GIFT OF MICHAEL REE&E MY SHRUBS BY THE SAME AUTHOR WILD FRUIT: POEMS •::/« -. /:*„•:* : t V . v ; t-sv/ MY SHRUBS BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS 1 1 WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXV > *h 3 S Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON 6* Co. at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh ILLUSTRATIONS From Photographs by Messrs. R. Durrani <5r» Son. ARISTOLOCHIA ELEGANS Frontispiece BOWKERIA GERARDIANA To face page 21 BUDDLEIA COLVILLEI „ „ 22 BUDDLEIA ASIATICA . „ ,,22 CALLISTEMON SPECIOSUS AND CALLISTEMON SALIGNUS . . „ 24 DWARF CONIFERS . „ „ 25 CARPENTARIA CALIFORNICA . „ ,,28 CISTUS ALBIDUS „ 28 CERASUS SOLFATARA „ ,,29 CERASUS " AMA-NO-GAWA " 30 CESTRUM AURUNTIACUM 30 CLIANTHUS PUNICEUS ALBA 32 CLIANTHUS DAMPIERI :..- V, . „ „ 32 CONVOLVULUS CNEORUM :.„/ . „ „ 34 COLLETIA CRUCIATA . „ 35 CRINODENDRON HOOKERI . . „ ,,36 DESMODIUM PENDULIFOLIUM 39 DRIMYS WINTERI „ 41 EL.EAGNUS MACROPHYLLA „ 41 EL^OCARPUS RETICULATUS . . „ ,,42 ELSHOLTZIA STAUNTONII 42 EUCALYPTUS COCCIFERUS ALPINA . . . . . . „ ,,45 EUCRYPHIA PINNATIFOLIA „ „ 46 FEIJOA SELLOWIANA „ ,,47 DWARF JUNIPER AND GOLDEN CHA1VLECYPARIS . . . . „ ,,62 KOELREUTERIA PANICULATA 64 LESCHENAULTIA BILOBA MAJOR 68 V 37397G vi MY SHRUBS LONICERA HILDEBRANDTI .... . To face page 71 LUGULIA GRATISSIMA .... . „ „ 72 MAGNOLIA STELLATA .... . „ „ 75 MANDEVILLA SUAVEOLENS ... . „ „ 76 MELIANTHUS MAJOR ... . „ „ 77 OLEARIA MACRODONTA . „ „ 85 PHILADELPHUS MEXICANUS . „ 90 PHYSIANTHUS ALBENS - „ „ 91 PLAGIANTHUS LYALLII . ,. „ „ 93 PYXIDANTHERA BARBULATA '. „ ,,96 RHODODENDRON CAMPYLOCARPUM . . . . . . „ ,,99 RHODODENDRON ROYLEI „ ,,99 RHODODENDRON DALHOUSIJE „ „ 100 RHODODENDRON SESTERIANUM „ „ 101 AZALEODENDRON " BROUGHTONII AUREUM " . . . „ „ 103 A ROSE IN JUNE . , . ,, „ 105 ROSA SINICA " ANEMONE " , . . . ^ ,• • » » I05 ROSA L^EVIGATA . . . . . — , • • » » IO5 ROSA BRUNONII . „ „ 105 RUBUS DELICIOSUS .,,,,106 STEPHANANDRA FLEXUOSA . „ „ «3 SUTHERLANDIA FRUTESCENS . . . . . . . . „ „ 114 TAMARIX ODESSANA . ... 116 MY SHRUBS MY SHRUBS INTRODUCTION HRUBS," said George Nicholson, thirty years ago, " do not generally receive the attention they deserve." The statement continues to be true, though things are more hopeful for these plants ; they are coming into their own gradually, and the shrubbery begins to be a valued feature of the garden, instead of that worthless jungle with which our fathers were content. Your true gardener naturally seeks and aspires to the unattainable, and since my patch is but little larger than a table- cloth, my desire has always been towards trees. This is the normal ambition of people with small gardens, while others, who possess ancestral acres, and could display a forest and plant pinetums for posterity, will be found to cultivate the moraine, and desire nothing more than enough limestone or granite chips to fill a hatbox. For such is our contrary human nature. Trees, then, being out of the question here, I have bowed to fate in this matter, and fallen back upon shrubs, or trees that will preserve shrubby dimensions, until my concern with them has ended and I go where our " half-hardies " cease from troub- ling and the Alpines are at rest. Even shrubs cannot receive all the accommodation they desire ; but, on the principle that a lord would rather be elbowed by another lord than a chimney-sweep or a coal-heaver, I only suffer my plants to be hustled by their :.i:.;:, :; MY SHRUBS equals. One hates the pruning knife, yet it has to be used, and if used at the right time (after flowering as a rule) no great harm is done. I can seldom point to " specimens," yet specimens occasionally occur here of precious things whose adult size permits them to reach perfection without hindrance ; and, happily, among these may be seen my favourite plant, Rhododendron campylo- carpum, a fine, well-favoured piece, seven feet high. Here, on our limestone crags, rhododendrons and American plants in general are a test by which you may separate real gar- deners from those who merely profess and call themselves such. There are, for instance, women in this locality who pass for dis- tinguished horticulturalists, yet exhibit neither rhododendron nor azalea in all their glades. If cross-examined, they answer, readily enough, that limestone is death to these fine things, and that they are therefore impossible. Yet these women, who would shudder at the thought of a ten-pound note for a peat-bed, will spend twice that amount on a hat. A glimpse of the glories of the rhododendron race is as nothing to them against a yard of ribbon and half a dead bird, or a stick of asparagus, perched above their fair brows. They are good and gracious creatures, success- ful mothers and wives, but they are not gardeners at all, and must neither claim nor be granted that distinction. Peat, then, we need here, but into no limestone graves are we to thrust it, as I have done to my cost. The peat should be heaped above the limestone, so that your rhododendrons, azaleas and the rest have their roots safe out of the reach of the nether fires. Build your peat in islands rising full three feet above the stormy seas of lime, that autumnal rains set flowing, and all should be well. In my experience few really choice shrubs have much use for lime save the roses. Many MY SHRUBS 3 good things are, of course, indifferent and tolerate it, while some fruit bearers, such as Diospyros Kaki and Eriobotrya, and perhaps Feijoa, appreciate lime ; but, for the most part, my plants can do exceedingly well without, and I have, little by little, carted the local soil away from my garden and substituted beds of leaf and sand and peat. The native loam is so full of lime, and so largely composed of coarse red clay, that I feel happier without it, and escape many discomforts. My beds are always sweet and clean. There is no mud, and mud is a thing that neither self-respecting plant nor gardener appreciates. It is the same with shade. Certain flowering shrubs do their duty in shade, and many insist on half-shade ; but no shrub tolerates stuffiness, or deprivation from rain and light. I like plenty of shadow cast from south or west, but overhead shade is much to be avoided. Speaking generally, the Chilians are all peat and shade-lovers, and all ex- ceedingly thirsty. You can hardly over- water them in the summer, and they are quite content to bid farewell to the sun at noon. They thrive on the east side of my house, but they are protected from the east by a high wall and some yews and hollies. Many Australians are hard to please, and must be watched in winter ; while high level New Zealanders for the most part face our weather bravely enough. The Chatham Island plants are also not hardy even in the West, but the comparative smallness of their habitat and their propinquity to the sea mean that they would naturally be more tender than those from New Zealand's moun- tains. Does Corynocarpus Icevigata stand in the open anywhere in England, for instance ? Perhaps in Cornwall — certainly no- where else. My little piece lives out of doors from May till October ; then it sneaks into a cold house. Doryanthes excelsa 4 MY SHRUBS lives out of doors with protection ; but he never does anything more than grow unwell during January, and recover again by July. His health is the only thing that interests him, and he has no time to justify his existence. I think that I shall send him to Sir David Prain as an in-patient. Protection of plants during winter is a problem. I have pro- tected many a good plant to death, for your evergreen must have light and air, and if wrapped up within an inch of its life, that inch is often passed, and a withered ghost appears, when spring returns. You cannot bundle living things up in Archangel mat- ting, and tell them to be good and go to sleep for a third of the year. I think the vital parts vary, and, of course, the night tem- perature that may be deadly after a long day of rain, does no harm if the soil be dry. Frost following sharply on heavy rain always works the most cruel damage, while a long spell of east wind and nightly frosts are also very punishing. I believe in protecting with loose matting hung on stakes round a plant, and perhaps a little open litter packed round the stems above earth level. Overhead, light screens to break frosts are desirable and often necessary. These could be moved at any time, and kept off as much as possible by day, unless the weather is very inclement. With shrubs that have a wall behind them, I manage curtains of matting that can be flung off and only drawn when frost threatens. But I never wrap up anything permanently, or protect so that the earth about the plant gets too dry. If the drainage is carefully looked to when a bed is made, and the soil is all right, they seldom suffer below ground. Of course, most deciduous things get through our winters without discomfort ; but many of the noblest shrubs are evergreen, and in many cases, MY SHRUBS 5 if they lose their new wood in the winter, the bloom will not come, when that is the wood they flower upon. I had what appeared a happy thought for protecting the buds of tree paeonies last year, and packed them into straw bottle-cases. But it was not a success, for I bruised the buds. A screen hung over them to break the frost is all they need. The early-flowering rhododen- drons must also have protection for the bud, while such tender folk as R. griffithianum, R. sesterianum, or R. Falconeri, though safe in many West Country gardens, are always a little coddled by me if the weather turns very cold. The noble hybrids of Griffithianum are, however, hardy here, and call for no care. What remarkable views nurserymen have, by the way, on the subject of hardiness in a shrub ! These poets always know where there is one specimen doing magnificently in the open air. They mention the identical garden, so that there shall be no deception. And we, with warmer gardens and equal energy and enterprise, picture the superb thing flourishing with us also, and emulating Sir Somebody's famous piece, that was planted in early Victorian times and never looked back. Then we pay our half-guinea, and get it — three inches high, with four leaves and a hectic flush, as who would say : " The dying salutes thee." Of course nobody hears much more about it. When questioned by a jealous but tactless friend, we pass the matter off lightly, and say it was quite over-estimated, or the mice ate it, or something of that sort. But he knows the truth, and tells our rivals that we failed with it. Again, there is the shrub that the growers, with a sudden twinge of conscience, frankly confess needs a favoured district. Never trust that plant outside a stove. Still, of course, one goes on believing the nurserymen year after year. They expect it, and 6 MY SHRUBS would be hurt if we did not. I always fall to the bait that a thing " does well on the West Coast of Ireland." It is extraordinary the number of fine plants that do well on the West Coast of Ireland, though they simply won't breathe the air of the West of England. I shall go to the West Coast of Ireland some day, with an open mind, to satisfy myself about these allegations. There are a few points that even gardeners forget, and one is that for plants that would enjoy the Equator, two degrees of frost are quite as fatal as fifty. We struggle in snug corners with sub-tropical vegetation, and whisper to it hopefully that our winters down here are a mere flea-bite, and that everything is going to be all right. But we might just as well tell pineapple and sugar-cane that it is going to be all right, as some of our victims. In fact, an English winter is a very severe ordeal for Southerners, and, though the conditions vary profoundly, and we can certainly here, on the fringe of the Channel, grow things which you in the Midlands must not dream about, still, we have our dour experiences and tragedies from which you escape. For you feel not even tempted to make certain experiments ; but we are lulled into fancied security ; our fine pieces grow gigantic, and we forget and become vainglorious. Then follows the downfall — as when, not many years ago, in Cornwall, every Clethra arbor ea of im- portance in the county was felled to the ground by fifteen degrees of frost. Ten years must elapse before these clethras build themselves up again. But if a Canary Islander thus suffers, how much more is a shrub from the fringe of the tropics in danger ? Leucodendron argenteum is, of course, a tree at home ; but my specimen of this most beautiful foliage plant stands no more than six feet high, and has, until now, lived in a pot and emerged only MY SHRUBS 7 during the summer. Leucodendron never goes indoors again here, however. He is in the ground for good or ill — and has a " lew >: spot between a wall and a buttress, protected from everywhere but the sky, and facing south. I could winter there myself ; but will the Cape silver tree ? I doubt it. My purpose is to cover up his little trunk and lower limbs, and arrange a piece of glass over his head to keep the rain and frost out of his foliage crowns ; but I shall not swathe him, though if anything arctic happens I shall envelop him for the time being against it. If necessary, my own greatcoat shall cover him. The real places for our best treasures lie in glades and dingles amid thick woods and conifers at the mouths of rivers. There Embothrium flourishes and Guevina avellana towers to a tree. The largest plant in England of this latter glorious Chilian dwells within twelve miles of my home — a privilege that can only be realised by a good gardener. One word of caution must be uttered. While money and energy will advance most worldly concerns, these are minor considerations in the matter of a shrub. Money and energy may start a fine piece under perfect conditions, but they will not hasten its growth. Shrubs, in fact, are no good to an old man in a hurry. If you are over sixty years of age, stick to the herbaceous border, orchids and fruit ; indeed, forty-five is none too early to begin growing shrubs. But you will find the pursuit worth while, for, though they offer no intellectual excitement, they furnish quite an intelligent pastime, and may serve to gladden the leisure of a busy man, or even keep an idle one out of mischief — provided the worthless individual can be grafted with proper ardour for the craft. 8 MY SHRUBS In this booklet I propose to submit some few hundred genera, with their species, that I have myself grown. As yet there is no finality about frutescent things ; but should a list of the best hundred extant shrubs be drawn up by one qualified to make it, I am sure that many of my favourites would appear therein. 1 CHAPTER I me the names that it has pleased man to bestow upon the works of nature are always interesting, and in this brief excursion I shall sometimes furnish derivation for many a household word in the gardener's list. These you will find that you have forgotten, if, indeed, you ever knew them. Many are apposite, and many fatuous and grotesque. Imagination was needed in this matter, but Science saw no reason to invite the co-operation of those who possessed it. She muddled on, without the least poetic feeling for what she was about, and, as a result, a host of fine things are called after some utterly insignificant structural accident, while even more of them immortalise industrious nonentities with perfectly hideous names. Adam, at least, escaped this crime, for Tom, Dick and Harry were not invented when he opened his eyes in the Garden. In the case of Abelia, a shrub with which I may open my list, the quite euphonious word represents Dr. Clarke Abel, who visited China rather less than a hundred years ago, wrote an account of his journey in 1818, and passed in 1826. Not until some years after his death did Abelia come to England ; but now there are four or five of the species in cultivation, of which A. floribunda is easily the best. This handsome Mexican evergreen, with purple- crimson flowers, is prosperous in the West Country ; but it likes a wall, and, if in the open, should have winter protection. A. triflora and A. rupestris are good hardy shrubs from Hindustan 9 B io MY SHRUBS and China respectively. They flower in the fall, but have no great value or charm. Of the dwarf Abies, a delightful, little neat conifer is A. hudsonica and the varieties of A. sub-alpina are also good for your miniature forest. General mention of the natural dwarfs is made else- where. Abutilon is akin to Malva. They are showy things, and make great plants against a wall, with flowers white and yellow, crimson and chocolate ; but best I like A. vitifolium, the vine- leaved abutilon, whose foliage is always beautiful, and whose porcelain blue, or pure white, flowers plentifully cover the shrub in May. A. vitifolium attains to a great size, and is as hardy in Devonshire as most other Chilians. I find half shade suits them best — a rule for Chilians in general. In full sun this shrub is apt to drop its flower-buds unexpanded. A. megapotamicum — " the big river " abutilon — a brilliant and cheerful gem from Rio Grande with blossoms of red, yellow, and brown — is worth a wall. With Acacia I have failed. The various species tried all made fine plants, and for ten years A. dealbata regularly covered her feathery limbs with dense inflorescence ; but once only did the weather suffer a fine display. With February too often comes frost, to ruin the promise of splendour at a critical moment when the flower is opening. In more sheltered gardens this and other varieties do well. I should like to try Rice's wattle from Tasmania if I knew where to get it. Of Acer, I have only a few examples. The little Japanese dwarf maples make fine colour with their purple and rosy foliage on a rockery. The dark-leaved sorts are the hardiest, and those with the beautiful variegated foliage often fail me. They are perfect MY SHRUBS ii little natural dwarf trees ; but some grow to a good size, though slowly. Beside Como, I saw a drift of these purple maples planted with blue conifers. They made noble colour, and now I have a purple maple and a sky-blue abies side by side. A sheaf of purple gladiolus supports them, and completes the little picture. Acer negundo is always welcome against a background of shadow or evergreen, and others I grow for the autumn colour they take. A. saccharinum, the sugar maple, is no longer a shrub, and will soon reach an altitude when we shall have to part. It is one of the first of things to light the flaming autumn signals. Actinidia is a small genus, and as yet I have only seen A. volubilis from Japan and A. chinensis flower here. The first is a fine climber, and the trusses of snowy little bell-like blossoms are beautiful. A. chinensis is also a grand climbing plant, and its furry crimson leaves in spring atone for a tardiness in flowering. Its yellow blossoms are not striking ; perhaps they will be followed by a dessert of pleasant fruits some day. I wait in trust and hope for this de- layed bounty. A. Henryi is the latest of the company to appear in England, and it sounds not much different from the last named. The family of Adenocarpus is scattered through the Canary Islands, Spain, and South of France. It affords no opportunities for great enthusiasm. A. anagyrus, from Teneriffe, is a fairly hardy evergreen of peculiar habit, with tufts of yellow pea-blossoms ; but I should not miss it. lEsculus parviflora, the buck-eye, makes a beautiful little tree with spires of feathery white and pink blossom, like a fairy horse- chestnut. It fruits late, and as yet I have not gleaned ripe nuts from it. The word is Pliny's, given by him to an oak with edible acorns. But eesculus, though esculent in letter, is not in truth. 