A METHOD OF WINTER GARDENING. 



239 



toothsome to the boyish palate ; and it is this same contrast 

 with the more ordinary things of life and nature which charms 

 our sense and appreciation of the beautiful. I often think 

 gardens and greenhouses are too full of rarities, and that if a 

 little less had been spent on the plants a far better effect would 

 have been obtained. 



But I am wandering. Well, get two or three dozen of these 

 varying baby Lawson Cypresses, and you will have made a 

 thoroughly good beginning for making your borders beautiful in 

 winter. Then you will want other common things (but all 

 small to begin with), most of which you can raise yourself : 

 common Laurel — the broad-leafed variety is the best for contrast 

 — common Portugals, common Yews, a few — just one or two — 

 common and variegated Box. Box is not by any means a 

 favourite with me ; it smells, to my mind, abominable, and is 

 very gloomy ; still, one or two will make variety. There is a 

 very broad-leaved and short-jointed sort of Box I remember see- 

 ing years ago, but which I have not yet been able to get hold of, 

 but it would be a great acquisition, and I should be grateful to 

 anyone who would tell me its proper name and where to find it. 

 Perhaps the most generally useful plant, after Lawson's Cypress, 

 is the common female Aucuba. You can hardly have too much 

 of it. It is good in all stages, from the baby with only her six or 

 eight mottled leaves, in the foreground, to the big spreading bush 

 4 feet high by 5 or 6 feet through, to fill a big gap in the middle 

 of your border. It adapts itself most perfectly to pot culture. 

 Then there are all the Ivies, green, silver, and golden, and some 

 kinds which take on the exquisite crimson and yellow-brown tints 

 more readily than others ; all of them are useful, and with care 

 —but mark this well, Ivies do want care and attention to train 

 them into nice pot-plants — but, with careful training, they make 

 charming specimens. The best, I fancy, is the great heart- 

 shaped leafed one which I know under the name of " Algerian " 

 Ivy, though I am doubtful whether it is that variety or dentata, 

 or Roegner's, but all three are good. 



Having thus made up a good stock of these and many other 

 common things which will at once occur to you — Berberis Aqui- 

 folium and Betinospora plumosa, for example — you must begin to 

 think about laying in your gems, the little beauties which are to 

 attract the chief attention in your borders, like the diamonds 



