PLANTS FOR POOR SOILS 



187 



warmer aspect than the other, so that the whole 

 crop does not come ripe at the same time. 



Shrubs of the Broom and Gorse tribes are some 

 of the very best for light soils. The common yellow 

 Broom {Cytisus scoparins) of our sandy wastes is 

 worthy of garden space ; its bright colouring only 

 excelled by that of the sparer - flowermg yelloAv 

 Spanish Broom {Spartium junceum). I like to plant 

 pale flowered bushes of our wild yellow with the 

 white Portugal Broom (Cijtisus alius) and with 

 the sometimes warm - white and often pale straw- 

 yellow - coloured Cytisus prcecox. C. andrcana, the 

 partly red-flowered sport of the common Broom, is 

 best planted with bushes of the type of rather 

 deep colour. 



The Spanish Gorse (JJlex hispanicus) is a beauti- 

 ful small shrub, very neat and round in habit, and 

 smothered with bright yellow bloom in early summer. 

 The double form of our wild Gorse is so well known 

 that it need not be described; its only fault is its 

 short life of not many years, but this can be remedied 

 by careful treatment, and its life much prolonged — 

 indeed almost indefinitely — by cutting down all or 

 many of its branches every three years, and by layering 

 some of those that are outermost. The Brooms also 

 bear pegging down, and it is a good plan, if a good- 

 sized group is being planted, to let some in the middle 

 and at the back of the group grow upward unchecked, 

 and to plant others between them and rather to 