12 MY SHRUBS M. calif ornica flowers during May, and makes a shrub of great distinction. This should ripen its fruit. Akebia quinata — a Japanese climber with a Japanese name — flourishes in the south and takes kindly to some English gardens ; but here the growth is feeble and the fragrant, chocolate-coloured flowers are few. A. labata seems to be a sturdier plant of more promise. Moreover, it blooms a month later — to its own advantage. Alberta magna is a handsome evergreen from Natal, with scar let trumpet flowers, like a honey -suckle. It enjoys the summer in a sunny spot out- of -doors, but must retire to the cold house in October. Merely remarking that Albizzia would be welcome but probably useless, and smiling upon Aloysia citriodora, named after Maria Louisa, mother of Ferdinand VII of Spain ; dismissing the Amelanchiers also as beautiful folk of no pressing importance, we may admire the dwarf almond, Amygdalyus nana, from Tartary, which, a yard high and well furnished, makes a dainty shrub. For two hundred and fifty years this little Russian has been known in our gardens, and is still far too rare. It sets its bitter fruits well when prosperous. Almonds are always desirable, and I remember a plain nigh Toulon, where the flowering trees spread over leagues of tawny earth. One looked down upon their rosy cloud from a mountain-side with much emotion. Ampherephis albescens is an evergreen with pale clusters of aster-like flowers, while Andrachne colchica has yet to declare itself with me ; but this plant from the Caucasus possesses virtues, and is quite hardy. It came from a German arboretum, and promises to be a graceful shrub though the inflorescence is trifling. That little Laplander, Andromeda tetragona, persists in a shaded, peaty corner, but cannot settle down to any great display. It MY SHRUBS 13 flowers feebly and dwells with a colony of dwarf conifers. Perhaps if I set it among flowering plants, it would discover its possibilities and hang out more snowy bells in spring. Again, if I were to call it " Cassiope," it might perchance declare itself, for all gar- deners can furnish incidents of plants that languish under one name, which will flourish at once when the synonym is provided. Anopteris glandulosa is a very fine thing indeed. Above the shining laurel-like leaves, hang white waxy flowers as big as a snowdrop. It is rare in cultivation, but by challenging your nurseryman and hinting that the shrub is beyond his reach, he may make an effort and procure it for you. Do not, however, suppose he will perform this feat for less than half a guinea ; he may indeed want more ; and he will have earned it if he procures you a good piece. Anopteris flourishes in a garden of a friend, who holds it hardy. But his ideas on that subject must be discounted, for he dwells beside a tidal river sheltered from all winds that blow. Therefore give it your most sheltered spot in half-shade, and guard it jealously through the winter. A good silky shrub is Anthyllis Barba-Jovis — a kidney vetch that grows six feet high. Mine, which I collected as a seedling beside the Mediterranean, on roasting sun-scorched cliffs, did well for many years before it passed away. Its early inflorescence of pale butter-colour was often discouraged by frost, but the plant prospered until I moved it — a course it resented to the extent of perishing. I remember the good thing at Kew, on a wall, but know not if it prospers there yet. Aralia supplies many handsome species for the garden and A. Sieboldiiy the Japanese evergreen, attains to a great size and splendour among us in the West. A. spinosa, the Angelica Tree i4 MY SHRUBS of North America, has made a splendid specimen with me, and is a showy object when covered with its flower masses in October. The variegated form of A. Spinosa is also handsome. Of Arbutus, the austere bush, I have but the familiar A. unedo — a thing very fair to see with the scarlet fruit and little snowy bells, like lily of the valley, hanging side by side in the dark, shining foliage. There are many species, and some fine varieties for the cold house, but nothing beats the strawberry tree. That nice little plant of the same order as Arbutus : Arctostaphylos, the bear's grape, will not live with me. A. uva-ursi is a fine dwarf shrub or trailer, but, like other good things from the high- lands, cannot suffer gladly this climate. Maybe I do not grow it wet enough, for a companion plant, Oxy coccus palustris, the native cranberry, flowers and fruits in a bog not five yards distant. There is a Nevada arctostaphylos that makes a fine shrub five feet high, but I know not if it has found its way to English collections. With Ardisia I have done nothing. A.japonica is the hardiest, but it made no show in a snug corner here, and never recovered a moderate winter. Possibly, treated like certain of my favourites, which are plunged in their pots through summer and returned to the cold house before November, it might flourish ; but one cannot do too much of this work, and on the whole Ardisia, of Japan, does not appeal to me as worth it. A. macrocarpa, from Nepaul, is a very notable shrub for the stove. Aristea, of the order oilridacece, may seem to have no place here, but A. corymbosa, from the Cape, has a shrubby habit of the most charming and original character, and its clusters of deep blue flowers sparkle in the sword-like foliage at late autumn. It needs peat and sand and a bell-glass in winter. MY SHRUBS 15 Aristolochia sipho, the tube-bearing birthwort, all men know as a genial climber whose straggling limbs hang forth their " Dutch- man's pipes " in June, and whose foliage turns bright gold before it falls ; while for the stove, though I pretend to no knowledge of the myriad precious shrubs that are grown there, one may be heartily commended : A. elegans. This noble aristolochia hangs out its shell-shaped flowers of white spattered with purple by hundreds through the summer, and never fails to win applause for its somewhat sinister beauty. A woman once said that she thought the flower all innocence and dimity ; but no : there is nothing of dimity or innocence about A. elegans. The plant comes freely from seed, and is easy to manage ; few things in any stove are more splendid. Aristotelia Macqui from Chili is a familiar, handsome and hardy evergreen, with small green flowers and black berries to follow. The foliage is very fine. Asimina triloba pursues its even way under a warm wall, but this papaw from Pennsylvania proves a slow grower, and I have not as yet seen its chocolate-coloured flower, or tasted its yellow fruit. It takes its own time, and whether its ultimate performances will synchronise with my power to applaud them remains to be seen. Probably not. As for Athrotaxis doniana, this excellent little Tasmanian conifer is happy here, and its appearance delights me. It is good for twenty feet, but at present stands no more than two. It suggests a juniper with a style of its own. Atragene alpina loves a wall in half shade. The most beautiful variety is blue and white. Mine came from a great prosperous piece that showers over the natural rocks in the little botanical garden of 16 MY SHRUBS Zermatt. The pure white form of this clematis is also a good thing. Atraphaxis, or Tragopyron, I still seek in vain ; but these Siberian shrubs should be hardy enough. Perhaps their scarcity argues that they are no great catch. Azalea is a countless host in herself, and one might fill the garden with the hardy new crosses of these invaluable shrubs. It is enough here to name a few that I best like, and to advise Azalea mollis, on half standards. Thus grown, it will be found a very great success in small and formal gardens such as mine. A. Amcena hexe and A. Hinodegirii are both brilliant evergreen varieties ; while A. rosaeflora is really a treasure and worthy of a snug corner. The swamp honeysuckles from America are all good ; but A. occidentalis, a late flowerer which opens in snowy, fragrant trusses during July, and A. Vaseyi, another fine thing with palest rose-coloured blossoms in April, are my favourites. Azalea nudiflorum, a North American, is a great beauty too, and still rare in cultivation. One is moved at the dreadful slaughter of Azalea indica which obtains in this country. Thousands of this cheerful plant come annually to us in autumn, and make bright our conservatories during spring. Then they are cast out and suffered to perish, whereas if they were plunged in a sunny corner of the kitchen garden, well-watered through the summer, and taken back to the cold house or vinery in October, they would flourish and come up to the scratch gaily for another year. Re-pot every third year, and the kindly things, asking for no more, will probably last as long as you do. Indeed, one cannot assert their limit of life. That prince of horticulturists, Herr Sander, recently told me that he has Azalea MY SHRUBS 17 indica ten feet through and a hundred years old, and still in full vigour and prime ! I urged him to show these marvels in England, and he is tempted to bring them from Belgium for that high purpose ; but, needless to say, the moving of such monsters in their tubs is rather a weighty matter. Azara loves a wall facing east, with protection from the east if possible. In such a station this admirable Chilian will climb to your roof. A. microphylla is the most familiar, and may be mentioned with praise for its beautiful foliage and scented in- florescence, like gold dust, under the leaves in March. A. dentata is also interesting, and A. integrifolia, especially the rare variety with mottled foliage, must be a treasure. CHAPTER II OF BacchariSy I will merely say that the name is derived from Bacchus, god of wine, and refers to the spicy odour of the roots. I forgot to smell the roots of mine when I pulled it up and flung it away. It is said to make a good hedge by the sea. It may be so. I glean also that A. xalapensis is rarely seen in gardens, and am not astonished to hear it. The noble race of Banksia is also rarely seen in gardens, though the south of France displays a few of these grand Australians under flourishing circum- stances. I remember a giant at La Mortala — Mecca of all shrub lovers. More than a hundred years ago the Botany Bay House was opened at Kew for Banksia and its allies ; and in the " seven- ties " certain nurserymen still made a special study of them. Kew yet shows them under glass ; though among the fifty species recorded, perhaps not a dozen live in England to-day. Mr. Boscawen is reported to have the gorgeous " waratah " (T eloped) prosperous in Cornwall ; but of the Protea order I only know Banksia quercifolia in the open. With me it lost heart at the first whisper of frost, flung down its foliage and perished. And yet I learn that in Dorset it makes a festive display. Few English enthusiasts have ever seen Banksia, but let those who can do so consult the old " Botanical Magazine," plate 738, and there they will find B. ericcefolia, and judge of the splendour and novelty of this genus. I believe we frequently err in the time of planting half-hardy 18 MY SHRUBS 19 subjects. They are sent to us in autumn — often from a cold house — and we are apt to drag them from their pots and thrust them out, all unprepared, to face the worst weather that we know. Rather let us wait for April, then tenderly introduce them to pleasant nooks, and encourage them to make some useful growth before the period of penance and privation begins. Now, in January, I have a dozen fine things waiting in a cool house for spring to come, and they will all at least have one summer of glorious life to stretch their roots and hopefully face the open air of England. The quaint Barnadesia seems to be out of cultivation, for I never hear of it ; but Baueria rubioides can be secured, and this good Australian from New South Wales, though it failed me in the open, now prospers against a warm wall. The pink flowers, like a minute Kalmiay are freely displayed in summer. Barosma dioica, from the Cape, made no long stay, and possibly others of this heath-like family are hardier. For Benthamia fragifera I lack room, but fine specimens of this splendid dog- wood, from Nepaul^ flower and fruit handsomely round about. Berberidopsis corallina is a plant for which I entertain great regard. This scandent evergreen Chilian has climbed twenty feet on an east wall, and its clusters of bright crimson blossoms in July are always greeted with applause. Of the hosts of the barberries, a splendid new-comer is Berberis Bealiiy whose lax, lily- of -the- valley-scented tresses open in early spring. A matured plant is distinguished by its immense and handsome foliage as well as the pale yellow flowers. I have, too, a fine piece of the old B. japonica, and the glaucous leaves of B. trifoliata look well on the rockery. For beauty of habit no shrub beats a specimen of B. stenophylla ; Fortune's berberis is 20 MY SHRUBS also a handsome foliage plant ; while other fine shrubs, among more recent novelties, are B. sanguined, from Mongolia, and the Hima- layan, B. insignis. B. gracilis, of Mexico, though tender, is worth a trial, and B. trifoliata, mentioned above, is also a Mexican and not quite hardy. One must name with great praise also B. Fre- montiy with glaucous foliage, and that bright little July flowering shrub, Wilson's berberis> from China, with yellow flowers and bright red berries. Betula nana, the dwarf birch, stands but three feet high, and makes a delightful addition to my forest of little conifers. There is a pendulous variety of this mite that one would welcome. Big- nonia grandiflora is disappointing, for, while my specimen prospers exceedingly, and increases from year to year, its heavy flower- spikes are produced so late that the night temperatures begin to fall and the hours of sunshine shorten before it blows. Once, some- years ago, the shrub did itself justice, and then it was a great spectacle ; but since that occasion only an occasional blossom has opened its splendid orange-yellow cup. Vitex agnus castus, the chaste tree, does the same. It prepares fine points of inflores- cence during September, and never opens them. The plants dwell side by side under a south wall, and no more can be done for them here. The Bignonia is worthy of a cold house ; the Vitex is not. Biglovia, sacred to Doctor Jacob Bigelow, author of " Florula Bostoniensis," is a hardy little shrub from California, which hangs out modest yellow panicles in summer and likes half shade ; while Billardiera scandens, from New South Wales, is about the only native fruit of Australia — a little pretty berry, which follows a drooping flower. It is a climber for a cold house, and no addition to dessert even at its best. BOWKERIA GERARDIANA MY SHRUBS 21 Bowkeria gerardiana deserves greater praise and attention. From South Africa it comes with snow-white flowers, shaped like a calceolaria, that sparkle forth in July. This rare and beautiful shrub is recommended to all who dwell in the south and can give it wall space. Indeed, Mr. Wyndham Fitzherbert, who probably possesses the finest specimen in England, will show it to you seven feet high upon a southern slope far from all shelter. But he is a magician, and we common men can only admire without seeking to emulate his feats of horticulture. Er achy glottis repanda attained to magnificent dimensions with him, too, as I remember ; but this attractive New Zealander will probably puzzle you to satisfy. Brachysema acuminatum is a very beautiful but tender shrub for a snug wall. The flowers are rich scarlet, like a small clianthus ; the foliage is bright silver. This New Hollander must be treated with great respect out-of-doors, but it is well worthy of a cold house — in peat or sand with perfect drainage. Of Boronia, named by Dr. Sibthorpe, after his faithful servant, Francis Boroni, who perished at Athens, that fragrant and delicious treasure, B. megastigma, thrives in some Devon gardens. But only lucky people, with whom Providence is on the best of terms, can show it really prosperous to you out of doors. I have tried and failed, yet I shall give Providence another chance to offer a helping hand in this matter. I hope good Boroni had a spike of the shrub in his hand when he lost his life, and I should like to think that it scented many a holy place of old, when the Golden Age offered flowers to its goddesses. As B. megastigma comes from South-Western Australia, however, this dream seems vain. But when did it settle at Athens ? Bouvardia triphylla, with most brilliant scarlet corymbs, a 22 MY SHRUBS plant named after an old-time director of the King's garden at Paris, is a Mexican of great beauty, exceedingly rare in cultivation. With a little nursing through winter, it thrives in favoured gardens, and no more splendid thing brightens an August day. If you can tell me where this may be secured, I shall thank you. At present I know of two pieces only, and neither belongs to me. There are many good garden hybrids ; but B. triphylla is far finer than any of them. Bridgesia spicata has few friends, but I like this Chilian's pale pink masses of inflorescence in March, when competition is not keen. It is quite hardy, makes a huge bush on a wall, and if you prefer to call it Er cilia, the Peruvian name, not a soul can blame you. The purple tassels and golden balls of Buddleia are familiar to every shrub lover, but a choice species, with delicate creamy racemes and most delicious fragrance, is B. asiatica. This proves quite a hardy Indian with me, and scents its corner of the garden from September to the frosts. It is a good thing, and so is B. paniculata — a plant with silvery foliage still seldom seen. Sir James Colville's fine Buddleia, when well grown, makes a mag- nificent appearance with its cherry-coloured clusters of flowers and silver-green foliage. This is perfectly hardy, and a valued friend owns perhaps the best piece in the West Country. Twenty feet high it stands, and it was grown from seed that the owner himself collected in the Sikkim Himalaya. I thank him gratefully for my picture, which came from his famous compound. B. auriculata, a very recent arrival, I have as a gift from a kind professional ; but it proves to be B. asiatica over again. Herr Sander has some notable new rosy hybrids of B. variabilis. Buddleia, by the way, renders immortal the name of Adam BUDDLEIA COLVILEI BUDDLEIA ASIATIC A MY SHRUBS 23 Buddie, whose herbarium of British plants is still preserved, and whose name the august Ray not seldom mentions in his " Synopsis." Bupleurum fruticosum, from Spain, is a good evergreen that will bring forth its yellow umbels anywhere. The sea-green leaves are a pleasant colour, and the plant I think quite worth a corner in even a small collection. The Box is not a popular shrub as a specimen, but Buxus Handsworthii makes a good little tree with foliage considerably larger than most of the genus. CHAPTER III C^ESALPINIA JAPONICA is one of the fine shrubs with which I have done little. It flowers occasionally, but shows no heartiness, and makes but scanty growth. I suspect this piece is of poor constitution, for plants, like animals, vary much in their physique, and there is no obvious reason why my ccesalpinia should not prosper. This chronic invalid must have its troubles ended, and I will try again with a sounder specimen. A wall, full sun, and good loam should meet its requirements, and enable it to produce the handsome yellow flowers with crimson stamens. That grand shrub C. Galliesii, from South America, has also failed with me, after several trials. Probably I cannot keep it dry enough in winter. Calceolaria integrifolia thrives well beside the sea, and hangs out its golden bunches freely. It is a Chilian, but enjoys full sun, with a wall behind it for choice. C. violacea also loves sunshine, but is not quite so hardy. Its little corollas of pale violet, spotted with a darker tone of the same colouring, are mildly interesting. A more important pair are Callislemon speciosus and C. salignus, the scarlet and white bottle-brushes. These fine things, from Australia, love a warm corner in peat, and there prosper and make good growth from year to year. The winter they much dislike, and the younger foliage is often nipped in frosty weather ; but they come through bravely enough, and flash out again brilliant and cheerful when June returns. 