The Ivy, and Its Uses in Parisian Gardens. 121 



the street swarming with dust, or splashing with mud, a wall of 

 verdure encloses the garden ; privacy is effectively secured ; the 

 effect of any flowers the garden may contain is much heightened j 

 and lastly, the heavier rushes of dust are kept out in summer, for 

 so effectively do they cover the railings by planting the Ivy rather 

 thickly, and giving it some rich light soil to grow in, that a perfectly 

 dense screen is formed. Railings that spring from a wall of some 

 height around the larger residences are covered as well as those that 

 almost start from the ground. Frequently the tops of the rails are 

 exposed, and often these are gilt, so that a capital effect is secured. 

 One day, in passing near the Hotel de Ville, and looking at its 

 traceries, my eye was caught by something more attractive than 

 these : a gilt-topped railing densely covered with Ivy, and between 

 the mass of dark green and the bared spikes at the top a seam of 

 light green foliage, here and there besprinkled with long beautiful 

 racemes of pale purplish flowers. That was the Wistaria, one of 

 the most beautiful of China's daughters, here gracefully throwing 

 her arms round our Hibernian friend, and forming a living picture 

 more pleasing to the eyes of a lover of nature than any carving in 

 stone. If there are tall naked walls near a Parisian house, they are 

 quickly covered with a close carpet of Ivy. Does the margin of 

 the grass around some clump of shrubs or flower beds look a little 

 angular or blotchy ? If so, the Parisian town gardener will get a 

 quantity of nice young plants of Ivy, and make a wide margin 

 with them, which margin he will manage to make look well at all 

 times of the year in the middle of winter when of a dark hue, 

 or in early summer when shining with the young green leaves. 

 When the Irish Ivy is planted pretty thickly and kept neatly to a 

 breadth of, say, from one foot to twenty inches, it forms a dense 

 mass of the freshest verdure, especially in early summer, and of 

 course all through the winter, in a darker state. The best examples 

 of this edging that I know of anywhere are around the gardens of 

 the Louvre, and in the private garden of the Emperor at the 

 Tuileries. In the private garden of the Emperor the Ivy bands 

 are placed on the gravel walks, or seem to be so $ for a belt of 



