 would in time ascend the tallest trees, and there is nothing more 

 beautiful than a veil of Clematis montana running over a tall tree. 

 Besides the well-known climbers, there are species of Clematis which 

 have never come into general cultivation, but which are beautiful for 

 such uses, though not all showy. The same may be said of the 

 Honeysuckles, wild Vines, and various other families with which much 

 of the northern tree and shrub world is garlanded. Occasionally one 

 sees a climbing Rose rambling over a tree, and perhaps among our 



