46 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



growth, and the great beauty of flowers that many of them have, 

 we must admit they are entitled to a more important place in our 

 gardens. The free use of the Clematis family alone would give a 

 thousand-fold more beauty than is obtainable with the most lavish 

 use of bedding plants, and here we not only consider the large 

 flowered type but the smaller flowered sorts as well, with their 

 luxuriance of growth and their charming effect, when used as tree, 

 shrub, hedge, or fence drapery. And then the Climbing Roses — 

 what a glorious possibility here, with their showers of bloom ia 

 June. 



Climbei's will not exhibit their best charms if trained in a stiff 

 and formal manner ; they must, in whatever position used, be 

 allowed to grow untrammeled. My neighbor's garden furnished a 

 good illustration of this. He planted common Morning Glories all 

 about his porch, with the intention of training them on strings 

 later, but he was diverted from his intention and the Morning 

 Glories were allowed to grow as they would. The effect was most 

 charming ; they clambered over every shrub they could reach, 

 shared a trellis with a Clematis, and, where they could find nothing 

 to climb on, formed mounds of green of the most tangled and 

 pleasing description. Morning Glories, common as they are, if 

 used rightly, produce the most delightful effects. One of the right 

 ways is to sow them among tall grass, or among low bushes and 

 shrubbery, and as they renew themselves annually from seed they 

 may properly be considered hardy. As a rule vines should not be 

 trained in a formal manner. If you would have them exhibit 

 their best graces they must be allowed to grow uncontrolled. All 

 know the uses that vines are commonly put to — that of covering 

 the walls of the house, furnishing shade for porch or arbor, and 

 the covering of screens and trellises. Besides these, almost every 

 place of any size offers opportunities for their growth in a freer 

 and more natural way that will greatly add to the charm and 

 delight of the garden. Perhaps a neglected shrubbery, unsightly in 

 itself, will afford support for such easily grown things as Honey- 

 suckles, Clematis Virginiana, and 0. Flammnla, or the common; 

 wild Morning Glory, so plentiful in many places, would be quite at 

 home here. An unsightly fence might be partly concealed and 

 made a thing of beauty with Climbing Roses, Honeysuckles, or 

 Clematises, or an old tree, past its prime and beginning to be 

 unsightly, would be the very thing on which to grow such vigoroua^ 



