212 CLIMBERS 



For when you wish to repaint your house you will find that 

 the tendril-bearing and other self -fastening climbers are fragile. It 

 is a big job to take them down, and you are sure to harm them, 

 while the twiners are tough and can be taken down and replaced 

 more easily. 



If you have a brick or stone house you can grow any kind of 

 climber directly on the walls, for there is no need of painting. 

 But now the most important question becomes colour harmony. 

 If you doubt this walk down any street in July and watch the 

 Crimson Ramblers and purple clematis swearing at the red brick 

 walls! The only safe thing to use against red brick are white 

 flowers and green foliage. The warm colours in brick and stone 

 are the reds and browns; the cool ones are the grays, blues, and 

 yellows. Against light, delicate or neutral backgrounds you may 

 use strongly coloured flowers, like red roses, orange trumpet 

 creepers, purple and rose clematis and yellow ramblers. But the 

 brick that is warm in winter looks too hot in summer and to cool 

 it you can do one of two things. First swathe it with English 

 ivy (plate 74), Japanese ivy (plate 76), euonymus, or Vir- 

 ginia creeper (plate 74). Second, you may decorate it with 

 Clematis paniculata, white cluster roses, or white wistaria and 

 the like. 



The great practical difficulty with brick and stone is that 

 the tendril-bearers cannot get up a smooth surface, while the 

 twiners must always have support. Of course, chicken wire or 

 wooden trellises can be used, but they have a trifling look against 

 massive buildings. So far as I know, the architects have never 

 solved the problem of growing slender, flowering climbers on 

 smooth brick or stone. In such cases people generally use the 

 self-climbing Japanese or English ivy, the euonymus or the self- 



