he Gardening World, January 16, 1909. 
An Amateur’s Letter to Amateurs. 
MOTTO FOR THE WEEK: 
‘ Frost is God’s Plough.”— Fuller. 
CONTENTS. 
nateur's Letter to Amateurs, An ... 27 
irnations in Pots . 29 
irnations: Work for January . 34 
impetition Awards . 28 
lquire Within . 35 
:rns of Easy Culture . 28 
lower Garden, The (illus.) . 32 
:ui| Garden, The (illus.) . 32 
uit Trees against Walls and Fences, 
Planting (illus.) . 31 
jreenhouse, The Amateur's . 33 
irdv Flowers in Winter . 30 
qjatica, The Great V hite (illus.) 29 
rdrangea, A Hardy (illus.) . 30 
tchen Garden, The (illus.) . 33 
rchids for Amateurs .. 33 
nes, Starting . 28 
ork of the Week (illus.) . 32 
5 zzi Scm$. 
ittle brown brother, oh! little brown 
brother, 
Are you awake in the dark ? 
ere we lie cosily, close to each other, 
Hark to the song of the lark, 
aken! the lark says, Waken, and dress 
you, 
Put on your green coats agay; 
ue sky will shine on you, sunshine 
caress you, 
Waken, ’tis morning, ’tis May! 
Ittle brown brother, oh! little brown 
brother, 
What kind of flower will you be ? 
1 be a Poppy, all white like my mother, 
Do be a Poppy like me. 
’hat! you’re a Sunflower? How I shall 
miss you 
When you’re grown golden and high ; 
't I shall send all the bees up to kiss 
you, 
Little brown brother, good bye ! 
“Pall Mall Gazette.” 
CLXXVIII. 
Ivy. 
There is no doubt as to the beauty of 
Ivy; but in a bit of garden woodland, for 
instance, it may become too rampant. 
Where Ivy had a standing, it is perfectly 
wonderful what tremendous growth and 
way it has made during the last three 
years—I refer to Ivy that is creeping 
over the ground—the seasons with long 
mild autumns and not unduly prolonged 
summer droughts having encouraged it 
to unusually rampant growth, at least 
this is my' experience of it. Now, I hold 
that ground covered with Ivy growing 
too luxuriantly and chokingly, gives a 
neglected, overgrown look to the place. 
For days before this frost came, I spent 
a good deal of time in-clearing an old 
bit of shrubbery of Ivy. I found the 
quickest way of going to work was to use 
a heavy and long toothed rake, and 
roughly clear a portion more or less, with 
it, and after that to take a small fork, 
and loosen the roots, and pull them up 
by hand; the rake clears off many of the 
leaves, and leaves long string-like stems. 
In one portion it was necessary to go to 
work carefully, for the Ivy had invaded 
a portion that is thickly colonised with 
wild Wood Anemones, and the thick 
stick-like roots lie very near to the sur¬ 
face. There is one use in this Ivy I had 
never quite realised before, it holds and 
hides a great number of dead leaves from 
the trees above so that the soil is con¬ 
tinually benefiting from decayed vege¬ 
table matter; but, on the other hand, Ivy, 
with a rampant hold, must take a con¬ 
siderable amount of nourishment from the 
soil. One other use of the luxurious 
growth of Ivy on the ground is to keep 
down the weeds, and it does this most 
effectually. Yet our bits of woodland and 
shrubbery are so valuable for using as 
beautiful carpets of flowers, the Snow¬ 
drops, or the Wood Anemones, or wild 
Blue Hyacinths that it seems a pity to 
let Ivy have it all its own way. 
Flowers in Blossom in the Open. 
On Christmas Day I went round the 
garden to note what flowers could have 
been picked for a winter nosegay. First 
and foremost was a great wide-spreading 
shrub-like plant of Coronilla glauca 
covered with yellow blossom from top to 
base : it has been in full flower for weeks, 
and is often accounted a tender subject, 
yet it has stood in its present position on 
the rock garden for three or four years, 
and is far finer and larger than anything 
I have ever seen growing in a conserva¬ 
tory. A few plants of Dianthus hybridus 
are also in bright and brilliant evidence by 
reason of cherry rose coloured flowers. 
The foliage of these particular plants is 
not silvery white like the ordinary Pinks, 
but a deep rich green colour, and the 
plants truly merit the title “perpetual 
flowering.” Besides these were a few 
China Stocks that had been raised from 
seed last spring. It is interesting, I 
think, to make a yearly note of plants 
that flower thus into the winter, and 
Christmas Day is a handy date to remem¬ 
ber, for it is part of the interest to make 
the note on the same date each year. The 
winter Jasmine is also in blossom, and 
a few starry flowers of Aubrietias, while, 
what I do not remember before at this 
■ date, the perennial Iberises are bursting 
their buds and showing a white petal here 
and there. A plant that is extremely wel¬ 
come in the winter garden for the sake of 
its bright and cheery foliage is the varie¬ 
gated Periwinkle. It wants no choice 
position, any odd corner is good enough, 
and great strands of green and white 
foliage will trail over the ground. Any 
little bit put into the ground under 
favourable conditions of soil will root, 
and often the point of a long trail will be 
found to have rooted, so that to cut it you 
must sever it at each end. In spring¬ 
time the flowers are wonderfully beauti¬ 
ful—Periwinkle blue — the exact colour 
of a few of the pale Clematises, and of 
that charming litle rock garden autumn 
blooming Convolvulus mauritanicus. If 
planted on an old wall the trails will root 
at the points into the old mortar, and it 
makes a charming climber grown in this 
fashion. It is most useful at this season 
to cut for house decoration, as the trails 
are wonderfully graceful, and mix well 
with Honesty, or Winter Cherry, or even 
with dry Bracken and Holly. 
Rose Cuttings, etc. 
Rose cuttings should have attention 
when the frost goes out of the ground in 
case they have become loosened in the 
ground; if so this should be pressed 
firmly about them again, and anything, 
either shrub or perennial, may need this 
attention if it has been but recently es¬ 
tablished. 
F. Norfolk. 
-- 
Vineyards for Britain. 
The Royal Horticultural Society have 
taken two acres of the poorest soil, in 
the most exposed part of their gardens at 
Wisley and planted it with upwards of 
300 distinct varieties of hardy, European 
and American Vines. The Society are 
making a determined attempt to re-estab¬ 
lish the cultivation of Vineyards—once a 
popular and prosperous British industry 
—in this country, and will carry out a 
rigorous test as to the most suitable 
varieties to grow. 
Sarcococca ruscifolia. 
The above is a new shrub introduced 
from China by Messrs. J. Veitch and 
Sons, Chelsea. The plant varies from 
1 ft. to ft. in height, and is very 
densely branched, bearing evergreen 
leaves not unlike the substitutes for 
leaves on the Butcher’s Broom, but of a 
darker green, and glossy like Holly. 
The leaves are very similar in shape to 
the so-called leaves of Butcher’s Broom. 
An Award of Merit was accorded by the 
R.H.S. on the 22nd ult. 