24 DWARF CONIFERS MY SHRUBS 25 Callicarpa longtfolia is a deciduous shrub from Japan, with flowers in violet spikes and violet berries to follow. My infant plant grows well, but has not yet blossomed. The other varieties are tender, save the rare C. giraldiana. Calophaca wolgarica, from Siberia, is hearty, and hangs out its rather dull yellow, pea-flowered blooms among dwarf conifers — various species of pinus and thuya, fir and retinosphora — which make it welcome enough. Here, too, are yews in miniature, and certain junipers, of which Juniperus hibernica nana, like a big blue shaving-brush, can cheer my most dejected hour. To speak generally of these tiny trees, which have thrust themselves into this chapter, I admit that natural dwarfs cannot vie with the aesthetic, artificial miniatures of Japan — those wonderful living pictures painted by generations of faithful artists ; those tortured things hanging to life by their eyelids, and suggesting, in the com- pass of a porcelain tray or bowl, the whole battle of a tree against lightning and tempest and time. These solemn atoms rightly awake far deeper emotions than my fat and prosperous dwarfs ; but the ideal of a northern Vandal like myself is prosperity, peace, and plenty in my garden patch ; and, while I admire the more subtle and sublime conceptions of the Japanese — earthy wretch that I am — there is no desire in me to emulate their emaciated master- pieces. I respect their ideals and applaud their ambition ; I cheer the genius who can give you a whole country-side — its contours and complexities, plains and forests, and cloud-capped hills, within the ambit of a tea-tray ; but such good things are not for me ; such flights leave my bucolic spirit bewildered and fainting. I will not heave up a mountain in a flower-pot and set a blasted maple upon its dizzy crags ; I will not make an D 26 MY SHRUBS allegory of a starving cupressus, or tell the whole secret of in- domitable will conquering abominable bad luck in the shape of a thirsty and lop-sided thuya lingering upside down against fearful and cruel odds. No — I see the spiritual significance, and I worship the Wisdom of the East, that has lifted gardening to these soulful heights ; but I go on trying to make my things lovely above ground and happy below ; and I am quite certain that they prefer my way, because, like myself, they know no better. Calodendron capensis has languished in a pot for years, but made no effort worth the name ; Callicoma serrattfolia still awaits me. The latter is the black wattle of New South Wales, and is declared to be a very desirable shrub. Calothamnus pyrolceflorus is a stout, dwarf, deciduous shrub from Alaska, with chocolate-coloured flowers and an iron consti- tution against cold ; but it will succumb swiftly to too much hot sunshine. The newer C. Baxteri is an Australian evergreen with crimson flowers — beautiful, but not too easy. Calycanthus floridusy the Carolina allspice, pursues its way in half shade, and produces its lumpy chocolate-coloured flowers, while C. macrophyllus is also going ahead handicapped by per- petual shade. We put upon these willing customers, and, because they will do their duty in shade, though quite as fond of an occasional sunbeam as most other living creatures, condemn them to live without a ray. Camellia does well in half shade here, and I have Gauntlett's splendid hybrid — pure, single white, with yellow anthers, together with good pieces of the double Japanese white and red. C. latifolia, a hardy species, also does well. C. Sasanqua died, but has appeared again in a cooler corner, and as for C. reticulata, the MY SHRUBS 27 queen of them all, so far she has only dwelt out of doors in a cool peat bed during summer, built up her bud, and then came in when November returned. Each spring I decide that she shall go to ground definitely ; but she prospers so splendidly in a pot, and is such a glory for the house during March, when she blossoms, that in a pot she still remains, with sundry other treasures. Of course, on a sheltered wall, in half shade facing west, the splendid shrub is hardy here, yet even in Devon one seldom sees it really prosperous out of doors. The large flower is a rosy crimson, semi-double, and enriched by a splendid tassel of golden anthers. One could wish to see Capparis spinosay the European caper tree, in our gardens or upon our walls, for it might, with slight aid, weather a Devon winter ; but I have no knowledge of the shrub nearer than Provence. It is a beautiful thing, and would probably germinate and prosper if seed were sown in the nooks of a good old brick wall facing south. Cantua buxijolia, from the Peruvian Andes, is a fine shrub, but difficult and very tender. I have failed to flower it against a wall, and even now, in a cold house, it puts forth its long, trumpet- like purple blossoms but seldom. This is mere bad fortune, or, more probably, ignorance, for the plant is said to thrive in the West. Caragana leaves me cold. I get tired of these pea-flowered blossoms. There are caraganas still skulking about in corners here ; but I slight them, and occasionally, catching sight of one flaunting his insignificance, drag him up and give him away to a friend who professes to like them. Caragana gerardiana is a mildly interesting dwarf species. Carmichtelia australis from New Holland, has been a great success with me, and now stands nine feet high and covers itself 28 MY SHRUBS with tiny inflorescence in summer. This, too, is pea-flowered, but may pass for its lilac-pink and general joyfulness. It dwells on a south wall in peat, side by side with Carpentaria calijornica^ from the Sierra Nevada, a noble shrub with clusters of snow-white flowers, yellow stamens, and handsome evergreen foliage. It is hardy here, and a quick grower when prosperous. Cassia need merely be named, and Cassinia all men know ; but Castanopsis chrysophylla, a beautiful little dwarf from Oregon, with a golden reverse to the dark green leaves, is still rare. *I have failed with it, but am trying again, for it is an admirable little shrub. Ceanothus thyrsiflorus as it occurs at Kew, and might behave in your garden with ample room, is a very beautiful thing, while of hybrids C. " Gloire de Versailles " is very happy here. The family is not among my favourites — a misfortune it survives without difficulty. Cephalotaxus Fortunei is a beautiful Chinese conifer, and the species most likely to succeed in an English garden. It resembles a shrubby yew, and has small, plum-like fruits. For the dwarf forest there is no more perfect little pendulous conifer than Chamcecyparis filijera aurea. This is among my treasures, and its little golden arms droop to earth most delightfully. It is often called a Retinospora ; indeed the names are inter- changeable. My photograph will show it to you embracing a little Juniper. Concerning Choisya ternata, it need only be repeated that this Mexican is perfectly hardy and admirable in every way ; while Cistus, too, has become a beautiful commonplace in its many forms. My picture of C. albida I submit because the plant was collected by me as a tiny seedling on a snowy day in CISTUS ALBIDUS CERASUS SOLFATARA MY SHRUBS 29 the Esterelles, and came home in a matchbox. Now its silver- grey, tormentose foliage and purple flowers are an addition to a rock border. The true C. ladaniferus, or gum cistus, is still the finest of the genus, and the true C. purpureus is also splendid. A tiny gem still too rare is C. Alyssoides with bright yellow blossoms. Chimonanthus fragrans, from Japan, has made huge bushes here, and its leafless boughs, covered with most fragrant yellow and purple flowers in January are welcome. Spikes a yard long can be picked without hurting these splendid growers, and I am safe in asserting that Winter-sweet should be upon the south wall of every dwelling-house. Chionanthus virginicay the fringe flower, as yet has not responded to my care. I have grown it for years and never seen a bloom — probably because it was too dry. Peat and a cool corner seem indicated. C. retusus is a splendid new variety. Citharexylum quadr angular e, the Lyre-wood, a desirable ever- green with sweet white flowers ,« perished here during a mild winter, and perhaps is not even half-hardy. Yet again Dorset has been quoted as flaunting a fine specimen. Therefore it shall be attempted once more. No Devon man will be outdone by Dorset without a struggle. I am trying C. bessonianum now, and have bloomed this lilac-flowered shrub successfully in a young state. The flower-spikes are very trifling. But I have missed Cerasus, and must hark back to a special treasure from Japan. Cerasus soljatara is a rare gem — a hardy cherry, with most delicately- tinted blossoms of pale lemon and rose and green. Nothing can be more beautiful than its delicate umbels among the young amber-coloured leaves. You shall also find it under the name of C. lutea. C. ilicifolia, which I 3o MY SHRUBS lack, by the way, is a very handsome wall plant ; and among the best of the many splendid Japanese cherries may be named C. " ama-no-gawa," a shrub of upright growth, with lax clusters of large and palest pink blossoms. For this good thing, and C. solfatara, too, I have to thank that mandarin of the garden, Mr. Reginald Farrer, from whom also came to me notable Japanese tree paeonies — deep scarlet and crimson, rose and white. Cerasus pseudocerasus — " James H. Veitch " — you cannot omit, and C. sinensis pendula rosea is another great treasure among these shrubs. Cestrum or Habrothamus will flourish here in some of its species and the friend whose cherry-coloured Buddleia has been named with praise, has given me a C. auruntiacum from Mexico which thrives in the open. Its crimson clusters of bloom are strikingly handsome during May, and should be oftener seen. Ceratonia siliqua, the familiar Carob or Locust tree, does well on a wall, and appears hardier than might be supposed ; but my plant, grown from seed, is only a few feet high, and whether its small flower will ever appear I know not. I remember masses of its dusky, evil-smelling pods in Cyprus, and the sickly taste of the pulp. It makes a handsome tree in the East, and its fruit, of course, is of commercial value. Cercidiphyllum japonicum is a good, little, neat, deciduous shrub without any special charm, and of Cercocarpus parviflorusy from Mexico — a Fothergilla-like shrub — I can only report that it languishes and wants to go indoors ; but Cercis siliquastrum, the Judas tree, flowering as it does while still of shrubby size, must be held a treasure. The bright rosy inflorescence hides every naked bough sometimes, and, not content with that, my piece, now grown to twenty feet, thrusts out clusters and tufts of flowers CERASUS "AMA-NO-GAWA ' OESTRUM AURUNTIACUM , MY SHRUBS 31 from the stem and from every joint and corner where the possi- bility of a bloom exists. The foliage, too, is very handsome and the leaves are the last to fall in autumn. It has never fruited here. The tiny Chiogenes serpyllifolia, the creeping Snowberry from North America, did well in a boggy pocket, set its little fruits and seemed at home ; but it was smothered by coarser things and forgotten, and now it has disappeared. It is a good and dainty scrap, and easy enough in wet peat. Celastrus scandens is an old favourite — a tremendous climber from North America — whose orange-coloured berries and autumn tints are very effective. It needs to be kept in bounds, and is very greedy and pushing underground as well as overhead. With Citrus I have not succeeded out of doors, save partially in the case of the deciduous C. trifoliata from Japan. This thorny customer, though it flowers freely, with large, lax, snow- white blossoms that come before the triple leaves, has not set fruit as yet. It would probably add little to the joy of my dessert if it did, though you who have seen and grown the oranges, will perhaps say that grapes are sour. Clematis would need a booklet by itself. The word is Klema, a vine, and a few members of the genus are here, notably C. indivisa lobata, a beautiful creamy- white flowered species from New Zealand. It is tender, and shares an Archangel mat with Lonicera Hildebrandti and Ruscus androgynus when frost falls and the east wind blows. Here, too, are C. virginica, C. lanuginosa, C. graveolens — a pretty yellow species from Chinese Tartary — C. montana rubens, absurdly over-rated, C. vitalba, in the arms of a yew tree, and one or two of the shrubby species. But I am not very fond of the race, though C. cirrhosa I appreciate, when its 32 MY SHRUBS little cream-coloured flowers, spattered with dull purple, appear in January, and C. coccinea has a character of its own, and looks more like a red fruit than a flower. Its hybrids are good. Clerodendron fcetidum, from China, though the leaf is un- pleasant, has trusses of fragrant pink flowers, while the newer C. Fargesii sports white blossoms, followed by most beautiful azure fruits set in pink stars. C. fallax, from Java, has scarlet panicles, and makes a splendid shrub for the stove ; but more beautiful still is that monarch of stove climbers, C. Baljouri, with its clusters of snow and crimson from Old Calabar. Clerodendron is a fair deceiver, according to her name ; but I know not in what her guile consists. Cleihra arbor ea is the best of this genus. I think it vain to attempt this out of doors, save in the most sheltered gardens by the sea. In our Western river estuaries it occasionally thrives ; but there always comes a sharp winter to lower it to the ground, and, though it will break again from the earth, it is then a case of waiting for the snowy panicles of bloom for several years. It is a Madeira species, but less hardy than Pinus canariensis, the blue fir, from the same favoured island. I think the rest of the Clethras come from America, but I only know the common C. almfolia. C. paniculata, from Carolina, sounds a fine thing, in the style of the tree clethra above named. Clianthus, well-named from Kleios, glory — the Glory Pea, or Parrot Beak, of New Zealand — is a very splendid wall shrub, and C. puniceus, with the variety C. puniceus alba, is eminently success- ful on a wall. They flower and seed freely, but since the flower racemes are set in autumn, if the cold is severe, an Archangel mat may well be used to protect the bud against injury. C. Dampieri, CLIANTHUS DAMPIERI MY SHRUBS 33 from New South Wales, is a glorious thing for a cold house. It is difficult, but will prosper when grafted on the hardier species, or on Caragana. A use for Caragana! The pale, silver-green foliage and huge scarlet and black blossoms make a notable effect. It is Lucifer's own flower. I have attempted it out of doors without success, but it is worth a pot and some trouble. Cneorum tricoccum is a hardy shrublet from the Canary Islands, with yellow flowers and triple seeds — interesting, but only botani- cally. C. pulverulentum, from Teneriffe, is said to have more charm. Cocculus I failed to please, but C. heterophyllus is a handsome Chinese creeper, and may take to you. Corynocarpus Icevigata, with scarlet blossoms, is an evergreen tree in New Zealand ; but with me a little shrub. It flaunts in a peat bed during summer, but steals off before the cold weather comes. I find that the plum- like fruit is eaten by natives, and also the kernels of the stones, but only after their poisonous properties are dissipated by steaming or maceration in salt water. So now I am perfectly ready for Corynocarpus, when the glad time of harvest shall arrive. Colquhounia vestita needs a wall, and a snug one. This fine Nepaul plant has pea-shaped scarlet flowers and a scandent habit. Careful winter protection is necessary. Chorizema Lowei, a dainty Australian, I have seen out-of-doors in Cornwall, but nowhere else. For Cotoneaster's legions, I lack space and inclination ; but C. horizontalis has crept in from somewhere, and certainly is a very fine thing. C. rugosa Henryi, from China, is also here, with a most beautiful drooping habit and crimson- orange berries. The flowering thorns also are sadly overlooked in my garden, but E 34 MY SHRUBS they grow too large for me, and a friend, who owns perhaps the best collection of Cratcegus in the West Country, generously makes me free of it. Convolvulus Cneorum, from South Europe, is a splendid shrub, and its mound of silver sparkles throughout the year, brightened at flowering time by countless pale blossoms. Coprosma, on the contrary, I cannot praise. The best, C. Bauerina picturata varie- gata, is not hardy — what could be with such a name ? — but it makes a handsome pot plant. The hardy species that I know is a mean thing. The Dog-woods are worthy shrubs, and I have too few. Cornus Mas argentea is like a little tree of gold in spring before the leaves appear. This cornelian cherry, from Austria, should be in all collections. It fruits occasionally, but one has no desire to rob it twice. The tiny C. canadensis proceeds leisurely in a peat bed. Coronilla Emerus is a hardy evergreen here with fragrant yellow blossoms, while Corokia, from a Maori word