12 
A FEW FLOWERS 
cred as garden decorations, are very seldom satisfactory and are never necessary. We freely admit that a good 
vase, properly placed, is sometimes very effective, but it is doubtful if they repay the daily care necessary to 
keep them in good condition, and unless the vase is quite large, the plants soon exhaust the soil and present a 
starved and wretched appearance the greater part of the summer. We have seen a very pretty effect made by 
planting the Ampelopsis veitchii in the ground at the base and allowing it to cover completely the whole sur¬ 
face of the vase and depend in festoons from the top. The Ampelopsis clings closely, preserving the outlines of 
the vase, and is a simple and much more attractive decoration than a few badly-developed bedding plants. 
HOUSE AND GROUNDS OF MR. GEORGE HENRY WARREN. 
A well-built rustic summer house is sometimes a beautiful and useful structure, if the grounds are extensive 
and good judgment is iwed in selecting the location. On suburban lots, where it must be built within a few 
yards of the dwelling or the street, it is a clumsy and useless object, and its room can be much more acceptably 
occupied by a few fine shrubs or plants. 
We will now mention a few of the finer trees and shrubs. We can enumerate a few only that are indis¬ 
pensable, for it would require a volume to do justice to the many useful and beautiful ones which abound in 
I'.urope and America. 
'flic Weeping Beech (Fagus sylvatieus pendula)—perhaps the most curious and striking tree of our zone 
and one that will commend itself more as it becomes better known. The tree usually begins its growth in a 
great variety of tortuous directions and eventually becomes a beautiful weeper, with the appearance of an im¬ 
mense weight pressing its branches to the earth. Its fine masses of pendant boughs and glossy, wavy leaves 
do not entirely hide the occasional uncouthness of its branches until it has been a few years planted. 
One of the handsomest large-growing trees is our native Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), which is a 
really magnificent tree, with broad, glossy, sharply-cut, fiddle-shaped leaves and beautiful tulip-like flowers, 
allied to the Magnolias, and, like them, difficult to transplant, unless of small size. 
The Weeping Elm (Ulmus camperdownii) is certainly a very fine tree for the lawn. I have growing in our 
grounds a most handsome specimen, planted only about four or five years ago, which has completely sheltered 
the children from both sun and rain, under whose gracefully drooping branches they have held their little 
parties upon many a warm summer’s day. It is grafted upon the common Elm, six or eight feet from the 
ground, and forms a perfect umbrella, the branches reaching down to within three feet of the ground The 
leaves are large, dark green and glossy, and cover the tree with a luxurious mass of verdure. 
