234 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



pretty things to make of it away from buildings, and among them 

 Ivy-clad and Ivy-covered wigwams, summer-houses, and covered 

 ways, the Ivy supported on a strong open frame-work. 



Box, which is a true native in certain dry hills in the south of 

 England, is so crowded in gardens that one seldom sees its beauty 

 as one may on the hills full in the sun, where the branches take a 

 plumy toss. To wander among natural groves of Box is pleasant, 

 and we should plant it in colonies by itself full in the sun, so 

 that it might show the same grace of form that it shows wild 

 on the chalk hills. It is, I think, the best of our native evergreens 

 for garden use, making pretty low hedges as at Panshanger, 

 and for dividing lines near the flower garden it is better than 

 Yew or Holly. 



Also among our native evergreens is the common Juniper, a 

 scrubby thing in some places, but on heaths in Surrey, and favoured 

 heaths elsewhere, often growing over twenty feet high and very 

 picturesque, especially where mingled with Holly. The upright 

 form, called the Irish Juniper, in gardens is not nearly so good as 

 the wild Juniper. 



The Arbutus, which borders nearly all the streams in Greece, 



ventures into Ireland, and is abundant there in certain parts in the 



south. This beautiful shrub, though tender in 



Arbutus. midland counties, is very precious for the seashore 



and mild districts not only as an evergreen, but 



for the beauty of its flowers and fruit. Still, it is the one British 



evergreen which must not be planted where the winters are severe 



in inland districts, and usually perishes on the London clay. It is 



the best of our native evergreens that deserve the preference, instead 



of the heavy Cherry Laurels and various evergreens not even hardy, 



so that after a hard frost we often see the suburbs of country towns 



black with their dead. 



One of the most baneful things in our gardens has been the 

 introduction of distorted and ugly conifers which often disfigure the 

 foregrounds of beautiful houses. These are often 

 Ugly evergreen sports and variations raised in modern days, as is 

 trees. the case with the too common Irish Yew. It is 



not only that we have to deplore the tender trees 

 of California, which in their own country are beautiful, though, 

 unhappily, not so in ours, but it is the mass of distorted, unnatural, 

 and ugly forms, the names of which disfigure even the best cata- 

 logues, that is most confusing and dangerous. In one foreign 

 catalogue there are no less than twenty-eight varieties of the Norway 

 Spruce, in all sorts of dwarf and monstrous shapes some of them, 

 indeed, dignified with the name monstrosa not one of which should 



