ii6 COLOUR SCHEMES 



indeed, such houses are often better without any wall- 

 plants. Still, there are occasions where the noble 

 polished foliage of Magnolia comes admirably on their 

 larger spaces, , and the clear-cut refinement of Myrtle 

 on their lesser areas of wall-surface. 



It is, like all other matters of garden planning, a 

 question of knowledge and good taste. The kind of 

 wall or house and its neighbouring forms are taken 

 into account and a careful choice is made of the most 

 suitable plants. For my own part I like to give a house, 

 whatever its size or style, some dominant note in wall- 

 planting. In my own home, which is a house of the 

 large cottage class, the prevailing wall-growths are 

 Vines and Figs in the south and west, and in a shady 

 northward facing court between two projecting wings, 

 Clematis montana on the two cooler sides, and again 

 a Vine upon the other. At one angle on the warmer 

 side of the house, where the height to the eaves is not 

 great, China Roses have been trained up, and Rose- 

 mary, which clothes the whole foot of the wall, is here 

 encouraged to rise with them. The colour of the China 

 Rose bloom and the dusky green of the Rosemary are 

 always to me one of the most charming combinations. 

 In remembrance of the cottage example lately quoted 

 there is Pyrus japonica under the long sitting-room 

 window. I remember another cottage that had a porch 

 covered with the golden balls of Kerria japonica, and 

 China Roses reaching up the greater part of the low 

 walls of half timber and plastering ; the pink Roses 

 seeming to ask one which of them were the loveliest 

 in colour ; whether it was those that came against the 



