CHAPTER ,XIII 



CLIMBING PLANTS 



When one sees climbing plants or any of the shrubs 

 that are so often used as climbers, planted in the usual 

 way on a'house or wall, about four feet apart and with 

 no attempt at arrangement, it gives one that feeling 

 of regret for opportunities lost or misused which is the 

 sentiment most often aroused in the mind of the 

 garden critic in the great number of pleasure-grpunds 

 that are planted without thought or discernment. 

 Not infrequently in passing along a country road, with 

 eye alert to note the beauties that are so often presented 

 by little wayside cottage gardens, something is seen 

 that may well serve as a lesson in better planting., 

 The lesson is generally one that teaches greater sim - 

 plicity — the doing of one thing at a time ; the avoidance 

 of overmuch deta il. One such cottage has under the 

 parlour window an old bush of Pyrus jafonica. It had 

 been kept well spurred back and must have been a 

 mass of gorgeous bloom in early spring. The rest gf 

 the cottage was embowered in an old Grape Vine, 

 perhaps of all wall plants the most beautiful, and, I 

 always think, the most harmonious with cottages or 

 small houses of the cottage class. It would seem to 

 be least in place on the walls of houses of classical type ; 



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