MAY 71 



bloom show near the Pseony. The old Guelder Rose 

 or Snowball-tree is beautiful anywhere, but I think it 

 best of all on the cold side of a waU. Of course it is 

 perfectly hardy, and a bush of strong, sturdy growth, 

 and has no need of the wall either for support or for 

 shelter ; but I am for clothing the garden walls with 

 all the prettiest things they can wear, and no shrub I 

 know makes a better show. Moreover, as there is 

 necessarily less wood in a flat wall tree than in a round 

 bush, and as the front shoots must be pruned close 

 back, it follows that much more strength is thrown into 

 the remaining wood, and the blooms are much larger. 



I have a north wall eleven feet high, with a Guel- 

 der Rose on each side of a doorway, and a Clematis 

 montana that is trained on the top of the whole. The 

 two flower at the same time, their growths mingling 

 in friendly fashion, while their unlikeness of habit 

 makes the companionship all the more interesting. 

 The Guelder Rose is a stiff- wooded thing, the character 

 of its main stems being a kind of stark uprightness, 

 though the great white balls hang out with a certain 

 freedom from the newly-grown shoots. The Clematis 

 meets it with an exactly opposite way of growth, 

 swinging down its great swags of many-flowered gar- 

 land masses into the head of its companion, with here 

 and there a single flowering streamer making a tiny 

 wreath on its own account. 



On the southern sides of the same gateway are two 

 large bushes of the Mexican Orange-flower {Choisya 



