WINTER GARDENS. 
255 
But we would not confine it to the places just pointed out. It may, with 
propriety, be trained over a trellis-walk, or along with the rose or honeysuckle, 
entwined round a pillar or a pole. In the latter case, the accompaniments must 
be subordinate to it, as they are merely wanted to contribute a little gaiety in 
summer, and w^ould injure the foliage of the Pyracantha, if permitted to remain 
in much profusion. By severe pruning it may also be induced to assume the 
character of an upright bush, and kept in a dwarf state, without diminishing, but 
rather increasing, the free production of flowers and fruit. The way to effect this 
is to prune closely whilst the plant is young, and afterwards to leave a few shoots 
each year at their full length, to be afterwards cut away as the younger ones become 
fruitful. Plants so treated may appropriately occupy permanently a small bed on 
a lawn, if thickly enough planted to enable the shoots to intermingle one with 
another, or they may also be mixed with other plants in the front of shrubberies, 
or in masses of evergreens. 
But, perhaps, a situation more in accordance with the natural character of the 
species, and one in which it cannot fail to create a very interesting feature, is when 
planted behind rocks, and the long shoots allowed to grow wildly, and rove loosely 
over the face, or lodge in the crannies between them. This has a more natural 
appearance, and carries with it an air of freedom and gracility, which always 
suffers under the stiffer and more confined system alluded to above. 
To come directly, however, to the subject of winter gardens, although in each 
of the situations above mentioned, it is principally as a winter plant that it 
is most conspicuously interesting, the Evergreen Thorn may likewise be treated 
as a pot plant, kept in the reserve ground during summer, and at the proper 
season transferred to the borders of the pleasure-ground, amongst the plants pre- 
viously noticed. A few plants, also, that have been encouraged in larger pots to 
produce fruit, and kept pruned as before described, may be retained for the vases 
about the greenhouses or mansion in winter, which at that time can only be 
furnished with the very hardiest plants. When applied to this purpose, it will be 
necessary to envelope the pots in moss, or some material capable of repelling frost, 
or the swelling of the earth will burst them. Pruning seems essential to the well- 
being of the plants in all places ; and especially during the earlier stages. Without 
it the lower portion of the stem will be barely bushy enough to make a good 
covering, and the branches may spread over a w^ide surface without producing a 
proportionate profusion of flowers and fruit. As the plants become old, the 
severity of pruning may be relaxed, if not entirely withheld, as they eventually 
obtain a less luxuriant and more fruitful disposition. 
Hitherto we have confined our remarks wholly to shrubby plants ; and the 
greater facility of procuring a variety applicable to winter gardening, necessarily 
obliges the cultivator to have recourse to them more largely than to herbaceous 
species. The latter, however, ought not to be wholly excluded, as several species 
may be found that will contribute largely to the production of a sense of cheerful- 
