CHAPTER III 



FEBRUAEY 



Distant promise of summer — Ivy-berries — Coloured leaves — £er- 

 heris AquifoUum — Its many iherits— Thinning and pruning 

 shrubs — Lilacs — Removing suckers — Training Clematis flam,- 

 ndula — Forms of trees — Juniper, a neglected native evergreen 

 — Efifect of snow — Power of recovery — Beauty of colour — 

 Moss-grown stems. 



There is always in February some one day, at least, 

 ■when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, 

 summer. Perhaps it is a warm, mossy scent that 

 greets one when passing along the southern side of a 

 hedge-bank ; or it may be in some woodland opening, 

 where the sun has coaxed out the pungent smell of 

 the trailing ground Ivy, whose blue flowers will soon 

 appear; but the day always comes, and with it the 

 glad certainty that summer is nearing, and that the 

 good things promised will never faU. 



How strangely little of positive green colour is to be 

 seen in copse and woodland. Only the moss is really 

 green. The next greenest thing is the northern sides 

 of the trunks of beech and oak. Walking southward 

 they are all green, but looking back they are silver- 

 grey. The undergrowth is of brambles and sparse 



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