Sunshine and Shade 



shrubs is not only ugly in itself, but it loses the 

 great help in the cultivation of plants which trees 

 and shrubs will give. 



I do not mean to say that gardeners should 

 avoid putting their tender plants in the sun 

 altogether, and there is one class of plants to 

 which I would give all the sun I could find for 

 them. These are the early spring flowers. In 

 their own country they may be wood or marsh 

 plants, but with us they are all the better for, and 

 fully deserve, the sunniest spots we can give them. 

 I mean such plants as the spring cyclamens, early 

 irises, crocuses, snowdrops, etc. But the point I 

 wish to bring out is not only that a shady garden 

 is not a garden in which gardening can only be 

 carried on under difficulties, but that shade and 

 protection, whether from trees, shrubs, or walls, 

 are great helps to the gardener, and that without 

 them it is really hopeless to make the garden a 

 thing of delight. 



The old writers, and some modern ones, have 

 loved to moralise on the beauties of living under 

 the shadow of a protecting power. Spenser has 

 a short fable about a bramble that resents the 

 neighbourhood of a great oak ; but when the oak 

 was cut down he was "naked left and disconsolate" 

 and died ; and Shakespeare says : 



The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, 



and draws a moral. But the moral is too obvious 

 to require me to dwell further upon it. 

 E 65 



