286 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



evergreen, often bearing pretty flowers and good in colour at all 

 seasons, spreading into pretty carpets easily, and quite hardy, taking 

 often a deeper green in winter, so that used over permanent beds 

 they help to adorn the flower-beds in winter. Through them in the 

 dawn of spring the early Crocus, Scilla, and Windflower come up 

 to find themselves in green turf of Thyme; Rockfoil ; Stonecrop ; 

 varying these according to soil, altitude or position ; the cooler 

 north favouring many mountain plants, though some face the ardours 

 of the warmer sun. 



A grievous source of wasted effort in gardens is monotony arising 



from everybody growing what his neighbour grows. Thus it comes 



that the poor nurseryman who attempts to grow 



Monotony. new or rare trees or shrubs very often finds them 



left on his hands, so that many country nurseries 



only grow a few stereotyped things, and we see public gardens and 



squares in London given over to the common Privet, the common 



Lilac let to run as a weed, and the common Elder, as in Lincoln's 



Inn Fields. 



Every lover of the garden could do something to check this fatal 

 monotony by taking up some plant, or family of plants, for himself, 

 which perhaps he is unable to find in the nursery gardens near at 

 hand. There are not only many beautiful species of plant which 

 are excluded from the ordinary nurseries, but even special nurseries, 

 as those for Roses, often exclude good kinds from their collections. 

 It is not only the introduction of new plants or species we have to 

 think of, but the raising of new forms (hybrids or varieties), the fine 

 cultivation of neglected groups, as the beautiful forms of our native 

 Primrose, the making more artistic use of old and well-known plants, 

 the skilful adaptation of plants and trees to the soil so as to get the 

 highest beauty of which it is capable without excessive care, and 

 without the deaths visible in many places after hard winters. Those 

 who seek to break the monotony of gardens must be prepared to face 

 some trouble, and must not take the least notice of what is thought 

 right in the neighbourhood, or of what can be obtained from the 

 nearest nursery garden. The further afield they look, probably 

 the better in the end it will be for them if they would escape 

 from the trammels of monotony. 



Perhaps the most miserable of all garden-work is that of nailing 



the shoots of trees to walls, on cold days, and the value of climbing 



plants now in our gardens is so great, that the 



Attaching best mode of attaching them to walls is a question 



climbers to walls, which, though it may seem a small one from some 



points of view, is important, and by no means 



settled for the best. In our self-styled scientific age the age also of 



