LA WNS AND PL A YGRO UNDS. 357 



double and white-stemmed brambles ; wild and single roses ; box 

 thorn, with its brilliant showers of berries ; European, American and 

 Japanese honeysuckles ; jasmines ; over fifty kinds of ivy, the noblest 

 of northern and evergreen climbers ; evergreen thorn, with its bright 

 berries ; cotoneasters of graceful habit ; clematises, especially the 

 graceful wild kinds of America, Europe, and North Africa. In mild 

 districts particularly, the winter blooming clematis of North Africa 

 and the Mediterranean Islands, which flowers in winter or early spring, 

 would be very pretty and give light shade. The showy trumpet 

 flowers (Bignonia}, quite hardy in southern and midland counties ; and 

 the Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia), with its large leaves, would also 

 be useful. The fine-leaved Lardizabala of Chili, the brilliant coral 

 barberry of the same country (Berberidopsis) ; the graceful, if not 

 showy silk vine (Periploca) of Southern Europe ; the Chinese Akebia, 

 the use of the rarer climbers depending much on the climate, elevation, 

 soil, and nearness to the sea. 



THE PLASHED ALLEY is an alternative to the yew hedge and the 

 covered way, but in some Elizabethan gardens it was often planted 

 with trees of too vigorous growth, such as the lime, which led to 

 excessive mutilation and eventual distortion of the tree. Now, with 

 our present great variety of trees some of them very graceful and light 

 in foliage it is by no means necessary to resort to such ugly muti- 

 lation ; and it would be easy, as an alternative to the pergola, the 

 clipped hedge or the plashed alley, to have a shaded walk of medium- 

 sized or low trees only. These might even be fruit trees ; but the 

 best would be such elegant-leaved trees as the acacias, which 

 preserve their leaves for a long time in summer. One drawback 

 of the lime, in addition to its excessive vigour, is the fact that it 

 sheds its leaves very early in the autumn, and, indeed, we have 

 often seen the leaves tumble off in St. James's Park at the end 

 of July, and in Paris also. It is most unpleasant to have in an alley 

 a tree which is liable to such an early loss of its leaves. The common 

 lime is a tree of the mountains and cool hills of Europe, and it cannot 

 endure great heats and hot autumns ; whereas some of the trees of 

 North America and other countries are quite fresh in the hottest days. 

 Among these none is better than the acacia, of which, in France 

 especially, a number of elegant varieties have been raised, as hardy 

 as the parent species which charmed William Cobett, but more 

 graceful in foliage. Among the best of these is the mimosa-leaved 

 acacia, an elegant tree, which gives us a pleasantly shaded walk, 

 and yet is not likely ever to become too coarse in habit. 



FINE TURF IN AND NEAR THE FLOWER GARDEN. Fine turf is 

 essential in and near the house and garden turf wholly apart from 



