IN MY LADY'S GARDEN 



able in every way in small pots, and when they are about 

 five years old they should be discarded for smaller specimens, 

 although they are then very useful in tubs in a porch or 

 verandah, on the leads of a town house, in balconies, or in 

 the garden. 



Viburnum tinus, though often confused with the laurel 

 tribe, belongs in reality to the honeysuckle order capri- 

 foliaceae. There are several varieties, some of which blossom 

 earlier than the rest. Laurestinus lucidum is one of the 

 finest, with broad oval leaves and larger flowers than the 

 type ; but it blooms later than some others, and for autumn 

 blooming the commoner variety may be preferred, a counsel 

 of perfection being to grow both kinds, using the autumnal 

 blooming plants for the present season, and changing them 

 after they have flowered for those which blossom in the early 

 spring. With them may well be associated the bright coral 

 berries of the Aucuba japonica, and this is a perfectly hardy 

 plant, which will exist even in the heart of London (if its 

 foliage be kept fairly clean by syringing it often), so that it 

 might well take the place of the dismal little cypresses too 

 often seen in town window-boxes in winter, its handsome 

 spotted leaves and large red berries being vastly superior to 

 them. It can be cultivated from slips in exactly the same way 

 as the laurestinus, but the young plants do not blossom until 

 they are three years old, and they should then stand close to 

 a male aucuba (for this shrub is dioecious, i.e., it produces 

 its flowers of either sex on differing plants), or the berries 

 will not be produced. The male aucuba is not so handsome 

 as the female plant, its leaves are narrower, and lack the 

 spots of the berry-bearing aucuba ; but the two should always 

 be planted near together if berries are to be produced, and it 

 is easy to lift the pot plants of the spotted aucuba out of the 

 window-boxes in March (as soon as blooms are apparent), 

 placing them within a yard or so of the male shrub, when 

 the wind will convey the necessary pollen to their stamens. 

 The berries, which are green during the autumn, turn a 

 brilliant carmine after Christmas, and are then most decora- 

 tive ; fortunately birds do not touch them, and therefore 



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