CHAPTER XI 

 CLIMBERS FOR THE LITTLE GARDEN 



WHETHER it be in those " high-walled gardens green 

 and old," or in the town or suburban villa garden with 

 which this book more particularly deals, garden life 

 would lose half its charm without the climbing plants. 

 If the flowers are the pictures, the creeping and climb- 

 ing plants are the poetry of the garden. It may be 

 ' yon ivy-mantled tower," or 



" the gardener's lodge 



With all its casements bedded, and its walls 

 And chimneys muffled in the leafy Vine." 



A cottage porch embowered in Jasmine, Honey- 

 suckle, or Traveller's Joy, a stately pergola where 

 Clematis and Rose, Vine, Honeysuckle, and Wistaria 

 interlace their clinging branches in an affection born, 

 like other affections, of a desire for mutual support, or 

 it may be by some grey ruin where 



" Overhead the wandering Ivy and the Vine, 

 This way and that in many a wild festoon ran riot " 



all tell the same story, that it is the climbing frailties 

 in the garden, holding on for support to more rugged, 

 though perhaps grander, strength, that give it grace 

 and elegance. 



There is, however, no garden planting that requires 

 more careful consideration than the planting of 



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