164 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



that they reached the year previous, and no more ; 

 and shrubs do not in the autumn end in 'kecksies,' 

 which require removal. 



Shrubs, when fully groAvn, are near the eye — a 

 matter of no little consequence when the time comes in 

 which stooping is a weariness. 



On rock-works, shrubs are indispensable, though most 

 people are afraid of them; but a rock- work without 

 shrubs looks bare and unnatural, and the great success 

 of the large new rock-work at Kew may be largely 

 attributed to the free use of shrubs. 



I by no means wish to exclude the growth of herba- 

 ceous plants and Alpines — quite the contrary, and so I 

 give as my last reason for the growth of shrubs that 

 nothing is so useful as a protection for tender plants, 

 It is too much the fashion to keep every plant in a 

 border as separate as possible from its neighbour ; but 

 we have only to go to the nearest hedgerow to see how 

 plants flourish by nestling into each other ; and on the 

 barest Alpine hillsides the plants love to get near the 

 shelter of the low shrubs, and even grow so much 

 among the roots as to appear almost parasitical. To 

 dwell under the shadow of something better and 

 stronger than one's self is as good for flowers as it is for 

 man, and Spenser taught this truth in the pretty fable 

 of the ' Oake and the Brere.' The Avhole tale is in the 



