30 MY GARDEN 



shorn and hustled indoors just as he begins to reveal 

 his character and get hopeful about his future. The 

 slightest touch of frost upsets a young plant, and 

 reduces it to limp and ragged death. 



Now, concerning the creeping and trailing things 

 upon my garden-room, it must be confessed that 

 there is not space for more than twenty or so. The 

 quantity is meagre, but the quality may be accounted 

 fair. Vitis, of course, comes first among deciduous 

 climbers, and of these vitis vinifera only happens by 

 chance. You would hardly expect him ; but I had a 

 black Hamburg, whose room was wanted for some- 

 thing else ; so out she came, and here she is ; and a 

 great fuss she made about it. Though I gave her a 

 cosy corner, with the arbutus to shelter her and a 

 purple clematis to hug her into a good temper, she 

 sulked for two years before she began to settle down. 

 She has not even yet, in her third out-of-door year, 

 considered the question of fruit. Vitis heterophylla, 

 from Japan, is a strong and free-growing vine. This 

 fruits late with me ; but I generally see the berries 

 really ripe with their amethystine bloom. From 

 purple they go to a lovely azure, like the sky of 

 spring. The variegated species is a more delicate 

 and dainty customer, but splendid for a big rockery. 

 Vitis Labrusca, the "fox" grape, has not considered 

 fruiting for an instant up to the present time ; though 

 he grows steadily. He came two years ago from 

 America, in a cardboard box, and he had for company 

 some nelumbiums and a slug. Sentiment, of course, 

 is out of place within the borders of a garden, and an 



