176 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



are busy with the fashioning of the pointed 

 buds into which they are packing the stores 

 needed for another year, and the looker-on 

 has time to admire the stately leafage of the 

 shrubs themselves. An ancient garden favour- 

 ite, which is exceptionally fresh and young in 

 this month, when insects and blights do chiefly 

 flourish, is the matrimony vine, a nuisance if 

 it be not trained and pruned, and a joyous 

 fountain of green branches if it is. Yuccas 

 are interesting in the formal garden. The 

 fine columns of their glistening silver flowering 

 are gone, but the stiff bayonets of their leaves 

 are delightful, set along the edge of a terrace, 

 against a planting of the Eulalia grasses which 

 are such a contrast. The yuccas do not care 

 for much water, and so are especially good in 

 poor and sandy sites, but they should never 

 be left without some care in cutting away the 

 spent flower-spike and the old leaves. 



Another comfortable August plant is the 

 Funkia or day-lily. Its few white blossoms 

 have an exquisite freshness, and for fragrance 

 are hardly equalled, while its corded leaves, 

 broad and cool, are good indeed to see. Year 

 after year the clumps grow in beauty and 



