216 CLIMBERS 



when the walls are building, you may lay in the mortar at regular 

 intervals iron hooks or something that will not be as objectionable 

 on garden walls as on house walls. 



CLIMBERS FOR PORCH AND ARBOUR 



After considering the house and garden walls a man's next 

 duty is to study his porch and pergola, and these introduce a new 

 problem the column. Here again the first question is not, 

 "Which vine do I like best?" but "Is the architecture good or 

 bad, refined or rustic?" For English experience seems to have 

 evolved this principle: On beautiful columns foliage is more 

 important than flowers; on rough columns flowers seem more import- 

 ant than foliage. 



This principle grows out of the fact that leaf forms are dis- 

 played to the best advantage by a white background while flowers 

 are usually best set off by a dark background. 



Therefore, if your porch or pergola has classical columns of 

 stone or concrete, the most appropriate climbers are those that 

 have leaf forms of classic beauty, such as the wild grapes, the 

 akebias, the kudzu, cinnamon, and Madeira vines, and the wonder- 

 ful new species of Ampelopsis from China, in all of which the 

 flowers are of secondary importance. Among the flowering 

 climbers, roses, clematis, and wistaria have sufficient beauty of 

 leaf form, but the following may be unsuitable: Honeysuckles 

 tend to make amorphous masses; Dutchman's pipe has too gross a 

 leaf; bitter-sweet is a little commonplace in leaf and wild in growth; 

 matrimony vine too rustic. 



On rough or temporary pergolas, the appropriate thing seems 

 to be an exuberance of bloom. We often cover a whole porch or 

 pergola with one kind of climbers, especially Crimson Rambler, 



