In My Vicarage Garden 



fragrans and Lonicera fragrantissima, with which 

 may be joined on account of its scent the weedy, 

 sweet-scented coltsfoot, with the scent of the 

 heliotrope ; while for beauty of flower few shrubs 

 at any time of year can surpass the gorse and the 

 Laurustinus. The winter-flowering gorse is the 

 dwarf species U. nanus, very abundant in many 

 parts, but local, and in flower sometimes very 

 abundantly all through the winter from October 

 to March. The Laurustinus, in spite of its name, 

 is no laurel, but is a very near relation of our 

 Guelder rose. It is the special ornament of the 

 Spanish and Portuguese hillsides, and with us 

 must be reckoned among the very best of the 

 flowering shrubs where it will grow well, but it 

 seldom does well in soil charged with lime ; it 

 will live there, but both in growth and flower is 

 very inferior to those grown on the sandstone 

 formations. 



An American writer justly reckons among the 

 pleasures of the winter garden that it is so 

 instructive. In spring, summer and autumn the 

 garden may be said to take care of itself, but 

 " the winter garden," he says, " is never finished. 

 One gains every season some new plant to be put 

 on trial, and is pleased if every year it shows 

 some slight gain." And what I have said is 

 enough to show that even in December and 

 January the garden is not, or need not be, all 

 barren. Yet the gardener is always glad when 

 December and January are past. He seems to 



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