38 FLOWERS AND THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



A careful mixture of trees which leaf early with those 

 which put out late will keep up a pleasant variety in the 

 green of screens and shrubberies, from the first bright 

 shoots of spring to the time when Autumn dips his 

 brush in warm colouring, and dashes away among the 

 foliage at random, as if to keep among us, to the pleased 

 eye, the warmth we are so soon to lose. 



-For trees of bold foliage we have the catalpa, the horse 

 chestnut, and the sycamore. For contrast to these, there 

 are the birch, the lady of the woods, with her light 

 feathery drooping sprays ; the larch, with its peculiar 

 growth and light tender green in spring; and the broom, 

 contrasting with the others in the line-like straightness of 

 its up-springing growth. There is no end to the variety 

 which judicious planting and planning may effect in 

 shrubberies and screens. 



The different kinds of Ivy, some of which are splendidly 

 variegated with green and yellow, and green and stone 

 colour, and of which the varieties vary so much in size af 

 leaf that they are like quite different plants, may be used 

 in a flower garden in many ways to promote picturesque 

 effect. Ivy is useful wherever a bare place has to be 

 covered in small space of time. It will do for a wall, 

 trellis, dead tree, or paling ; or to cover the little rising 

 ground round a pillar, fountain, or statue, provided of 

 course that it will not be walked on or even stepped on. 

 It will often grow where nothing else will. The broad- 

 leaved Irish ivy grows the fastest of any kind. Some of 

 the beautiful variegated sorts are Hedera latifolia macu- 

 lata, a roundish-leafed sort, margined with pale yellow ; 

 Hedera Hibernica foliis variegata, which has a somewhat 

 narrow leaf, with a green patch in the middle, the rest 

 yellow ; Hedera lielix maculata, with leaves rather deeply 

 cut, and irregularly but deeply margined with yellow ; 

 the new silver edge, a very small-leaved ivy, with a silver 

 edge ; gold striped, an elegant cut leaf, beautifully 

 variegated ; Hedera elegantissima, a plant with splendid 

 leaves, irregularly and showily blotched with green and 

 yellow ; and last, not least, the old silver edge, an ivy of 

 splendid large foliage, beautifully mottled with white 