meaning " Kia's claw," is a hardy New Zealander, welcomed by colonials of that country as familiar rubbish from their bush. C. cotoneaster is a network of crooked little implicated branches, amid which in spring, shine innumerable yellow stars, followed by occasional dull crimson berries ; while C. Buddleioides has a different habit and will make a larger plant, but the blossom is similar, though of a paler tint. I have, also, C. elliptica, whose manners and customs are not as yet declared ; but it looks to be something between the other two. Corrects are useful and beautiful South Australians. They seem hardy enough here, and make good growth, flowering in spring and onward. Perhaps C. cardinalis is the most showy. Corylopsis pauciflora, of the tribe of hamamelis, hangs out tender COLLETIA CRUCIATA MY SHRUBS 35 lemon-coloured racemes of flower before the leaves appear. But it does not get on with me, and ought, by this time, to be more important than it is. C. spicata is a much finer thing in my opinion. They come from Japan, and like half shade. Colletia cruciata, a Chilian, which reminds us of Philibert Collet, the famous French botanist, hails from Rio de la Plata, and is a hardy and spiny foreigner unlike anything else in any garden. The cruciform growth resembles rows of miniature anchors ; the leaves are minute, few and far between ; the flowers are innumer- able upon a successful specimen, and make the plant white in October. They are sweet ; but smell colletia with care, or he will stab you in a tender place. C. ferox and C. horrida live up to their names ; but C. horrida in flower is dainty and pleasing. The dwarf Cryptomeria, is good for your rockery, and C. elegans, in its miniature form, makes a really fascinating subject. It appreciates half shade and abundant moisture. C. japonica nana should keep it company. Cyrilla racemiflora, from North America, goes its quiet way in peat and shade ; but its lauded spikes of white blossom have yet to appear. Cytisus in a myriad forms I should welcome, but there is no room for many of these beautiful stragglers. C. prcecox, however, is here, and C. purpureus incarnattis, with pink flowers, succeeds as a standard. C. racemosus, the fragrant, attains to great size, and appears to be perfectly hardy in our Western gardens, and C. Ardoini, the smallest that I know, will prosper on a moraine with the least saxifrages. C. schipkaensis is a little white beauty from the Schipka Pass. This I have loved and lost, for the snails loved it even better than I. 36 MY SHRUBS Cydonia flowers and fruits with abandon. I have a crimson, a scarlet, a pink, and a white. The last is a superb little rock shrub, and never fails to deck its boughs with orange-coloured fruits when autumn comes. C. Maulei, from Nepaul, has a dis- tinctive, brick-red bloom. There are nurserymen who will tell you that its apples are edible. One would like to see them proving their words. Few more beautiful flowering things exist, by the way, than C. vulgar is ^ the quince. I have missed Crinodendron hookerianumy which you may call Tricuspadaria hexapetala if you prefer to do so. It is among the noblest shrubs, and still far too rare in gardens. From the dark evergreen foliage, the crimson flowers depend — waxlike and very brilliant. This splendid Chilian attains to great size, and sets fruit in our gardens. No worthier shrub could stand for ever linked to the august name of Hooker. C. dependens has white flowers in the eyes of the nurserymen ; but these poets are gifted with a sense of colour denied to many of us purblind amateurs. CRINODENDRON HOOKERIANUM CHAPTER IV UNDER the idiotic name of Damnacanthus major, I have a tiny Japanese shrub that thrives in a shady peat bed beneath a wall. It attains a height of five inches, and decks itself with white-scented flowers. The scarlet berries I have yet to see. It has strong opposite thorns, and was therefore handi- capped by the above name from damnao, to conquer, and acanthos, a spine. Could anything be sillier ? Then comes Daphne, a precious plant in most of its manifes- tations, though not so fond of this garden as one could wish. D. genkwa, the Japanese lilac, has perished thrice, and must be tried once more — against a wall ; while D. indica or odora, dwells near my stokehole, and enjoys that comfort in cold weather. My variety, D. marginata, has foliage outlined with gold, and in full flower, about the middle of March, looks well, and scents its secluded home. The habit is straggling, but the plant really must be grown where it will grow, for there is no fresher fra- grance in any garden than that of its pale pink flower clusters. Z). Cneorum is capricious, but will often flourish well in half shade, with compost of loam, sand and leaf. Nor does it resent a reason- able measure of lime in the soil. D. blagayana, another European, is a splendid evergreen with trusses of fragrant blossom. This is a granite lover, and on a granite moraine will wander cheerfully and bloom in early spring. A successful piece is a pure joy ; but you seldom see it prosperous. D. Mezereum flowers freely on its 37 38 MY SHRUBS naked wood in March, and the white variety sets handsome, orange-coloured berries, that make the plant striking when autumn comes. D.ponticais hardy, and handsome and sweet ; D. laureola Phillipii has a particularly attractive arrangement of foliage from which the green flowers peep in January. D. oleoides is a very neat and trim dwarf Daphne, with pink flowers and an excellent constitution. Daphniphyllum never interested me. It suggests a rhododen- dron without blossoms, for the blossom is nought. D. glaucescens, however, has beautiful foliage, and I should admit this shrub were space available. The delightful Darwiniasy named after Dr. Darwin who wrote " The Botanic Garden," a poem of ancient repute, I do not find in catalogues. Doubtless these fine things from Australia will not dwell out of doors with us ; but one would like to learn where they may be seen under glass. Over Datura I draw a veil. We do not get on, and are therefore better apart. Decaisnea Fargesii, from Sutchuen, is still an infant, but makes good growth, and will some day give me yellow flowers and blue fruits. A Berberis can do as much, and indeed Decaisnea belongs to that race. It is deciduous, and the species D. insignis, from the Sikkim Himalayas, is honoured with a star by Nicholson and credited with edible fruits. Most fruits are edible for that matter, but when the lord of creation uses the word he means, of course, his own palate and stomach. After all, " edible " is quite a relative term. A schoolboy will assimilate what the middle-aged man of letters would shudder to approach. Curiously enough, a whole- hearted service to art ruins the digestion. Ask any artist worthy DESMODIUM TILLEFOLIUM MY SHRUBS 39 of the name, and they will support me. Indeed it is a criterion : no really fine artist has a good digestion. I never met the great novelist who would, save in a greedy moment, trust his system with a gooseberry, or the distinguished painter who could look at a mince-pie with kindly eyes. As for musicians of real eminence — heaven knows what they can eat. They drink, however, and so preserve life. Decumaria barbara — from decuma, a tenth, in reference to the tenfold structure of some of the flowers — comes from the United States, and is almost evergreen on a wall in my garden. As to the tenfold structure of the white flowers, I take it on trust. But their trusses are fragrant and effective — like a refined elder. Dendromecon rigidus is a splendid tree poppy from California, hardy enough against a wall. It grows ten feet high, has glaucous green foliage, and hangs out its yellow flowers at the point of the shoots for nine months in the year. Desfontainea spinosa loves to dwell in half shade and peat. It looks like a holly, but has splendid trumpet-shaped scarlet and yellow flowers in August. From the Andes it comes, and if the bloom tarries, despair not so long as the plant is well. It grows slowly, and may take a year or two to settle down. My piece demanded three years to reach blooming size, but has been generous of blossom ever since. Desmodium penduliflorum is a Japanese herbaceous shrub, and should be cut down after flowering ; but a nobler thing is D. tilicejolium, a big climber with trifoliate leaves and innumerable spikes of pale lilac blossom in August. This shrub I rate highly. It is a tremendous grower, and to attain perfection should be pruned hard after the fall of the leaf. To the race of Desmodium belongs D. gyrans, that vegetable wonder from the East Indies, 4o MY SHRUBS who wags his foliage merrily, signalling by secret code to his neighbours in the forest. Deutzia need not detain us, but if you lack D. Kalmiceflora, a new hybrid with clusters of pink flowers, obtain it. D. Lennei is also a worthy shrub. The larger species are valuable additions to the shrubbery. Disanthus cercedifoliay said to produce glorious autumn colour, is with me as an infant. This Japanese tree will doubtless pre- serve shrubby dimensions as long as my interest in it survives ; but Distylum racemosum, also from Japan and still uncommon, makes hearty growth and hangs out a strange crimson inflores- cence among its shining leaves. This interesting shrub is an ever- green kinsman of the witch hazels. A west wall in peat appears to suit it admirably. Diosma ericoides, from South Africa, a neat little shrub with white flowers, has been garnered, and a like fate would have overtaken D. vulgaris, that makes such splendid bushes in the South of France. With adequate protection, however, they might endure. Diospyrus Kaki, the Japanese date plum, whose name in Greek means " celestial food," has blossomed generously, but set no ambrosia for me. It made great growth, flowered abundantly, and promised a crop year after year in a noble spot under a south wall ; but now I have dragged it away to my reserve plantation, and there I care not what happens to it. Perhaps now, slighted and neglected, it will surprise me. D. lotus should be tried, for that is hardier. But I never see this species in catalogues. Dorycnium rectum is a rather good, pea-flowered shrub from South Europe, with downy foliage and pale pink blossoms. It throve with me for two years in a sunny place, then perished for DRIMYS WINTERI ELEAGNUS MACROPHYLLA MY SHRUBS 41 reasons concealed. It is a great flowerer, and might, perhaps, with advantage have been pruned back hard in autumn. Drimys Winteri, from drimys, sharp or acrid, furnished a famous febrifuge before quinine cut it out ; now I think the latter drug has taken the place of Winter's bark, but speak as a layman. Drimys is a beautiful evergreen, and its loose milk-white clusters of flowers make a very handsome shrub of it in spring. Here I grow it on a wall — needlessly, for it stands well in the open, and is more beautiful so displayed. D. aromatica, from Tasmania, is also in cultivation, but is not so effective. Edgeworthia chrysantha, a kinsman of the Daphnes, is a decidu- ous native of China, which crowns its naked twigs in February with rosettes of little, sweet-scented yellow flowers. This is a good thing, but rather delicate with me. I think it likes a warm border and light soil. Ehretia serrata, though an East Indian, makes no difficulty on a south wall. This deciduous shrub has not yet produced its white honey-scented flowers, though now of considerable size. Elceagnus, the oleaster, or wild olive, comprises some notable additions to our gardens. There are, indeed, a dozen good varieties, of which I succeed with E. macrophylla, a large shrub, the under surface of whose leaves are like frosted silver. The white flowers, generously produced during autumn, cluster in the axils of the leaves. E. glabra aurea has a fine golden variegation, and soon makes a beautiful specimen ; while E. multiflora is a handsome, deciduous species from Japan, which fruits abundantly in a fine summer with golden-brown berries, dry and tart. E. argentea, the Missouri silver tree, is another choice shrub from the New World. E. umbellata, too, from China and the temperate F 42 MY SHRUBS Himalayas, is a very good thing, with silvery foliage and fragrant white flowers in June. Against a wall this will prove nearly evergreen. Eleutherococcus Henryi is, I suppose, one of Mr. Henry's many finds. It has a rubus-like look, and the deciduous, five-foliate leaves are handsome. The white flowers are globular and the fruits in black clusters like ivy-berries. This plant enjoys full sun and is quite uninteresting, save to the botanist. Elceocarpus reticulatus is a handsome evergreen, with lovely corymbs of fimbriated flowers that rise out of the axils of the leaves. This admirable Australian will demand a very snug corner, and the small piece that you may buy can safely be left in the cold house for the present. Elsholtzia Stauntoniiy a semi-shrub recently brought to our gardens from China, attains to considerable size, and erects spikes of carmine pink blossoms above its mentha-scented foliage. It is hardy, and resembles a gigantic mint. I have no fitting place for Embothrium coccineum, that prince of flowering shrubs from the Andes. I think the plant did its best with me, and a fine vigorous piece, six feet high, that came from Cornwall, flattered hope awhile in a cool corner amid things larger than itself. But Embothrium could not conquer the crumpled rose-leaf in his lot, and he could not tell me what it was ; and so he died — I dare say of my ignorance. Thrice have I tried him ; thrice have I failed with this glorious plant. But he thrives to west and east of me, reaches to arboreal dimensions, and decks himself in early summer with a flame of fire. Enkianthus campanulatus is an excellent and ornamental de- ciduous shrub which suggests a pieris at first glance. The blossom » EL.iiOCARPUS RETICULATUS MY SHRUBS 43 is red, bell-shaped and drooping. It is hardy, and will prosper in a shady peat bed. Other varieties of the species in cultivation can be secured, and E. japonica has white bells and fine autumn colour. Entelea arborescens, from New Zealand, blossoms in a small state, and my plant hung out a fine show of flowers and set its prickly seeds afterwards, though not above two feet high. It is a pretty thing with white-stalked cymes of bloom, but doubtfully hardy. Mine flourished in half shade last summer, but it is at this moment wintering comfortably in a cold house — to reappear in May. Epacris, another very fine New Zealander, will not succeed out of doors though, with protection and thought, it might be pre- vailed upon to do so. In a pot it is a difficult customer, and few succeed for long with this beautiful dwarf. I scorn hybrids as a rule, but some of the hybrids of epacris are most distinguished. Ephedra distachya looks like a hippuris or " horse-tail," and, indeed, that is the meaning of its name. I had a good piece of this South European, but death, for reasons I could not discover, overtook it in a sunny spot, and, though it reached two feet, and was comely and happy to the eye, it set no fruit. When the scarlet berries are ripe, Ephedra must be a showy object, and I am trying it again. Epigcea repens is a gem that I have loved and lost. This fair, pink-flowered, fragrant treasure throve and bloomed in a very dark corner, but I think it was too dry, for the worst of these gloomy corners often is that they lack moisture. But of dwarfs there are few more exquisite than this little ground laurel from the Northern States — and few more difficult. Of Erica I can show nothing novel save E. urceolata, a rare 44 " MY SHRUBS heath with yellow blossoms. It was found in Cornwall by Mr. Gauntlett, and is supposed to be a seedling from mixed seeds sent home by a sailor. It is hardy in the West, but its habitat I do not know. Where, nowadays, are the superb Cape heaths of the olden time ? I fear, while we daily add new treasures to our collections, many things quite as fine have dropped out of cultivation — perhaps out of existence altogether. Take the gladiolus. All our fat, over- blown hybrids put together cannot equal in charm of colouring or exquisite delicacy of form the old Cape corn flags discovered and figured more than a hundred years ago. Civilisation has probably destroyed these gems for ever. Yet no hybrid of Lemoine or Child's may be named in the same breath with them for distinc- tion. Indeed, all hybrids, in my experience, lose more than they gain over the wildings. The rose is the solitary excuse for " gar- dener's flowers " in a garden and, protest as you may, I will assert that the species of rosa are far more beautiful than any plump and prosperous " tea " or " hybrid tea " in existence. With that interesting dwarf, Erinacea pungens, formerly known, as Anthyllis erinacea, from Spain, I have failed entirely without visible reason, though it is declared to be easy enough. My piece was certainly very minute, and with these scraps, which are often all we can get, it is wiser to grow them on in a pot for a year or two sometimes until there is enough of them to take their chance in the open. The shrub is very choice, and Clusius is said to have cried with exultation these words, when first he found the little pale blue beauty : " Plante nova et tola elegans ! ' Yet its name, adapted from the original appellation, means a hedgehog. There are some people who will only see the prickles in everything. EUCALYPTUS COCCIFERUS ALPINA MY SHRUBS 45 Eriobotrya japonica, now Photinia, but Eriobotrya still for me, is the loquat, or Japanese medlar. From fruit I ate in Italy, I saved the seeds and have a little colony of this excellent, quick-growing, hardy evergreen. The white blossoms are said to appear on favoured plants in Devon and Cornwall, but the fruit will not set with us. Doubtless, in a cold house, one might ripen it. The great foliage is handsome, and the young leaves in spring very attractive. Eriostemon is a fine race of neat white and pink flowered shrubs from hottest Australia. E. intermedius, now wintering in a cold house, goes out next spring under a sunny wall, but I am not sanguine of success. It is well worth a pot in any case. Escallonia exoniensis, with small, creamy-pink flowers and vigorous habit, is a good choice variety of this familiar evergreen from South America. E. macratha has become a handsome weed in the West Country, but the white-flowered E. philippiana is, perhaps, better worth growing. Eucalyptus occurs here very sparingly. I name only E. cocctfera alpina, a perfectly hardy and most attractive little species. The colour is a good shining green, and the flowers burst their houses and thrust forth bright silver stars in mid- winter. The blue gum often makes splendid specimens near our coast-line, and I have seen a fine tree in full flower not far distant ; but a hard winter punishes them terribly, and cuts them back by the yard. E. citriodora is a small fragrant species which smells like Aloysia. It will not, however, survive an English winter out of doors. Euonymus Yedoensis is a very handsome, deciduous