April Showers 



as well look at the large bush of Golden-fruited Ivy, by 

 the side of the Magnolia. Just now, when its fruits are 

 turning yellow, and before the birds have given picnics to 

 all their friends to come and eat them, it is worth looking 

 at. It has grown so large and looked so heavy that as 

 you see I have short-coated it, trimmed off its petticoats 

 up to its knees, like the good lady of nursery rhyme fame, 

 and this gives a better chance in life to the Crocus Tomasi- 

 nianus colony of February beauty, and the mass of the 

 orange-coloured Welsh Poppy which glows beneath it in 

 May. I am very fond of these fruiting bush Ivies, and 

 whenever I see Russell's wonderful groups of them at the 

 shows I long to be able to buy and group the whole lot in 

 the garden. They are not separate arboreal varieties but 

 only the fruiting branches of various Ivies cut off and 

 struck, and if really woody flowering portions are chosen 

 for this they very seldom send out any creeping shoots, 

 but grow into wonderfully shapely bushes, good to look at 

 all the year round. This golden-fruited form Hedera Helix, 

 var. chrysocarpa, is one of the best, and very pretty when in 

 fruit. It has also been called Hedera poetarum as it is 

 plentiful in Italy and Greece, and was the Ivy associated 

 with the worship of Bacchus, and much more suitable for 

 garlands with its cheerful golden fruits than our native 

 variety and its dull black berries. 



I have an Ivy that was given to me with the reputation 

 of bearing scarlet berries. No book mentions it, and had 

 it been offered me by any ordinary gardener I should not 

 have believed in its refulgent fruit, even if I accepted the 

 plant, but my generous friend its donor knows plants as well 

 as anyone, so I anxiously await the production of berries. 

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