68 
NATURE NOTES. 
NATURE PLEASURES IN A RIVERSIDE GARDEN. 
|T is amazing to consider what delights a lover of Nature 
may derive from plant-life and bird-life, if encouraged, 
in even a very small garden. My own garden is but a 
little one that runs on one side, steeply down to the 
banks of the Thames, and has a still smaller piece on the other 
side, between the house and the road. Yet in the culture and, 
tendance of this, my wife and I find many and varied delights 
which we are able to share, at times, with friends who come to 
visit us. The road-side portion, given over by our predecessors 
to dust and desolation, has been shaded and protected by a 
couple of plane trees and a small privet-hedge ; and behind such 
protection we manage to grow here a central rockery of peren- 
nial ferns, including a fine royal-fern close to the front door ; and 
a few side-beds of evening primroses {GLmtheva Lamarckiana) the 
bursting forth of whose bright yellow flowers, as evening draws 
on, it is always a pleasure to watch ; and whose seedlings, renew- 
ing fresh plants from year to year, make them as perennial as. 
the ferns themselves. Over the area-rails we have trained a fine 
clematis (C. alha inagna) whose large white flowers present, at 
times, a brilliant display as one walks up to the front door. 
Beside the pathway some perennial peas have yearly displayed 
their pretty flowers; and there are a few such modest plants as- 
creeping jenny. 
Up the front of the house we have managed to grow a self- 
clinging vine {Ainpelopsis triaispidata), which has now got past the 
bedroom windows ; and, with the aid of a little wirework, we 
have, with difficulty, raised to the roof, on each side, a small 
white-flowered climber {Clematis montana), whose multitude of 
blooms make a remarkably fine and increasing show in early 
spring. This seems to promise to meet, in time, by further 
growth along some wirework, across the whole top of the 
house; and then it may, perhaps, rival the clematis that in May 
evokes the admiration of every visitor to Bonchurch Hill. 
The riverside portion is given up mainly to the culture of 
roses, the tendance whereof, by budding and otherwise, requires 
much pleasant care, and whose flowers form a very pleasant 
show, and, when cut, always prove acceptable to flower-loving 
friends. Some of these roses we train along the tops of side- 
walls, or over arches, under which it is very pleasant to sit in 
the shade to have tea, or to read, or even to do various kinds of 
work; while two dear little canaries hang overhead and make 
the whole garden resound with their melody. 
The river, at hand, furnishes various ever-present pleasures. 
At quiet times, fish leap out of the water, increasing in numbers 
with the increasing purity of the river : boats row or sail quietly 
past : and the to-and fro movement of tides, that are ever varying 
in height and vigour, supplies a continuous interest. Nowand 
