Chap. XVI.] A FEW NOTES ON PRIVATE GARDENS. 



253 



desired, they certainly will also be best on one side in a quiet 

 nook, and not in the centre of, and dominating, all. 



Borders of Ivy, sometimes with great roguish-looking Pansies 

 inside them ; well-developed isolated plants, like Yuccas or 

 Acanthus ; Ivy bowers ; lawns, open and fresh, if small ; Pome- 

 granates with coral blossoms ; Wistaria wreathed in many ways ; 

 lovely straggling of Vines about the walls ; Eoses often on 

 their own roots, and too often on broom-sticks ; noble standard 

 Evergreen Magnolias ; groups of tree and herbaceous Peonies on 

 the grass ; and graceful tufts of hardy Bamboo, also add to the 

 charms of these little gardens, which are often very quiet and 

 lovely, and which though small have a dignified air, and contain 

 a variety of beautiful life. The walls are nearly all garlanded 

 with creepers, often with a half-wild look through luxuriant 



Trellis for Vines on Top of Dead Wall ( Vincennes'). 



growth. So long as we have dead walls, some means of modifying 

 their severity is desirable. In landscape-gardening the dead wall 

 is a serious obstacle to deal with, and so it is in the small garden. 

 In these, however, there is sometimes a necessity for the dead 

 wall as a dividing-line or a screen, whereas in large country-places 

 they are often made where they are needless and objectionable. 

 In small gardens the dead walls, usually bare along the top, may 

 be gracefully wreathed with either climbing-shrubs or fruit-trees, 

 as shown in the accompanying cut. Single stems are easily 

 taken up the wall and trailed along two or three firmly-fixed but 

 slender galvanised wires. In this way much of the harsh aspect 

 of the upper part of the wall is removed. The sketch given was 

 made on the road from Vincennes to Montreuil, a country in 

 which good Grapes are gathered on the trellis; ornamental 