variety from Japan, which has not yet given me its yellow blossoms and scarlet fruits ; while of tiny things, the dwarf species whose foliage is 46 MY SHRUBS splashed with silver makes a beautiful specimen upon a rockery. Others worth growing in a small garden are E. alatus, another Japanese, whose foliage turns pink in autumn, and E. latifolius, with white flowers and scarlet foliage in autumn. E. nanus linifolius is a dainty dwarf with beautiful fruit ; and one may also mention E. radicans microphyllus — a mite for the moraine. Eurya latifolia variegata has splendid foliage of dark green, pink and white. But this Japanese shrub is tender, and will need a very snug wall and close attention when the frost comes. Eupatorium weinmannianum makes a huge bush quickly in the West. This South American flowers in late autumn, and hides itself behind a cloud of pinkish bloom followed by pearly grey seed vessels. The blossom smells of cocoa-nut oil ; but what matter ? Things that look well in November may be forgiven much. Eucryphia pinnatifolia stands among my twenty-five favourites. The beautiful thing has flowered with me ever since it was two feet high, and blossoms more generously each successive year. The noblest piece in England — grown to a tree — belongs to Mr. J. Bolitho, of Penzance, and is worthy of devout pilgrimage. Chili has sent us few greater treasures than this glorious shrub. The petals are large and white, and from their midst a sheaf of delicate stamens spring with pale pink anthers. E. cordifolia, an evergreen species also from Chili, is declared to be equally splendid and hardy. Exochorda grandiflora I gave away — not in the right spirit, but merely because it grew too large for me. It is a very handsome, hardy shrub, akin to spiraea , with snow-white globular blossoms. Its habit is to make a large mound of green and for proper display it needs abundant space. FEIJOA SELLOWIANA CHAPTER V A THING of beauty is not a joy for ever in a garden. I like shrubs to rest and come in their seasons, for any flower that persisted all the year round would bore us to death and lose its welcome. But shrubs die as well as rest ; and then their seasons return, and they do not, and we miss them. Fabiana imbricatay the queen of the potato family, too often perishes before reaching her prime. When successful, the unskilled mis- take her for a heath, since this South American has heathery foliage and a profusion of small white tubular blossoms peeping from it. Out of Chili she comes, but I think enjoys more sunshine than most of her countrymen. I have seen this shrub, but not grown it, eight feet high. The excellent Francisco Fabiano of Valencia stood Fabiana 's godfather. Young beeches make beautiful frutescents during infancy, and Fagus purpurea tricolor should be in your garden with F. asplenifoliay the fern-leaved beech. F. pendula, too, is beautiful as a small plant. There are good evergreen species of this genus in cultiva- tion, but I do not possess them. Fallugia paradoxa, from New Mexico, is tender and not very exciting. The flowers are white, the habit sprawly. It succeeded here, but a frosty night and forgetfulness on my part finished Fallugia and I have not repaired the loss. Feijoa sellowiana is a superb Brazilian evergreen quite hardy here upon a wall. The wonderful flowers appear in pairs ; but 47 48 MY SHRUBS ripe fruit has not yet been seen in England, I believe. The petals, a waxy crimson that fades to white, support a sheaf of little red pins headed with gold. I have found the promise of fruit, but it never swelled to any size, for Feijoa blossoms into late August, when the solar heat begins to lessen. Don da Silva Feijo, Director of the natural History Museum at San Sebastian, has given the precious shrub its name. Fendlera rupicola is a plant for a warm wall, and has beauty when really successful. This white-flowered Texan has a slow habit of growth. Some years must pass before it blossoms abun- dantly ; then the sprays are fair to see. It thrives, or throve, on a wall at Kew. Forsythia we have always with us. My F. suspensa is twelve feet high, and spires up into golden splendour during April ; but the bullfinches love the buds, and often I find a sad litter beneath the plant when March has returned. I admire, but do not esteem, the bullfinch. To see these faithful couples haunting my pears and plums in spring-time is among my most distressing annual ex- periences. All birds are welcome here save the " bud-hawks," but they come unbidden — the most fearful enemy of deciduous shrubs. Of Ficus, one may mention that in the stove F. radicans variegata, from Japan, is quite beautiful. It showers its little green and silver foliage liberally, and, for indoor decoration, a fine plant of this dwarf fig cannot be excelled. But return it quickly to the moist heat that it loves ; otherwise it will shed its foliage and delight you no more. I understand that handsome little conifer, Fitzroya, from Tas- mania, is hardy with us, but have never seen it out of doors. Yet I would try the shrub did I know where it was to be found. MY SHRUBS 49 The conifers are a great fascination to me, and, for another and a better world, I have already designed a pinetum, that shall be the delight of those gardening spirits that will accept my invitation to gather there. I can see something in the style of Vallambroso, with pines leaping, like mighty columns of silver, to their crowns of darkness against the everlasting blue. But the nomenclature shall all be changed, and my pines named afresh by horticultural seraphim. Captain Fitzroy, R.N., was a great and good man ; but in that pinetum above the stars, things will not, I hope, be called after even the most distinguished members of the Services. Take Fluggea, so named after the excellent Flugge, a cryptogamic botanist. Now, is it fair to call an innocent, green-flowered East Indian, with white berries, " Fluggea " ? Emphatically no. Moreover, one is unconsciously influenced by names, and that psychological fact should have been remembered by Linnaeus and other heroes who handled this delicate matter. Fluggea is simply handicapped out of the race — like many other good and more important people. Fontanesia has been grown and cast out. It is rather a mean thing from China, in the privet style, and resembles somewhat a small-leaved phillyrea ; but it lacks the fragrance of that more worthy shrub. Fothergilla Gardeni has tufts of sweet-scented, sessile flowers in May, and makes a handsome bush after passage of years. This is an American and kinsman of Hamamelis. There is a finer species now in cultivation which I have not seen. Fremontia calijornica stands high among great shrubs ; but this glorious golden mallow is not easy, and one seldom sees it pros- perous in England. The flowers are almost of an orange hue, and G 50 MY SHRUBS a rich brown tomentum clothes the young shoots. Colonel Fremont did well to bring this notable plant into cultivation, and I continue to hope for success. My first piece attained considerable size, then died ; my second, under more sunny circumstances f died without attaining any size whatever ; and now I have two, side by side in peat, under a west wall. They are, however, different,, and it would seem that there are two species of Fremontia, or else it has a wide range of variation. One has large irregularly-shaped leaves, and the other comparatively small foliage of uniform pattern. They have weathered the winter well, and both flowered. The blossoms are similar. A friend sent me pressed flowers and leaves from its habitat recently — both things very beautiful to see, and the blossoms were much finer in colour than my home-grown ones. The generous man added a packet of ripe seed, and soon I hope to hear of a successful family which may become acclimatised from tenderest youth. Fraxinus ornus, the manna ash, I lack ; but this very handsome dwarf tree should be planted if reasonable space is yours. The tassels of grey-green flowers are ornamental and fragrant, and five-and- twenty feet will be its probable limit of height. Fuchsia in many varieties is hardy here, but the winter cuts, most of mine back pretty hard. They are the better for thi& natural pruning, however. F. procumbens is a delightful little New Zealander for the sunny rock garden, whose dull crimson fruits crowd the plant in autumn, and F. pumila is also a neat» small upspringing species for the same locality. F. splendens and F. corymbiflora, from Peru, and F. triphylla, from the West Indies, are all superb greenhouse species. F. excorticata, from Maori-land, is also now at our disposal with large MY SHRUBS 51 flowers and scarlet fruit ; but as it ascends to fifty feet high when prosperous, this would seem not everybody's fuchsia. The genus honours Leonard Fuchs, a German botanist of distinction, and it is interesting to note the " Botanical Magazine's " hand-painted picture of F. coccinea, judged to be a subject for a stove when first introduced in Kew from Chili in 1788, but now the most popular of garden shrubs. Gaultheria nummularioides and G. trichophylla are the most interesting of this family. The latter, with large amethystine blue fruits and pretty pink bells, increases here in peat ; the former, with white blossoms and scarlet berries, will not prosper with me in sun or shade. Both are Himalayans, but their needs are different. Neither do the other Gaultherias, save the robust G. shallon, go forward much with me. Gaylussacia, of the vaccinium order, makes but a mean show, in a peat bed. Its berries, though they have some reputation in North America, are neither sweet nor agreeable here. Beside it the little Genista sagittalis, with peculiar winged and jointed limbs, increases and flowers freely. I have the white broom too ; and, in a cold house, treasure that monarch of the genus, G. monosperma. This splendid Spaniard I saw for the first time at San Remo, where its fragrance filled a large garden and its silver-green graces were almost concealed under a shower of white flowers. There is a touch of pale chocolate in the heart of each blossom, and the fragrance — so fresh and clean — is not exceeded by any growing thing. In Spain and Morocco this shrub is used to strengthen the sandhills ; in England, I fear, it cannot be counted on to succeed at all out of doors. It is tender, and flowers much too early for safety. Give it, therefore, a cold, dry, airy house, and a bed of peat and 5z MY SHRUBS sand. Then you will include no more delightful plant in your collection. Under the name of Spartium monospermum, it appears in the " Botanical Magazine." Genista humifusa is a pretty little prostrate shrub with bright yellow blossoms, for the choice rockery. Ginkgo biloba may serve for a shrub, as it will not be secured more than a few feet high and is a slow grower. This sacred " maiden-hair tree," from Northern China, is quite hardy, and fruits in France, but not, I think, with us. You shall find nothing like it, for it is a monotypic genus, whose relations belonged to remote geological periods, and only appear in fossil forms to-day. Therefore welcome this survival, who for the absurd sum of two- and-six will join you and add a unique distinction to your garden close. Gleditschia, which sounds like somebody throwing a stone through a pane of glass, soon makes a neat little feathery tree. I have only G. tricanthos, the honey locust, from the United States ; but it has not flowered or set its beans with me. G. Delavayi is a splendid species from Yunnan now within our reach. The Globularias are neat sub-shrubs from Mediterranean shores. They climb the rockery with great agility, and their blue flowers, like big jasiones, stud the bush pleasantly in summer. Mine is G. vulgaris ; but I have a very tiny variety collected on the hills above Grasse, which I take to be G. minima. It is a mere green carpet on a limestone moraine — smaller even than my treasured Salix serpyllifolia, a willow to its wee catkins, which I collected above Zermatt on wet rocks. Gonocalyx pulcher, from New Grenada, would probably stand against a wall here, but I never see or hear of this fine monotypic MY SHRUBS 53 plant. Gordonia lasianthus, the loblolly bay, my nurseryman gently but firmly denies me, though I believe the superb thing would do in half shade with camellia. It grows among the swamps of South Carolina. G. pubescens, from North America, must be a splendid shrub when prosperous, but I have never seen any of the clan. G. anomala, with yellow flowers, would have to be taken in during winter, for it is a sub-tropical Asian. Grabowskya glauca is another stranger to me. It is a Peruvian evergreen, has rambling, climbing habits and blue flowers. This I shall secure for the sake of its ridiculous name. Not that Mr. Grabowsky was ridiculous, or a rambling climber. This excellent apothecary flourished in early Victorian times, when nobody was ridiculous. Grevillea sulks with me, and will not perform. "It is a most pleasing circumstance," says Curtis, " when plants afford char- acters by which they may with certainty be distinguished." That depends upon the characters. For instance, you can with cer- tainty distinguish my Grevillea thyrsoides from all others by the fact that it refuses to blossom. Its red flowers ought to flash, off and on, all the year round, but they never flash at all. G. sulphured died after flowering, and now I want that admirable wall shrub, G. pendula, with white blossoms and a beautiful habit. I do not find this desirable plant in dictionaries or catalogues, but I can find it on a wall in one of our great West Country gardens within a walk of me. There, too, grows the specimen of the Guevina avellana I have already blessed. It is a tree forty feet high, with glossy evergreen leaves and cherry-coloured fruits in late autumn. Chili can hardly hold a more splendid specimen. Certainly England does not. Guevina avellana is deliberately 54 MY SHRUBS called Elceodendron sphcerophyllum pubescens by some people. One drops a tear and hurries on. Gymnocladus canadensis, the Kentucky coffee tree, is a slow grower. I secured some small pieces from France three years ago, and at present they have not put on six inches. Some day its handsome, bi-pinnate leaves will be three feet long ; for the moment, standing but eighteen inches high in its socks, Gymno- cladus cannot fairly be asked to manage this. CHAPTER VI JEALOUSY is an abominable vice, yet who can think of the resources of Kew without a pang ? No doubt they would tell you there that the Government cares nothing for beauty — only for utility, and is always worrying them — not to grow the most glorious shrubs and trees, but to make two blades of grass succeed in the room of one, to produce potatoes as big as melons, and double the seeds in every ear of corn. Upon these industrial problems the intellect of Kew is bound to descend, even at moments when it would fain be soaring to aesthetic heights of loveliness. But Kew has made its name — to have a plant accepted by Kew continues a distinction all the world over ; none of us is really happy until we have had a plant accepted at Kew. Consider those incomparable lines in Dr. Darwin's " Botanical Garden," already mentioned. No wonder Kew is a little uppish sometimes when she remembers them : — " So sits enthron'd in vegetable pride Imperial Kew by Thames's glittering side ; Obedient sails from realms unfurrowed bring For her the unnamed progeny of Spring ; Attendant nymphs her dulcet mandates hear, And nurse in fostering arms the tender year, Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed, Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead ; Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers." 55 56 MY SHRUBS But we poor struggling amateurs enjoy none of these privileges : not for us do obedient sails bring fine things from realms un- furrowed ; not for us do obedient nymphs our dulcet mandates hear ; we cannot sally forth, like Sir David Prain, flower-crowned and followed by a host of tripping horticultural fairies. Nobody fans our perspiring sub-tropicals in glass-built fanes. When girls go into my glass-built fane, they only fan themselves. It is true that another sort of nymph tripped into the Nation's orchid houses not so long ago, and they neither propped the weak stem nor led the erring tendril ; but for the most part, and subject to those little trials from which no human institution in these thrilling times is free, Kew has the gardening world at her feet, and we creatures of an hour cannot fail to be jealous of her and envy her amazing privileges. I ought to go to Kew in a humble spirit, and haunt its glades and glass for six months before daring to write this little book about shrubs. But I shall not. These are my shrubs that I am talking about, and not one of them came from Kew. I believe I have got about two that Kew has not got. If it knew of these, Kew would send messengers with rich gifts in exchange ; and I should slight them and entreat them scornfully, and send them back to the Royal Gardens empty-handed. I have got my " vegetable-pride " too. Not that Hakea eriantha> from Australia, ministered to it ; this good evergreen died at the first onset of November without a struggle. To-day it was here, to-morrow it had vanished. I remember no frost, or other peril, though it is true it came with that familiar danger signal, " a good plant for favoured gardens." Yet others have survived with the same warning on their foreheads. I remember that Melaleuca perished out of hand, and sundry of its MY SHRUBS 57 congeners. I fancy these Australians can easily be drowned in our wet winters, and possibly need as much protection from rain as frost. Halesia tetraptera is a familiar North American, but H. hispida seems not so common. This Japanese variety is very beautiful, with pendulous racemes of pure white flowers. H. corymbosa, as seen at Kew on a wall, is a grand subject. Here, however, one passes it without emotion. Halimodendron argenteum, the salt tree of Siberia, I have had, grafted on laburnum, for a good many years. It prospers and seems healthy, but its blossoms ought, I understand, to be rosy purple, whereas they come yellow. I have only seen them figured in the " Botanical Magazine " (under Robinia halimodendrori), and they indicate a beautiful flower. I thought the stock must have dominated the scion, but this is not so. What, then, have I got instead of Halimodendron ? Of Hamamelis, the witch-hazel, I grow three species, and all are kindly and quick to lighten February with their countless yellow stars on naked boughs. H. mollis, from Japan, a really splendid hardy shrub, with handsome foliage, is the first to flower; and this year sparkled brilliantly through January. The blossoms are like golden spiders with purple bodies. H. zuccariniana is smaller and of paler inflorescence, while H. arborea differs little save in size from the last-named, and flowers before it. These admirable plants are too uncommon. Hedera minima is a neat, little upright ivy for the rock- work. It refuses to climb or creep, and