In My Vicarage Garden 



tender plants in the brightest and sunniest place 

 he can find — it seems to him nothing but natural 

 kindness to do so. But he soon finds out his 

 error ; the tender plants may be so tender that 

 they cannot stand the full blaze even of an 

 English sun ; and though they may be sub- 

 tropical, they ask to be protected from bright sun. 

 In their own country they may have a warm, 

 perhaps a hot climate ; but the fact is that a very 

 large proportion of our exotic plants are in their 

 own countries wood plants. This is markedly the 

 case with the plants of Switzerland and other 

 parts of Southern Europe. They are found wild 

 in woods chiefly, many of them in the open 

 glades, but many also in the dense shade of the 

 fir woods. 



How such plants seek for shade and protection 

 can be seen in the nearest hedgerow. An old 

 hedgerow is a close mat of plants of all sorts 

 with scarcely a single open space ; the whole 

 surface is covered with brambles, nettles, deadly 

 nightshade, dead nettles, and many others, and 

 yet through the thick mass, and nestling under 

 the most unlikely bushes we find delicate flowers 

 of many sorts growing vigorously, and apparently 

 most happy in their surroundings. And even 

 wild plants which are not in hedgerows, but grow 

 in the open fields and meadows, apparently 

 exposed to the full blaze of the sun and the full 

 blasts of cold wind, are yet largely protected by 

 the herbage among which they grow. Their 

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