24 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



CHAPTER III 



GREENHOUSE CLIMBERS 



A LARGE number of plants of strictly climbing habit, and 

 many others which are not climbers, but are made to serve 

 that purpose, are grown for the decoration of spacious 

 greenhouses and conservatories. They could not well be 

 grown so as to display their attractions of leaf and flower 

 unless they had the support of pillars or strained wires 

 near the rafters (see Plate XI) which fortunately provide 

 generally suitable conditions of light and air, and at the 

 same time afford easy means of screening with greenery 

 more or less unsightly features. It is worth while to grow 

 some climbers in tall greenhouses even though they do not 

 flower. Such large structures as the Palm House and 

 the Temperate House at Kew would have an unfurnished 

 appearance were it not for the climbers which are freely 

 used to drape pillar, gallery, and rafter. In smaller houses 

 there is little or no need to use climbers for the purposes 

 mentioned, but as a number of these plants can be really 

 well grown only in small houses, their cultivation is 

 practised to a considerable extent solely for the sake of 

 the plants themselves. At the same time, no good grower 

 of orchids would have climbers over his plants, as they 

 interfere with the regulation of sunlight and air in the 

 house, and they often harbour insects and other pests. 



The best of all structures for the display of plants of 

 climbing habit is the corridor greenhouse, usually a long, 

 lofty, narrow structure connecting a group of greenhouses 



