WINTER IN THE GARDEN 187 



welcome, and are greeted with a delight that they 

 would not inspire if they appeared at a time when 

 spring breezes and summer sunshine had filled the 

 borders with colour. Chimonanthus fragrans, the 

 winter-sweet, blooms in the darkest days of the 

 year, coming into flower in the south-west at 

 Christmas-tide and remaining in blossom through 

 the whole of January. It is a hardy shrub, though 

 it is generally recommended that it should be 

 grown against a south wall, preferably one with a 

 chimney behind it that may impart heat to its 

 surface. Where the above advice is followed the 

 pale-yellow, brown-centred flowers are practically 

 inconspicuous against a stone wall, and the shrub 

 is quite unattractive. In the south-west it is 

 generally grown in bush form in the open, and 

 several specimens are of large size. In one case 

 a bushy shrub is about eight feet in height, almost as 

 much in diameter, and is standing on a sheltered 

 lawn backed by a large yew. Here the pale-yellow 

 flowers thickly studding the branches, which are 

 bare of leaves, are thrown into high relief by their 

 dark background and form an attractive picture in 

 January. In the same garden is another still 

 larger example. This was originally planted 

 against a wall about six feet in height. When it 



