204 WOOD AND GARDEN 



Rambler Rose over the lower part, tying it in to any 

 bare places in the Bdbinia. 



Next along the wall is Solarmm crispwm, much to be 

 recommended in our southern counties. It covers a 

 good space of waU, and every year shoots up some feet 

 above it ; indeed it is such a lively grower that it has 

 to endure a severe yearly pruning. Every season it is 

 smothered with its pretty clusters of potato-shaped 

 bloom of a good bluish-lUac colour. After these I 

 wanted some solid-looking dark evergreens, so there is 

 a Loquat, with its splendid foliage equalling that of 

 Magnolia gravdijlora, and then Black Laiu-ustinus, Bay, 

 and Japan Privet; and from among this dark-leaved 

 company shoots up the tender green of a Banksian 

 Rose, grown from seed of the single kind, the gift of 

 my kind friend Commendatore Hanbury, whose world- 

 famed garden of La Mortola, near Ventimiglia, probably 

 contains the most remarkable collection of plants and 

 shrubs that have ever been brought together by one 

 man. This Rose has made good growth, and a first few 

 flowers last year — seedling Roses are slow to bloom — 

 lead me to expect a good show next season. 



In the narrow border at the foot of the wall is a 

 bush of Eaphiolepis ovata, always to me an interesting 

 shrub, with its thick, roundish, leathery leaves and 

 white flower-clusters, also bushes of Rosemary, some 

 just filling the border, and some trained up the wall. 

 Our Tudor ancestors were fond of Rosemary-covered 

 walls, and I have seen old bushes quite ten feet high 



