A GARDEN IN VENICE 



Then the borders were planted, not an easy 

 task, for one side of the pergola running, as ours 

 mostly do, east and west, is in the shade. Some- 

 times too the pergolas are doubled to meet the 

 exigencies of some extra vigorous vines, and few 

 herbaceous and seedling plants will submit grace- 

 fully to be deprived of so much light and air. It 

 took then some time to fill them, and it takes 

 some thought to keep them filled, but nothing is 

 more marvellous than the growth and multiplica- 

 tion of plants in Venice that are pleased with 

 Venice. And here a word must be said on the 

 peculiarities of Venice gardening, bound up, as 

 these are, with its pains and pleasures. 



There is no other soil and climate so full of 

 whim and fantasy. You buy a score of magnolias, 

 trees that you see growing luxuriantly in other 

 Venice gardens. One of your score alone will 

 perhaps thrive. You plant a dozen roses of the 

 same kind, bought from the same rose garden ; 

 this and that plant will ramp, the rest not move. 

 Your efforts to fill the garden is a story of failures, 

 and yet the successes thrive so fast that the 

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