36 A PLEA FOR HARDY PLANTS 



obtainable with the most lavish use of bedding plants; and here we not 

 only consider the large-flowered type but the smaller-flowered sorts as 

 well, with their luxuriance of growth and their charming efi^ect when used 

 as tree, shrub, hedge, or fence drapery. And then the climbing roses — 

 what a glorious possibility here, with their showers of bloom in June ! 



Climbers will not exhibit their best charms if trained in a stiffs and 

 formal manner; they must, in whatever position used, be allowed to grow 

 untrammeled. My neighbor's garden furnished a good illustration of this. 

 He planted common morning-glories all about his porch, with the inten- 

 tion of training them on strings later; but he was diverted from his inten- 

 tion and the morning-glories were allowed to grow as they would. The 

 effect was most charming ; they clambered over every shrub they could 

 reach, shared a trellis with a clematis, and, where they could find nothing 

 to climb on, formed mounds of green of the most tangled and pleasing 

 description. Morning-glories, common as they are, if used rightly, pro- 

 duce the most delightful efifects. One of the right ways is to sow them 

 among tall grass, or among low bushes and shrubbery; and as they renew 

 themselves annually from seed they may properly be considered hardy. 

 As a rule, vines should not be trained in a formal manner. If you would 

 have them exhibit their best graces they must be allowed to grow uncon- 

 trolled. All know the uses that vines are commonly put to — that of cov- 

 ering the walls of the house, furnishing shade for porch or arbor, and the 

 covering of screens and trellises. Besides these, almost every place of any 

 size oflFers opportunities for their growth in a freer and more natural way 

 that will greatly add to the charm and delight of the garden. Perhaps a 

 neglected shrubbery, unsightly in itself, will afiford support for such easily 

 grown things as honeysuckles. Clematis Virginiana and C. Flammulu ; or 

 the common wild morning-glory, so plentiful in many places, would be 

 quite at home here. An unsightly fence might be partly concealed and 

 made a thing of beauty with climbing roses, honeysuckles, or clematises; 

 or an old tree, past its prime and beginning to be unsightly, would be the 

 very thing on which to grow such vigorous vines as the aristolochia, 

 wistaria, trumpet vine, and the common Virginia creeper. In how 

 many places are seen evergreens in a half-dead condition, which only pro- 

 crastination has spared from the axe, and as unsightly as could well be ; 

 but nothing could be better on which to grow the large-flowered 

 clematis, which furnishes a profusion of lovely bloom that no words can 

 describe. Some vines, like the golden honeysuckle, planted in the grass, 



