CLIMBERS 219 



weedy a plant as ivy kill a noble beech, but to cover the native 

 loveliness of a beech trunk with anything at all is worse than a 

 crime it is a blunder. We ought never, or rarely, to obscure 

 the fine tree architecture of birch, mountain ash, or flowering dog- 

 wood, or even such rough customers as hickory, honey locust, and 

 sweet gum, for their ruggedness has perennial cbarm. Why 

 not use climbers only on trees that have commonplace bark? 

 One may shrink from calling oak, elm, maple, ash, poplar, 

 and the nuts commonplace as to bark, but no one can de- 

 scribe their bark in such a way that people will know them by 

 the bark alone. Such trees make a safer list with which to 

 experiment. 



The most perfect marriage I have heard of between a 

 deciduous tree and a deciduous climber is that of wistaria 

 and locust, for both have pinnate foliage and flowers of 

 the pea type. If you use the white- flowered wistaria, there 

 will be a third point in common. This combination is beauti- 

 fully described by Neltje Blanchan in "The American Flower 

 Garden." 



The most famous example, however, is that of climbing roses 

 on any kind of deciduous tree. England and California have a 

 great advantage over the North in this respect for they can use 

 larger and better varieties and have fewer insect enemies to 

 contend with. 



The surest combination we can have is Virginia creeper on 

 elm, and a most appropriate one, for the leaflet of the climber has 

 practically the same shape as that of the tree. But when you 

 grow Virginia creeper on pine you get a contrast of leaf forms that 

 is almost startling. And, since evergreens are usually narrow- 

 leaved, while climbers are usually broad-leaved, we should 