its frutescent habit justifies me in naming it here. I have not seen it flower. The legions of Helianthemum need only to be named with H 58 MY SHRUBS approval. That rare Britisher, H. polijolium, grows within a walk of me, and its white petals and golden eye gladden a rockery, for such is its abundance on certain limestone crags not far distant; that to transfer a plant or two was no crime These sun- roses can be cut back hard when their mounds become too large to control. Hermannia candicans did well in peat on a wall for some years, and hung out little yellow bells the size of the lily-of- the- valley. But after the fashion of too many other Australians, it faded away gradually, and is now with me no more. H. lavendulifolia is a small Cape species of good repute. Helichrysum antennaria is a neat little hardy shrub with white flowers, rare in cultivation, though very worthy of it ; while Heimia grandiflora is also hardy and very handsome. Nescea this Mexican is called by the elect. It has willow-like foliage and bright yellow flowers, which climb up the long stems and make a beautiful shrub of it in August. My plant is five feet high, and still growing. Hibbertia dentata is a splendid climber with dark purple foliage and yellow flowers. I have seen this fine Australian in great form near Penzance, but it is only a plant for very snug gardens. For a cold house wall nothing could be more attractive ; but I find it not in the catalogues. Hibiscus also; save H. roseus and H. syriacus, belong to the greenhouse, or stove. Hibiscus is a good and brilliant deciduous shrub of many gardeners' varieties. Hippophce rhamnoides, the sea buckthorn, is a beautiful, silvery, hardy plant of wide distribution. But the shrub is dioecious, and unless you mate it, the orange-coloured berries will not appear. Hoherea populnea stands ten feet high with me, and has made a MY SHRUBS 59 handsome evergreen shrub under the shelter of a wall. This lace bark or ribbon wood, of New Zealand, is a fine thing, and nearly hardy. The flowers are white, and appear in spring time at the end of the branchlets, but the plant needs to attain some size before bearing them. Hovenia dulcis is a rare, deciduous shrub from Japan and the Himalayas, but a wall is probably the place for this choice thing at home; and, until it has attained some strength and substance, you will do better to keep it in a pot and winter it in a cold house. I have only just procured a piece, and cannot speak as to the white flowers and sweet fruit. It thrives and is much used in Australia. Hydrangea is also here, but this is a shrub that won't blow blue with me, though H.paniculata as a half-standard is well enough. I suppose one needs iron tonics to coax hydrangea blue in a limestone soil ; I heard that peat would do so ; but it did not. One might have thought that H. azureus from China would have come true, but this turned as pink as the rest. You must see Hydrangea in Cornish gardens to know its real glory and loveliest shades of azure. Hymenanthera crassifolia is a neat and trim New Zealander, of the best constitution. The evergreen foliage is very small, and the inflorescence is minute, while bright white berries cover the plant during autumn. It is a good grower, and soon makes a specimen for the rock- work when suited below ground. H. chathamica is also in cultivation— a dissimilar plant in every respect, and not, to my mind, so attractive. Hypericum I recognise as a most valuable and beautiful shrub in its many species ; but for me it possesses no personal charm. H. coris, which I collected in the South, has made a prosperous little bush on a rockery. It is hardy here, and should be cut back 60 MY SHRUBS pretty well in autumn. But, of the shrubby hypericums, I have sent mine into the world to please those who appreciate them. H. fragilis is very beautiful upon the rockery, and, of course, H. repens. The new H. Iceve-rubrum is orange-scarlet, very striking, and doubtfully hardy. One would dearly like to grow Ilex in all its admirable forms ; but for these most interesting shrubs I have no room on a generous scale. A few common varieties occur, where scraps of original shrubbery have not been cleared, but of hollies interesting to a collector I can show only the delightful dwarfs, /. Mariesi and /. Pernyi. The former is spineless, and has small leathery leaves and a neat habit. It flowers abundantly, but must be dioecious. To see it in berry would be a noble experience. /. Pernyi is a little Chinese holly of dense habit and foliage, after the usual prickly pattern. /. " Taraio" from Japan, now within your reach, must be a very splendid variety of the species. The whole race has great interest, and I think all hollies are hardy. They tried to grow them at the Cape once, and kept them in shade with ice to their foreheads ; but it was useless : none survived a Cape summer. Illicium anistum is dull, though sacred in Japan. They decorate the tombs of their loved dead with it. The anise-scented species should have some care in winter, but is of no great worth. /. floridanum sounds rather more attractive, but I have not attempted this species. Indigqfera is not very hardy ; but /. gerardiana stands well in the open, and would probably thrive anywhere, though of Indian blood. Given a wall, it makes a very handsome bush, with fern- like foliage and rosy-pink blossoms. /. decora, from China, is even better, but not quite so robust. MY SHRUBS 6 1 Ing a pulcherrima, a noble evergreen, Mexican, with scarlet flowers, thrives in Cornwall, but I have not attempted it here, or seen it attempted. Ixora may be mentioned too, of course, for the stove. There is no more gorgeous shrub than this, and no hothouse can be called complete without it. Think of the name alone — a fearsome Malabar idol — to whom the flowers were presented as a peace offering. They may still be, for all I know to the contrary, and they ought to turn Ixora from his wrath, if the demon has any taste or aesthetic feeling. . . . There are many species of the genus, but /. coccinea is the most splendid. As long ago as 1690, it came to Kew from Malabar. It made but a short stay, and was reintroduced some hundred years later by Dr. John Fothergill, " a name," as Curtis says, " to medicine and botany ever dear." But catastrophe overtook the doctor's plant, and Ixora had to be raised from seed once more. Jacaranda I have grown without entire success, and I am not the only one who has failed to flower this Mexican. Perhaps the stove might tempt it. I must try it there, for those who have seen it prosperous in India, speak with enthusiasm of the blue blossoms. As a foliage plant alone, it is very beautiful and worthy of culture. Jacksonia, from Australia, is apparently out of cultivation and no great loss. Jacobinia, in some forms, is beautiful as a greenhouse sub-shrub. This plant and Justicia are very closely akin. They give us a fine colour range and are easily grown. Jamesia americana is by no means the greatest treasure from the Rocky Mountains. The shrub is neat, and has pretty little 6^ MY SHRUBS white flowers in terminal cymes ; but a good hawthorn pleases me better. Jasminum goes without saying. J. primilinum is a handsome Chinese species near to J. nudiflorum, but a shy bloomer with me. J. beestanum, the red jasmine, is not exciting. It grows as fast on a wall as any of them, and flowers generously with small dull crimson blossoms. J. polyanthum for the greenhouse I know only by repute. It is an exquisite pink and white climber from Yunnan. Juniperus takes many attractive forms for a small garden and I esteem these little trees highly. J. bermudiana furnishes the wood of our so-called " cedar " pencils, and Nicholson records that it is rarely seen in England ; but few others are tender and the dwarf varieties make a precious addition to the rockery. I suppose there are fifty in cultivation, and of these among the few that dwell with me, I specially commend^, communis hibernica nanay a delightful, little upright tree. It lives with Chamcecyparis filifera aurea, and they make a lovely harmony in blue and gold. The juniper of my picture has towered to the dizzy height of twenty-two inches. J. c. hibernica compressa is even more sublime. This is the least of all conifers. J. pachyphlcea is another treasure, as blue as the sky and of graceful bearing. J. Sabina, the Savin, is an ornamental dusky juniper ; and the weeping variety, especially good. J. virginiana, the red cedar, in its various forms, is also valuable, J. virginiana globosa being a specially precious pigmy. There are many other most worthy species of small juniper, notably a small variety collected by me as a seedling in Switzer- land. It is quite common, but I have yet to learn its proper name. DWARF JUNIPER AND GOLDEN CHAM/ECYPARIS CHAPTER VII WHEN building walls, be generous and do not cramp a fine creeper for the sake of a few feet of bricks and mortar. I schemed a wall a good few years ago, and thought that eight feet was high enough for anything invited to ascend ; but far from it. Ambitious things were at the top in no time, and some have easily climbed to the summit of pillars on the wall which were never set there for them. Now certain creepers wrestle with the roses for a row of arches that connect the pillars, and clematis and vine, bignonia and ercilla, pueraria and smilax have ignored my arrangements in favour of their own more extensive programme. Kadsura japonica will probably follow suit ; but this fine, half-hardy climber with small, pendent white flowers and cori- aceous leaves, though in brisk advance, has not yet been here long enough to break boundaries. There is a Kadsura with variegated foliage — not always an additional charm — but in the case of this shrub possibly an advantage. Kalanchoe was much in evidence a year ago, but one does not see these interesting greenhouse crassulas so often now. I never much admired them. Kalmia latijolia is a great shrub, given proper conditions. The best that I have seen in Devon grew among the foothills of Dartmoor in cool deep peat ; but none in England, I suspect, have attained the twenty feet recorded from this Kalmia's home 63 64 MY SHRUBS in the South Alleghanies. Nothing is finer than these fresh and beautiful shrubs, with their bright evergreen foliage and corymbs of clear pink bloom. That it approves peat and half shade is certain, but it may thrive equally under other conditions. I suspect, how- ever, like so many Americans, it is intolerant of lime. K. glauca is a choice dwarf species ; but K. angustifolia is not to be commended. This shrub from Canada has a poor, wiry habit, and nothing much to atone for it. There is, too, K. angustifolia rubra, which has good friends, but I have not seen this red-flowered variety. Kennedy a, with which may be reckoned Hardenbergia, is a valuable and beautiful climber for the greenhouse or cold house. I grew one from seed, and satisfied myself that it was very good. The species mostly produces scarlet flowers of varying shades ; but there are purple, and blue Kennedyas also. In Algiers I recollect a handsome blue species. The bloom is in the style of Clianthus, though not so large as the Glory Pea, and the habit always scandent. I suppose they would be useless in the open. Kerria japonica, though a mid- Victorian, may still rank as a most valuable flowering shrub. Who rejoices not to see its jovial gold in the spring sunshine ? Either upon a wall or in the shrubbery its graceful wands are equally at home. Koelreuteria paniculata, a monotypic genus from North China, grows swiftly when satisfied with the conditions. My specimen has after eight years attained to the dignity of a little tree. Its deeply toothed, pinnate foliage is ruby-red in spring, and turns to a fine pale orange in autumn ; while during a hot summer it sends forth long, upright pannicles of yellow flowers. These in their turn produce a conspicuous capsuled fruit when September KOELREUTERIA PANICULATA MY SHRUBS 65 comes. Koelreuteria is a shy flowerer, but, hearing doubtless of my booklet, it performed this year, and I photograph a spray accordingly. K. p. japonica is a variety said to be less hardy than our plant. Laburnum is a small but popular genus, though some people have the greatest objection to its chill, yellow tresses. L. Vossii on a standard is very handsome, and the bloom trusses the largest that I know. Waterer's laburnum is also a famous variant on the familiar form. Lagerstrcemia indica is no good out of doors to me, and not very useful anywhere. This sub-tropical Chinese shrub must be very beautiful with adequate culture. It lingers under shelter of a wall with peat to live in ; but the leaf falls early in autumn, and no flower has ever appeared. I may have had an invalid, and must try again. Lantana is frankly an indoor shrub, and has never greatly attracted me at that ; but Lapageria, named after Josephine Lapagerie, Empress of the French, who solaced many an un- quiet hour with growing things, will smile on a sheltered wall. I have L. rosea, perhaps the hardiest, in a snug corner facing west, and, though no great grower out of doors, it fails not to brighten late autumn with its wax-like bells. Two perfect blossoms hung there on Christmas Day. At times of lengthened frost an " Archangel " protects the plant. Lardizabala biternata, which resembles a climbing berberis, is another admirable Chilian for a west wall, and also a winter flowerer. Like Lapageria it requires a cold house for perfection ; but will do its duty in the open air. The blossom is purple, and not particularly effective. 66 MY SHRUBS I know of no dwarf Larix, but, if one exists, should dearly like to add it to my miniature forest. The only deciduous dwarf in that absurd grove is Betula. All larches are exquisite, but so swift is their growth that after a few years they occupy far more room in a small garden than can be spared. I have always a larch growing here, but its activities are called to cease long before it reaches maturity. Lasiandra macrantha is a noteworthy Brazilian which thrives in snug Cornish gardens, but needs a cold house at Kew. The shrub has beautiful foliage and brilliant blue flowers in late autumn. Few gardeners can count upon success with this valuable plant in the open ; but all should grow it under cover. It is often called Pleroma macranthum, and at Kew it manages somehow to prosper as Tibouchina Semidecandra. Please tell me where one may procure this noble shrub, for I know not. Of the laurels I grow but few, and best I like Laurus camphor a, the camphor laurel. It would seem that this should be referred to Cinnamomum, and grown in a cold house ; but my specimen against a south wall has now ascended to ten feet, and stood some harsh weather without faltering as L. camphor a. It is a very beautiful Japan shrub, saturated with camphor in all its parts. L. nobilis is a common weed in this region, and the wild pigeons come for the berries during autumn. But many escape them, and seedlings of the sweet bay are grubbed up every year in hundreds. L. nobilis regalis is a fragrant dwarf variety that promises well. L. Sassafras officinale makes a good, but not a showy shrub. The leaves take strange shapes sometimes. In Virginia they manu- facture beer of the young shoots, and perfumers use an oil ex- MY SHRUBS 67 tracted from the bark. I have partaken of a decoction of sassafras myself, but it did not renew my youth, and could by no possibility have been mistaken for beer. Otherwise I should have persisted with it. L. Benzoin, known also as Lindera Benzoin, the Benja- min bush from North America, is another neat, deciduous laurel, with aromatic scent and inconspicuous yellow flowers which appear before the foliage. For Lavatera I care not. It grows enormously and straggles helplessly. Anon it becomes top-heavy, and sags in the ground. It is a hysterical, excitable plant, always growing and crying for attention. Lavendula dentata, grown by a friend from La Mortala seed, seems hardy, and is an ornamental early flowering bush ; while L. Stcechas, another Mediterranean lavender, is said to be quite hardy. L. vera I collected in a neat form upon the hills above Grasse. The blossom is smaller and paler than gardeners' varieties. The white-flowered lavender, too, is good to grow. Ledum latijolium is a little shrub from Canada and Green- land's icy mountains. The flowers are white in close umbels and the whole plant seldom exceeds eighteen inches in height. This Labrador tea is a peat lover, and would probably enjoy more sunshine than it receives with me. A good specimen is a beautiful sight. Mine improves yearly in a bed of Tiarella. Ledum (or Leiophyllum) buxifolium likes shade, and succeeded well for some years with me ; then the exceedingly charming dwarf passed. Leonotis leonurus, the Lion's ear combined with the Lion's tail — named a phlomis of old — is a remarkable and splendid shrubby thing from the Cape of Good Hope. Its whorls of 68 MY SHRUBS orange-scarlet, sessile blossoms, make the most splendid colour October can show in the garden. It might be more correct to say November, for it shares with some other treasures the habit of very tardy flowering. Thus, though pretty hardy, it is always a doubtful shrub in the South. When the flowers pro- mise, watch the weather and protect them against cold nights. It is a good plant, and if successful out of doors, obtains to a great size. Set the Lion's tail under a south wall, and cut it back pretty hard after flowering. I have a valued friend who performs wonders with Leonotis. Leftospermum, from Australia, is beginning to hold its own in gardens ; but these shrubs need winter care unless their home is perfectly sheltered and there exists overhead protection of trees. The frost injures them quickly. L. stellulatum, L. lanigerumy and L. bullatum are here. The last is a New Zealander, and opens its little white stars in May. I protect these plants, but doubt if the first-named needs it, though the last certainly does, and slight cold soon cuts the finials. L. l MY SHRUBS peat bed. It arrived only last autumn, and seems contented and full of growth. Paonia cannot be enlarged upon here, but I find that Paeon, the physician, is said to have given the precious plant its name, and the word is used by Theophrastus for the family. The countless varieties of P. Moutan, from China and Japan, are gorgeous addi- tions to any garden where they thrive. I have a few good pieces that came directly from the East, but here the bud is developed so early that the plants need close attention if frost is in the air. They make magnificent specimens in favoured gardens, and I have seen the old P. Moutan with a hundred immense blossoms displayed on one plant. A good mulch of well-rotted cow manure in autumn is very desirable, and plenty of water through the summer. The choice varieties are generally struck on common stocks, and when vigorous points thrust up round your plants they should receive a cold welcome and be removed well below the soil. P. lutea is a rare Chinese shrubby pa3ony, which failed