122 THE GAEDENEE'S COMPANION 



exceed their beauty when they have grown to be 

 large bushes of seven or eight feet high, crowded 

 with bloom in early summer. They should be 

 massed together, with a background of Ehododen- 

 drons or other dark evergreen to show them off well. 



Barberry Berberis. The Berberis are not all 

 evergreen, strictly speaking, but I have placed them 

 together to avoid confusion. B. aquifolium, or 

 Mahonia, is a beautiful and distinct plant, with 

 large evergreen foliage, wiry stems, and bunches 

 of lemon-yellow flowers in June ; it grows very 

 easily, even under trees, and reaches a height of 

 ten feet or more. 



B. Darwinii. A very fine-leaved plant, with 

 beautiful orange flowers in April and May. It is 

 not quite so hardy as some other varieties, but 

 makes a beautiful plant to train against a wall. 



B. stenophilla is very hardy, likes a dry soil, and 

 grows quickly, with immensely long graceful droop- 

 ing shoots, which are one mass of golden flowers 

 in May and June ; no more beautiful sight can be 

 imagined than a bush such as I have often seen of 

 this plant, ten feet high, and twenty feet through, 

 looking like a sheet of golden fireworks in the 

 light of the setting sun. 



