THE FLOWER GARDEN IN WINTER. 251 



the flowers may be avoided, and the flowers will come later. The 

 plant is so free that, if the shoots are allowed to hang down, they 

 root in the ground like twitch, and therefore it can be increased very 

 easily, and should be seen in visible groups and lines, and not only on 

 the house or on walls, as in the milder districts it forms pretty garlands 

 and bashes in the open. I have a little oak fence covered with it, 

 which is usually very pretty about Christmas. In mild winters its 

 beauty is extraordinary out of doors, and in the hardest winters the 

 buds will open in the house. 



And when the Dogwood has lost all its leaves and is a deep red by 

 the lake, and the Cardinal Willow has nearly taken its winter colour, 

 the dwarf autumn blooming Furze flowers far into winter, and is in 

 perfect bloom on the drier ground, telling us of its high value where 

 dwarf vegetation not over a yard high is desired. It is seen in 

 abundance on many hills and moors, but is hardly ever planted by 

 design. A good plant for all who care for low foreground vegetation, 

 it may be planted like common furze, but by far the best way is to 

 sow it in spring in any bare or recently broken ground. The Common 

 Furze, too, of which the season of bloom is spring and mild winters, 

 often flowers at Christmas ; odd plants here and there in the colonies 

 of the plant bearing quite fresh flowers ; and if from the nature of 

 these native shrubs they do not find a place in the flower garden, 

 there are few country places where they may not be worth growing 

 not far from the house, in covert, or by drives or rough walks, as 

 no plants do more to adorn the late autumn and winter. 



The hardy Heaths are excellent for the winter garden in their 

 brown and grey tuftiness. The forms of the common Heather and 

 the Cornish Heath are best for rough places outside the flower-garden, 

 but some kinds of Heath are among the best plants for the choicest 

 winter garden of the open air, particularly the Portuguese Heath 

 (E. Codonodes), which in mild winters is of great beauty ; also a 

 hybrid between the Alpine forest Heath (E. carnea) and the Mediter- 

 ranean Heath, with the port and dense flowering habit of the Alpine 

 Heath and the earlier bloom of the Mediterranean Heath. The Alpine 

 forest Heath, the most precious of all hardy Heaths, often flowers 

 in mild winters, and in all winters is full of its buds ready to open. 



So far we are speaking of districts where there are few advantages 

 of climate ; if we include others there might be more flowers in the 

 winter-garden, and many varied flowers are seen in gardens in the 

 Isle of Wight, Isle of Man and many other favoured gardens not 

 always confined to the southern parts of England and Ireland : the 

 Cornish, Devon, South Wales or Cork Coasts being far more favour- 

 able. From these places Roses, Indian Daphne, and many other 

 flowers, have often been sent to me in perfect bloom in January. 



