Evergreen covert 89 



a dozen years ; it never turns a leaf in any frost, and is 

 a close and excellent covert. 



Rhododendrons are often planted, but it is the common 

 pontic kind, which, used as a stock, ends by kiUing the 

 good kinds grafted on it. If, however, we take to layer- 

 ing our brilliant kinds of hardy Rhododendrons, then we 

 shall have such underwood effect as no garden can rival. 

 It is not necessary to put the finer and hardier Rhodo- 

 dendrons, raised mostly from the hardy North America 

 kinds, on the somewhat tender ponticum, and, if nursery- 

 men will not layer them, every one who has a good kind 

 should layer it for himself wherever the plant grows. 

 Some of the best nurseries now have already good 

 stocks of the finer kinds on their own roots, and are 

 preparing more. These in cool woods would almost 

 layer themselves, and give a splendour of colour in 

 summer that no man's planting could surpass. 



Box. There is no more useful evergreen covert than 

 this for chalky, light, and warm soils, and for growing 

 where it would be hard to establish covert from foreign 

 shrubs. Few who only see Box weary and drawn in 

 the shrubbery have any idea of its beauty massed on an 

 open down. As an evergreen group on a hot and poor 

 bluff in a wood it is fine in effect, and an excellent and 

 warm covert. Happily, this native evergreen loves our 

 poorest and driest soils, of which there is such a vast 

 area in the southern counties. Box will thrive on chalky 

 wastes where no other shrub appears, and, fortunately, 

 it is so distasteful to rabbits that it is let alone in places 

 infested by them. 



The Evergreen Barberry [Berberis Aquifolium). This 

 is a pretty evergreen, and a free grower in many peaty, 

 open soils, but not so free in certain heavy soils. As, 



