78 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



ThiS'way of growing fruit trees and shading walks is not often 



seen, though few things would be prettier or more useful in gardens if 



fruit trees of high quality were chosen. Although 



Covered ways of in our gardens the shaded walk is not so necessary 



fruit trees. as it is in Italy and Southern France, in hot 



seasons shade is welcome in Britain ; and, as in 



many gardens we have four times as many walks as are needed, 



there is plenty of room for covering some of them with fruit trees 



which would give us flowers in spring, fruit in autumn, and light 



shade. The very substance of which walks are made is often good 



for fruit, and those who know the Apricot district of Oxfordshire 



and the neighbouring counties may see how well fruit trees do in 



hard walks. It is not only in kitchen and fruit gardens that their 



shade might be welcome, but in flower gardens too, if we ever get 



out of the common notion of a flower garden which insists on 



everything being seen at one glance and the whole as flat and hard 



as oilcloth. 



In some old gardens there was a way of " plashing " trees over 

 walks trees like the Lime, which grew so vigorously that they 

 had to be cut back with an equal vigour, this 

 Plashed alleys, leading in the end to ugliness in the excessive 

 mutilation of the trees. One result of the fre- 

 quent cutting was a vigorous summer growth of shoots, which 

 cast a dense shade and dripped in wet weather. The purpose of 

 such walks would be well fulfilled by training fruit trees over them, 

 as they are trees which much more readily submit to training and 

 give the light and airy shade which is best in our country. The 

 fruit trellis, whatever it is formed of, need not be confined to fruit 

 trees only, but here and there wreaths of Clematis or other elegant 

 climbers might vary the lines. 



Those who live in sheltered valleys on warm soils, or among 

 pleasant hills above the line of hard frosts, may be so rich in ever- 

 greens that they will keep their walls for the 

 Evergreens as fairest of true climbers. But in cold, exposed, 

 climbers. and inland parts people are often glad to have 

 good evergreens on walls, even bushes not natur- 

 ally climbers in habit, such as the choicer evergreen Barberries, 

 Camellias on the north sides of walls, Azara, Escallonia, Cotoneaster, 

 and evergreen Euonymus. The Laurustinus, too, is charming on 

 many cottage walls in winter, and may escape there when it 

 would suffer in the open ; the Myrtle is happy on walls in 

 southern districts, and even the Poet's Laurel may be glad of 

 the shelter of a wall in the north. The evergreen Magnolia, 

 which in warmer Europe is a standard tree, in our country must 