with me, but must be attempted again. Paliurus aculeatus, the Christ Thorn, has a pale yellow inflo- rescence in July. This deciduous Mediterranean shrub is only of botanical interest. It shares, in common with many other prickly plants, the legend that from its branches was woven the Christian Saviour's crown of thorns. Panax is near Aralia. I have an infant plant of P. Murrayi, a deciduous species from Queensland. It grows steadily, but slowly. Parrotia persica is a stately little tree, whose autumn colours of purple, scarlet, and gold are really magnificent. This admirable plant is hardy, and thrives anywhere in full sunshine. The MY SHRUBS 89 uncommon P. Jacquemontiana, from Kashmir, will now join you for the absurd sum of three shillings and sixpence. This is even more generous than the Persian, for it gives good white flowers in spring as well as the autumn fireworks. It is a smaller plant than the other, and will take some time to reach a flowering size, if I may judge by my little piece. Passiflora ccerulea, from Brazil, and its invaluable white, scented seedling, P. " Constance Elliott" which first saw the light in this county, thrive on a sunny wall, and I dare say other species of this immense family would do the like. Some people profess to enjoy the golden fruits, but they are sickly fare. I tried P. quad- rangularis in the West Indies. The Granadilla, as it is called, is thought a luxury there, but time did not permit me to acquire the taste. Pentstemon Scouleri and P. cordifolius are good shrubby species for a warm wall. The latter attains to a considerable size, but is a Calif ornian, and will demand winter protection. Periploca grceca, from the Orient, is a hardy, deciduous climber, with little chocolate flowers. This old plant serves well to cover a rough corner or clothe a summer house. Beside mine, I set Rosa Icevigata, and now poor Periploca waves despairing arms through the monster rose, whose gigantic growth and evergreen foliage is smothering the life out of him. But he is climbing up into a thicket behind, and so escaping leafy death. Pernettya, fine thing though it is, cannot be spared the neces- sary space in my garden. A prosperous bush of P. mucronata, 10 feet across and covered with its light pink berries, is a beautiful sight familiar to me. These Mexican shrubs make mighty masses in good loam, and I think the neighbourhood of the sea delights M 9o MY SHRUBS them, for I have never known any to thrive far from it. P. ciliaris has a handsome white blossom. Why is P. fur ens handicapped with such an adjective ? Perowskia atriplicifolia is a sage-like shrub of no great interest, with hoary foliage, and wands of purple blossom in late autumn. Persoonia, a handsome race of Australians, seem to belong to the greenhouse. Some attain to trees, and must be very beautiful. The " Botanical Magazine " figures P. linear is most attractively. Another beautiful Australian race, of which I do not possess a specimen, is Petrophila, of the order of Protect. It seems doubtful if Petrophila is represented in England at all for the moment. Petteria ramentacia is a Dalmatian, and was there recorded by Herr Franz Fetter. This uncommon little pea-flowered plant resembles a small laburnum, and graces the sunny rockery. Peumus citriodoray from Chili, makes a very handsome and shining evergreen shrub in a shady and sheltered nook. The foliage is wonderfully spicy and fragrant, and a happy plant will prove a pleasant neighbour. The great family of Philadelphia ', the Mock Oranges, need not detain us, but among my favourites is, for once, a hybrid: Gauntlett's P. " Monster," a magnificent flowering shrub worthy of its name. It grows 15 feet high in a year or two, and pours forth a Niagara of huge and fragrant flowers. P. purpureus maculatus is of more modest size, and the snow-white blossom has a purple heart and a precious fragrance all its own. They are hardy, but P. mexicanus, my favourite, will thank you for a wall. This produces large semi- double flowers of a creamy white, most exquisitely scented. It has a pendulous habit, and is almost an evergreen in our climate. Philesia magellanica is a rather difficult little Chilian, not often PHYSIANTHUS ALBENS . MY SHRUBS 91 seen in prosperity. I have flowered it, and, on better plants than mine, admired a dozen of the red bells hanging together in the crisp, dark green foliage. Probably moisture, and plenty of it, is necessary, with a soil free from lime. The best piece that I have seen — a respectable bush — prospered in full sunshine, though some experts advocate half shade. Phillyrea decora, the Jasmine Box, is a hardy evergreen with pretty pointed foliage and a small, white spring inflorescence of great sweetness. It prospers in half shade in peat with me, though is not, I fancy, particular. Other species of this South European shrub are equally satisfactory and easy, but I know not if they possess the same fine fragrance. Phlomis fruticosa, the Jerusalem Sage, is an old favourite from the Mediterranean, whose hoary foliage and dusky yellow whorls of flowers remind me of childhood. Then I was wont to pluck the trumpets for the honey drop at the bottom of them. A hardy shrub is this, and a great grower in some hot rough corner. Photinia serrulata is a handsome Chinese tree, and here it attains to full size and makes a splendid specimen ; but much room is needed for this beautiful flowering evergreen, and I am on visiting terms with some excellent examples, so need it not. Phylica is a South African, with most distinctive dusky green and silver grey foliage. The inflorescence is trifling, but the habit most handsome and striking. The species are two: P. buxifolia and P. ericoides. I have seen Phylica happy in Cornwall, but it is not hardy, and at Kew a temperate house harbours this fine thing. Physianthus albens is a climber from Brazil, hardy in our sheltered nooks by the sea. It attains to great size when prosperous, and , MY SHRUBS makes swift growth. The flower is pale pink, the fruit as large as your fist. It succeeds with me, but to see it in perfection a visit to our cliffs is necessary, where, in a public garden, it surpasses itself. The great race of the Pieris attain in some cases to trees among our glades. My favourites of this far- scattered genus are the white-flowered P.floribunda, from the United States, with P.formosa and the pink-flowered P. nitida, from Japan. P. cassincefolia and P.pulverulenta, from the Southern United States, when prosperous, are superb, deciduous Andromedas, with large white bells for blossoms. P. japonica flowers generously and grows finely. Its spring foliage, in crests of red above the green, is a feature of this shrub. Pinus canariensis will succeed here in a snug corner. My custom is to shorten the main branch, which soon loses the sky- blue colour that gives the fir its charm. Then younger points spring up, and you get a most effective shrubby bush of azure hue. The pigmy P. montana and the neat little P. " T&tyosho" from Japan, must go into your rockery along with the beautiful dwarf, P. Strobus — a real gem. Of Pimelea, from Australia, I have secured seed which has not yet germinated. To discuss these admirable and beautiful shrubs on this foundation would be vain ; but Piptanthus nepalensis has long prospered here, and, though some do not admire its pale yellow, laburnum-like blossoms, they please me well enough. From the temperate Himalaya comes this effective evergreen. Pistacia Lentiscus, the mastic-tree, is a handsome evergreen of economic value but no great garden interest. It grows but slowly in our climate — a charge not to be brought against Pittosporum. MY SHRUBS 93 This great genus makes splendid growth on our shores, and most of the Australian and New Zealand species thrive and attain to mature size. Than P. crassifolium there is no more elegant and beautiful foliage shrub in any garden. I have a seedling ten years old and 10 feet high of most beautiful shape. In spring myriads of little chocolate-coloured bells appear among the leaves, and seed ripens. P. eugenioides is another New Zealander which attains to great size and is too large for a small garden, but a treasure for a big one. I have a small piece of the variegated form of this, and P. Tobira I also have with white variegation — one of the most beautiful shrubs I know. The type of P. Tobira has attained to full size under an araucaria in a sheltered spot. On Christmas Day it was in full flower — every point bright with creamy and fragrant umbels. P. patulum is the last of the genus to appear with me, and thus far proves a dingy object and leaves me cold. But she is young, and may have some surprises hidden. There are many other varieties of this beautiful race which I have not seen. Plagianthns Lyallii is another worthy New Zealander which has given great delight to friends in my garden. The serrated, drooping foliage on bending boughs is beautiful in itself, and the snow-white flowers, like cherry blossom, crowd its wands in July. There is no more splendid thing in any garden when prosperous. With me it stands against a Q-foot wall and has far over-topped it. In a hard winter it loses most of its foliage, but is none the worse. The ground beneath it was green with seedlings this spring. Other varieties of Plagianthus are inferior, so be sure you secure Lyall's. High botanists now doubt if this most notable shrub is a Plagianthus 94 fti MY SHRUBS at all, but let not that deter you. This Plagianthus by any other name would smell as sweet. Plagiospermum sinensis is a new shrub from Manchuria. I regret to learn that it takes after Madura ; but my plant may perhaps be trained into nicer ways as it has come to me so young. The dwarf Piceas — varieties of P. excelsa — are all most desirable for the rockery, and soon make beautiful miniature trees ; they are the neatest and hardiest of little shrubs and a perpetual delight. P. glauca also should not be missed. Platycarya strobilacea, a rare North China monotype, I have never seen ; but it is said to prosper in the South of England and I hope it may be doing so. Podocarpus chilina is a rare conifer from the Andes, and, though a tree, will remain of shrubby size as far as you and I are concerned if we buy it now. Mine is four feet high, and may be six before I cease to take interest in it. It has a very distinct habit, with deep green narrow foliage, and in July it erects clusters of little pale yellow catkins. In Cornwall thrive noble specimens of this fine fir. Podocarpus andina is the Plum Fir from the Andes. This remarkable plant produces fruit of the size of a grape and is one of the few conifers to do anything so clever. Moreover, the fruit may be eaten, for it is agreeable. Prunopitys is the synonym of this interesting evergreen. Polygala Chamcebuxus is a neat dwarf, with yellow and white flowers. I collected a pretty dark pink variety in Italy, and there is a brown variety also. But the good little thing dwells here no longer in any form. It too quickly dies out with me. P. grandiflora make a big shrub, and I have seen it very handsome MY SHRUBS 95 in North African gardens ; but it would need much care with us save in a cold house. Polygonum baldshuanicum is now generally grown, but not always with success. It likes plenty of cool root room and its head in the sun. The best I know lives in a pear tree. Pomaderris apetala is an Australian evergreen with trusses of small yellowish flowers resembling Ceanothus. The foliage of this Victorian Hazel is effective, but no great interest attaches to the plant. A hard winter garnered mine, and it was never renewed. To Protea, that glorious genus of wonderful African shrubs and trees, we merely do obeisance and pass on. A cold house in winter and a warm corner out of doors in summer is all they need ; but I find none in cultivation in the West. P. lepidocarpon, from the Cape, might be hardy here ; but I know not where that wondrous shrub is to be found in England. In Prunus I am poor ; but possess P. Mume, a Japanese, and among the first to flower. The shrub makes a good specimen, and its snowy blossom appears at the end of February in a reason- able winter, before the blackthorn. P. triloba, too, I have, and big pieces of P. Pissardi ; but it never sets its dark purple fruits with me. From Persia comes this old favourite, and Gauntlett reports a new and exquisite variety with bright double rose flowers. One merely apologises to this great genus, pleads lack of space, and passes on. Psidium, the Guava, is of course out of the question, but Punica Granatum, the Pomegranate, makes a fine show and opens its wax-like scarlet blossoms generously through a hot summer. I have not known it to fruit — indeed the single-flowered variety is 96 MY SHRUBS shy of blooming at all ; but the young foliage is most beautiful and the shrub a worthy resident for a sunny wall. Purshia tridentata is a little American shrub with yellowish blossoms of no great charm, but the triple leaves are neat and distinctive. Pterocarya caucasica, of the walnut race, is a tree, and, unlike some tardy growers, will soon show you that it is. But encourage it in a corner for the sake of its youthful grace and beautiful ash- like foliage. When it outgrows your garden patch, the fate of other too pushing, too busy people may fall upon it. Pyrus, in the shape of the flowering crabs, you cannot deny yourself. P.floribunda and P. spectabilis should join you. I have P. arbutijolia from North America, a small species, whose shining autumn foliage turns to most splendid crimson before it falls. P. "John Downie" too, is a most splendid object in spring and autumn. None fruits more handsomely than this. P. salicifolia argentea pendula must be a fine thing when successful, but my standard of this beautiful shrub sulked and never took kindly to its new home. I must try again. Of tiny sub-shrubs, Pyxidanthera barbulata, from New Jersey, succeeded with me on a sunny rockery for a season. The Pine- barren Beauty has a prostrate habit, and might easily be mistaken for a saxifrage. Some dire disaster overtook my plant, and it died suddenly from causes beyond my power to diagnose. I now have it again in peat in a pan, which is plunged in a shady corner for the greater part of the year, and blossoms under a cold frame during April. It is then covered with buds like pink pearls, that break presently into little white, fairy, five-petalled flowers. But Pyoci- danthera does not derive from pixy. CHAPTER X OUILLAJA SAPONARIA, a Chilian soapwort, is rare in cultivation, though I do not suppose it difficult. It makes a considerable evergreen tree when at home, and is said to have fragrant white blossoms. Mine perished in a cool peat bed, and must be renewed. Rhaphiolepis japonica is a treasure, and I know few handsomer evergreens. This hardy shrub has a neat, branching habit and leaves of polished dark green. Its panicles of snow-white blossoms have a touch of pale carmine in the midst, and open during May or June. The falling leaf takes on a splendid crimson. In half shade this very fine shrub prospers well, flowers profusely, and sets its dark red berries. It came to England in 1865 — the same year that I did — and neither of us is half as well known as we ought to be. Rhabdothamnus Solandri is a dwarf evergreen New Zealander, with pretty little serrated leaves and bells of blossom, a dark orange- red, striped black. It is tender, but does well here in a peaty corner with a larger shrub above it, whose foliage affords the necessary protection. Rhaphithamnus cyanocarpus is an evergreen Chilian with small coriaceous foliage, blue flowers, and bright blue berries. Mine grows in the open rockwork, and will soon be too large for that position. Its points get somewhat nipped by frost, and, when I move it, I shall set it against a protected cool wall, and hope that it may survive and prosper. 97 98 MY SHRUBS With due solemnity we now approach Rhododendron, the Rose Bay, king of all flowering shrubs, at once the joy and despair of the small shrub-grower. While clinging as ever to the species, one must grant that skilled hybridizers have done splendid work upon this august genus. By mixing fresh blood with the monarchs of the race, they produce plants which only yield a little in distinction to the species from the Himalayas, while flowering considerably later, and so bringing their bud uninjured through the early months of spring. The greater number of rhododendrons from India are hardy ; but their early flowering habit means that the expanding truss is exposed to our coldest temperatures at its most critical period of development, and so we lose our bloom, though the shrubs do not suffer. Yet it is said that there are finer Himalayan rhododendrons in Ireland than on the Himalayas, so all whose fate calls them to dwell in the West Country within salutation of the sea may attempt this supreme manifestation of the shrub. But patience is essential. Though fine flowering pieces of the great hybrids can generally be secured from the best growers, with the species it is different, and choice old china is not so rare as fine specimens of the nobler rhododendrons in search of a new home. The race ascends from the tiniest shrublet, in JR. kamtschaticumy to a tree, where R. arbor eum towers splashed with spring crimson, and good specimens of the hardy Pontic hybrids are of course within all men's reach ; but if your space is limited and your patience without limit, then get the best at once, give them half shade and shelter, and, above all things, remember that as surface rooters they are most thirsty shrubs, and need ample watering in dry weather. A spraying of the foliage with water is also much to be advised after fierce sunshine. RHODODENDRON ROYLEI MY SHRUBS 99 Here, where I dwell on a limestone crag, the Rhododendron demands peat, and if the peat bed be lifted up above the limestone, instead of buried in it, so much the better. Peat graves with walls of the local soil are dangerous. It is wiser to make peat mounds into which the lime cannot percolate during the rainy seasons. I have some fifty rhododendrons, and my favourite plant of all the garden is R. campy locarpum. From an elevation of 14,000 feet on the Sikkim Himalaya comes this precious shrub. It stands 7 feet high, and in early May the bud breaks a rich orange-red and opens into clusters of loose, butter-coloured bells of wax-like substance and most perfect shape, with a splash of dark ruby at the bottom of each cup. It is a generous flowerer, and not seldom I disbud in autumn, and reduce its promise by a hundred points for the sake of the plant. I would travel to the Sikkim, and even climb 14,000 feet, to see R. campylocarpum spreading its pale lemon light under the mountain mists of that wondrous region. There is a hybrid between R. campylocarpum and that good rhododendron " Prince C. de Rohan" which is a mixture of yellow and pink, with the habit of the former plant. This is but an infant with me, and has yet to blossom. R. cinnabarinum hangs out blossoms of hot, cinnabar red, and its young foliage