CHAPTER XXXI. 



AIR AND SHADE. 



THE glorious sun of heaven, giver of life and joy to the earth, 

 gives, too, the green fountains of life we call trees to shade her, and 

 this beautiful provision might often be borne in mind in thinking of 

 our often hard and bare gardens ! Air and shade, as we cannot, 

 near houses in hot weather, enjoy the shade without free air, and shade 

 may be often misused to cultivate mouldiness and keep the breeze 

 away from a house, though it is very easy to have air and shade in a 

 healthy way. To overshade the house itself with trees is always a 

 mistake, and sometimes a danger, though even against a house, by the 

 use of climbers, like Vines, pretty creeper-clad pergola, and by the 

 wise use of rooms open to the air, creeper-shaded, flat spots on roofs, 

 so often seen in Italy and France, it is easy to have welcome shade 

 even forming part, as it were, of the house. We have the gain, 

 too, of the grace and bloom of the climbers, from climbing Tea 

 Roses to Wistaria, and we get rid of the bald effect of such houses 

 as Syon and the excruciating effect of the newer French chateaux, 

 often on the warm side without gardens or shade of any kind, and 

 hard as a new bandbox. 



A little away from the house, shade of a bolder kind is always 

 worth planning for. In planting for shade it is well to select with 

 some care and avoid things that have a bad odour when in flower, 

 like the Ailantus and the Manna Ash and ill-smelling undergrowth 

 like Privet. In many places there is a fine field for cutting groups 

 of pleasant shade trees out of the crammed shrubbery, neglected as 

 that so often is, with dark barriers of Laurel, Privet, and Portugal 

 Laurel. Nothing is easier than sweeping off and burning much of 

 this evergreen rubbish, and getting instead shade over cool walks, or 

 over paths leading through Ferns and Foxgloves ; such woodland 

 plants allow us to get light and shade and do not weaken the trees. 



Vain attempts are often made in our gardens, public and private, 

 to get grass to grow under certain trees which it would be much 

 better to frankly accept as they are and gravel the spaces beneath 



