CHAPTER XXXVII 



PLEACHED OR GREEN ALLEYS 



IN the old days the pleached alley was as familiar 

 in English gardens as the pergola of the present 

 age. Both are interesting, and both provide grate- 

 ful shadowed walks in the heat of summer. The 

 trees most generally used in the fashioning of 

 pleached alleys were the Hornbeam and Lime, 

 both native of this country, but green alleys have 

 been made of Yew, of Ootoneaster buxifolia, of 

 Holly, and other evergreens. There are flowering 

 Cherries of weeping habit that would suit well for 

 such treatment, and several other small trees of 

 pendulous growth, such as Laburnum, Weeping 

 Ash, and the large-leaved Weeping Elm. There 

 is an important green alley at West Dean, near 

 Chichester, of Laburnum only. 



The green alley differs from the pergola in that 

 the pergola has solid and permanent supports, its 

 original purpose, in addition to the giving of shade, 

 being to support vines. The green alley, being 

 made of stiffer and more woody growths, only 

 needs a temporary framework to which to train 

 the trees till they have filled the space and formed 

 the shape. Hornbeam was the tree most used in 

 former ages, and for a simple green alley nothing 