reveals a delicious, glaucous duck-green. R. Roy lei and R. blandfordiceflorum are near it, the former with most dis- tinguished plum-coloured little trusses brushed with delicate bloom ; and that exceedingly splendid plant, R. Thomsonii, is even more striking in the same style. R. Griffithianum (Syn. Auck- landii) is the superb parent of many great hybrids, including " Pink Pearl" Manglesii and its fine forms " White Pearl " and Gaunt- ioo MY SHRUBS lettii. The parent — a mighty grower — has loose trusses of pure white trumpet-like blooms, and from its young foliage falls a tatter of crimson bracts as the leaves open in late April. R. decorum is the Chinese R. Griffithianum and has fragrant flowers of purest white ; but it is not such a great grower. From that famous raiser, Gill of Tremough, I have " Triumph " and " Glory of Penjerrick " — magnificent hybrids, with enormous, bright, crimson trusses — while of other species that are reasonably hardy with a little care against high winds, I own R. Falconeri, whose mighty leaves have a felt of dormouse-coloured tomentum beneath them and R. eximium, which displays still more of this rich felt and foliage only less splendid than its kinsman. Both are from the Sikkim. R. grande (Syn. argenteum) has a dazzling silver underdown and an exquisite habit ; but it is a tardy fiowerer. R. Dalhousice lives out of doors in summer and makes up bud there, then comes indoors and flowers during spring before again emerging. It is a straggling, epiphytic shrub, from the Sikkim, where it climbs into oaks and magnolias ; but its lovely, loose trusses of lemon-coloured blossom make it a great favourite with me. The blossoms are as big as an average lily, and are much more like Lilium sulphur eum than its own family. R. Smirnovii, from Transcaucasia, is a neat rhododendron with purple flowers, and R. triflorum has small pale yellow blossoms in threes and fours. It comes from 8000 feet levels of the Hima- laya, and might perhaps have been left there without loss. It is, however, a kindly flowerer, and would make a good cross with something of more importance. Then I have hybrids of R. arboreum — generous flowerers at six feet high and good for pretty trusses of pink and scarlet bloom. R. barbatum, again from Sikkim, has splendid blood-coloured blossoms. R. Nuttallii, from Bhotan, MY SHRUBS 101 is tender, and retreats from its place in a peat bed when October comes. The beauty of the new leaves alone makes this plant a treasure. They are a wondrous rich old-rose colour, and retain their red veins until mature. The flower is white and fragrant, but my plant, though healthy enough, has made no blossom yet. It is a shy bloomer even in expert hands. R. calophyllum, another Bhotan species, also withdraws from the open during autumn, though in Cornish gardens it flourishes in sheltered glades. This is a grand rhododendron with lovely foliage, as the name implies. The white blossom is very large and fragrant with three to five trumpets on the truss. The species attains to no great size, and is easily managed in a pot. R. Sesterianwny a hybrid, is very splendid ; but the buds should have protection against frost and the whole plant be given a snug corner. The mixture of rosy red and white make the fragrant trusses a great joy in May. The flower is among the largest of all. That fine hybrid, " Lady Alice Fitzwilliam" is only a little less distinguished, and blooms more freely. The lovely R.fragrantissimum also resembles these, but is more tender, and should winter in a cold house. R. yunnanense, a noble and hardy Chinese species, has large flowers two inches across, white spotted crimson, or lavender and brown. R. formosum is of Bhotan, and tender — a fine species still rare in cultivation. Of dwarf varieties, R. racemosum, another Yunnan species, is a neat deciduous shrub, whose rosy flowers are among the earliest to appear ; R. kamtschaticum, also deciduous, is but a few inches high, and demands a cool, damp, shady corner in peat. Its little solitary flowers are a bright purple, as large as a kalmia bloom, and it is rather hard to please. This year one fine blossom has MY SHRUBS appeared with me. R. jerrugineum, the Alpine Rose, from Euro- pean Alps, I have collected in Switzerland and above Como. It is a neat shrub with rust-coloured underdown to the foliage and red or white flowers. R. glaucum, from the Sikkim, prospers at the feet of R. campy locarpum, as it does in its native habitat. The trusses are old rose colour ; the foliage smells like pomatum, but what matter ? Nobody is obliged to prove it. I much like these sprightly little shrubs, and am attached also to R. ciliatum, from 10,000 feet levels of the Himalaya — a hardy and handsome dwarf with pink trusses of blossom, very large for the size of the plant. R. intricatum is another splendid evergreen from Yunnan, not so hardy as those named, yet safe enough in a snug corner. R. ochroleucum (Veitch) is a dwarf hybrid — I think from China — very pale yellow, with pale brown freckles ; and R. govenianum, a purple, scented species from America, is also a neat dwarf for a pocket in a cool rockery. R. amcenum is a Chinese dwarf that makes a fine solid bush, though its small flowers tend dangerously near magenta. R. campanulatum, from the Himalaya, is a beautiful hardy species, with bell-shaped white or lilac blossoms. It is hardy and looks well as a shrub, but my stout piece has yet to flower. R. prcecox is a child of R. dauricum, a dwarf, Russian, deciduous species. It flowers in March, and its pale bright purple trusses often get nipped by frost if not protected. R. pentamerum is a Japanese alpine species, with pale rosy flowers and pointed foliage matted with silvery felt beneath. I have also a few hybrids from R. catawbiense stock. This rhododendron, I learn, grows on the Alleghany Mountains, often in dense masses, through which the only way is by an old bear AZALEODKXDRON "HROUGHTONII AUREUM " MY SHRUBS 103 path. The time is still far distant when I go botanising on an old bear path ; but I am none the less filled with hearty admiration, untinctured by jealousy, for those spirited pioneers who pursue their floral quarries even in the face of such possible opposition. It is true that Mr. William Watson, one of the greatest of English botanists and our first authority on the rhododendron race, speaks of " old " bear paths. But you never know. Old bears — the real, conservative " backwoodsmen " sort of bears — would be almost certain to prefer the old paths ; and equally certain to resent an intruder upon them. Before reluctantly dragging myself away from Rhododendron, I may mention the " azaleodendrons" as they are called by some gardeners. They have resulted from the marriage of a yellow azalea and a seedling evergreen rhododendron, and the result, as it appears in R. Broughtonii and R. Smithii aureum^ is exceedingly beautiful. They are hardy evergreens, with fine trusses of yellow blossoms of good size and beautiful shape. I hunger much* for R. Loderi, but know not where to find it. This superb cross between R. Griffithianum and R. Fortunei was made by Sir E. Loder at his far-famed gardens of Leonardslee. The flowers are very large and very fragrant, and the plant is vigorous and hardy ; but I think it has not found its way to the public of Rhodo-lovers as yet. The Javanese rhododendrons, yellow, white, pink, and scarlet, are very beautiful pot-plants, but demand the heat of the stove and unlimited moisture. Few amateurs succeed with them. Of their hybrids, R. " Souvenir of Mr. Mangles " is a brilliant beauty — bright salmon pink. Rhodora canadensis is a deciduous rhododendron whose pale purple flowers appear before the leaves ; while Rhodothamnus 104 MY SHRUBS chamacistuS) a dainty dwarf from the Eastern European Alps, is also a rhododendron. I have failed signally with this little shrub, and am trying again on a moraine, with lime in the soil. Here it appears to be hearty enough, and is making useful growth. Rhodotypos kerrioides is a hardy Japanese climber for a wall, and goes well with Kerria anywhere. The flowers are white and solitary, followed by black fruits. Only two Sumachs dwell here : the old Rhus Cotinus, which roams Europe, and is familiar from Spain to the Caucasus, and R. typhina lacinata, a fine, fern-leaved variety of the Stag's Horn sumach with splendid autumn colour. The rare R. vernicifera, the Japanese Lacquer or Varnish-Tree, is now in cultivation, and must be prevailed to augment my meagre list. But avoid R. toxicodendron. I have known those who suffered much after ignorantly handling this handsome Poison- Ivy. Rhynchospermum jasminoides is a fragrant, jasmine-flowered climbing evergreen from Shanghai, and appreciates a cool and sheltered wall in half shade with the Chilians. Full sun might suit it even better. It does not grow here as one may see it in Italy : at Florence great walls are covered with it ; but this is a desirable shrub in Western gardens, and will stand severe cold. You may call it Trachelospermum jasminoides, and many people do so ; but it is only a choice of evils, and can give you little relief. Indeed the whole nomenclature of the world's flora is an infamy, and cries both to reason and heaven to be swept away. Could not an effort be made to change it all when simplified spelling falls upon us ? But we of the old brigade will miss that coming devilry, and if Rhynchospermum is planted upon our stately tombs, doubt- less it must be under the present name. ROSA LAi.VlGA.TA MY SHRUBS 105 I think no new Ribes is better than our old flowering currant, R. sanguineum, save R. speciosum, the fuchsia-flowered gooseberry, from California. This thrives on a wall in half shade, and its wands of little scarlet flowers in spring and sweet, red-golden fruits in autumn make it an attractive plant. Its bud breaks in winter, but takes no hurt, and soon after Christmas the young green begins to appear. R. Menziesii is another Calif ornian species, which I discarded as lacking in interest of any sort. The blossom is very minute and without charm. The new R. Warsecewiczii, with maple-like foliage, sounds a good thing, and it has a dainty name to frighten the birds from its crimson fruit in autumn. Robinia needs only to be named with affection. Its fragrance haunts the mountain glens by Como. R. hispida and many varieties of R. pseudacacia are most desirable, especially R.p. decaisneana. I am no rosarian, and have merely a border of pleasant and familiar things ; but best I care for certain of the species. Rosa sinica, or Icevigata, from the Himalayas and China, is a noble plant naturalised in the Southern United States, and known there as the Cherokee Rose. This is an evergreen of tremendous activity. It has made a mighty tangle over my garden room in a sheltered corner facing west, and here during June it opens large single blossoms of exquisite whiteness and satin texture. Its fine pink hybrid, R. sinica " anemone" flourishes superbly on a south wall, and I cherish also R. Brunoniiy another Himalayan, a white, gold- anthered gem, with immense corymbs of tiny blossoms. This splendid climber easily holds its own with the Ayrshires on a row of pillars. R. Moyseii, from China, is a single rose of surpassing ruby splendour. The colour is amazing, and it makes., all other red roses look washed out and poor. Then another Chinaman, o io6 MY SHRUBS R. bracteata, Macartney's Rose, flowers in autumn, when roses are growing scarce, while, to name two more from my little group of the species, there are R. nitida, a charming dwarf from North America, decorative all the year round, and R. xanthina, from Afghanistan — a distinctive yellow species with glaucous foliage. Acquire these, and you will remember me in your wills. They are really more interesting than gardeners' hybrids, and also more beautiful. Our taste for the plump monsters from the rose border is Mid- Victorian, and we must struggle back to the more refined and distinguished species. I mark a laudable improvement in the chrysanthemum already. The mop -headed giants are doomed, and we begin to cultivate a flower of greater distinction and intrinsic beauty. Compare a good group of single chrysanthemums with a stage of prize-taking giants, and you will instantly perceive which has the better excuse for existence. Rubus is a fine family for a cool and shady garden. I have but half a dozen, and also grow R. phcenicolasius , the Japanese wine-berry, because one highly placed of the household loves its scarlet fruits. But best I like R. deliciosus, a beautiful shrubby bramble from the Rocky Mountains, with large, pure, white flowers in early spring. R. nutkanus, a North American, is a rapid grower with very large white flowers ; R. odoratus has red flowers, and R. spec- labile approaches magenta. R. australis is a strange New Zealander, all thorns and no leaves — a wild tangled mass of ferocious vegeta- tion like nothing else in my garden. They call it the " Wait-a-bit >: and the " Bush Lawyer " in its home — good names, both. This has not opened its little, pale pink, fragrant blossom with me, nor has another variety (with leaves) of the same species. R. arcticus is a herbaceous mite and vanishes in winter ; while of other good MY SHRUBS 107 flowering brambles I have R. innominatus, a very distinct and hand- some plant — one of the new comers from China, of which many others are now about to greet the public. Ruscus androgyna is the finest and most tender of this genus. It comes from the Canaries, and is a handsome climber for a southern wall, but it will need protection in weather. R. racemosus, the Alexandrian laurel from Portugal, is also desirable. It grows slowly, but nothing looks better than a prosperous specimen. I have also what I take to be R. Hypophyllum, a pretty species rather like R. racemosuSy which I collected in the South of France. None of these have fruited with me, though the last makes flower readily. A good fruiting Butcher's Box is also entirely to be commended. They thrive in Devon woods. Ruta graveolens, the common rue, grew here once, but I seek it now in vain : the Herb of Grace has vanished and must be sought again. CHAPTER XI NOT many of the willows are very useful in a small garden, but the dwarfs Salix reticulata and S. serpyllifolia are happy in a cool and damp corner of the rockwork. Much moisture is essential. The latter of those above named I collected among the foothills of the Matterhorn, and in wet peat it has made a beautiful little specimen extending its tiny branches among Gentiana verna and other small creatures. Salix myr smites jac- quiniana dwells beside it — another very minute willow with neat catkins of purple. Of larger species I have a good weeping willow, S. ramulus aureus, whose golden rain of tresses in winter makes it beautiful. The catkins are also pure gold. S. sericea pendula, a pretty shrub with catkins of silver and pale gold, and the Japanese S. mutabilis, with wonderful catkins of lemon and scarlet, I also grow. This latter species is peculiarly impatient of drought, and, since his feet are not in water, dislikes a hot summer exceedingly. Salsola fruticosa lacks charm, but I am giving this new shrub rope enough to hang itself. It may surprise me yet. Salvia dichroa, from the Atlas Mountains, is almost a shrub and, when prosperous, attains to six feet high, and presents you with flower spikes of white and purple two feet in length. An established plant of this is a magnificent sight ; but you must give it a warm and sunny corner in well-drained loam. Sambucus, the Elder, has some good varieties, of which I possess 108 MY SHRUBS 109 only the Siberian S. racemosa, a pleasant, scarlet-fruited shrub for a spare corner. Santolina chamcecyparissus, the fragrant Cotton Lavender, makes a good silvery mass with rayless yellow daisies rising above it in summer time ; but the North American grease wood, Sarco- batus vermicutalus, has no obvious charm, and will soon be called upon to leave me in favour of something more entertaining. Sarcococca ruscifolia is a better thing. This little evergreen from China decks itself with fragrant white flowers, which peep effectively from the dark foliage in January — a time when sweet white flowers are scarce. The scarlet fruits are then ripe also. Satureia montana, the Winter Savory, is a neat little labiate, with spikes of pale purple flowers above the close evergreen foliage. There is no better small bush for a rockery than this excellent sub-shrub, but it seems rare in cultivation. Virgil praises it as a fragrant herb to plant beside the beehive. Schizandra chinensis is a handsome, climbing shrub of hardy constitution and deciduous habit. The leaf breaks early, and the plant grows steadily but slowly on a south wall. The flowers are small and white ; the scarlet fruits I have not seen as yet. It affords an example of scientific nomenclature worth noting, for the word is composed of schizo — to cleave, and andros — a male, because the stamens are split. Comment is needless. This wretched " schizo " does service again and again in botany, and one often in a garden longs to know what Adam called the things. He had no Greek or Latin at any rate. Perhaps, if we took children into a garden and invited them to invent names, we should get something more attractive than the atrocious words we are called upon to suffer at present. no MY SHRUBS Schizophragma hydrangeMes — it has to be written — is a good shrub with trusses of flowers like white hydrangea, to which genus this monotype is related. A deciduous climber from Japan, it is handsome and hardy, and will hold to a rough wall or climb a tree-stem without support. The shrubby Senecio Gray it is a white-foliaged plant, but tender. Mine perished, and was not renewed. S. rotundifolia has just been introduced from New Zealand, and is said to be reasonably hardy. Serissa jcetida, a swamp plant common through the East, well figured in the old " Botanical Magazine " under the name of Lycium japonicutriy has white axillary flowers and a neat habit. It grows with Japanese irises in a bog, and I put a big bell glass over it when unusual cold sets in. Kaempfer regarded the smell of this plant as highly disgusting ; Professor Retzius disagreed with him ; Professor Thunberg sided with the immortal Kaempfer ; and so will you. Professor Retzius must have had a cold in his head when he smelled Serissa. The odour of this Japanese boxthorn is most afflicting. Shepherdia argentea is a deciduous North American, which in its home attains to the size of a small tree. The foliage is silver- bright and very beautiful ; the scarlet fruit is edible ; but the Shepherdia being dioecious I never shall taste it. The Americans call this plant the Beef-suet Tree, though the reason I cannot learn. Skimmia^froTn Skimmi,a Japanese word that means" poisonous fruit," is a neat evergreen shrub for a shady corner. My plants of S. japonica keep very dwarf, and their white flowers and scarlet fruits are regularly produced. S. Laureola, from Nepaul, has yellow flowers, and is a pretty citron-scented shrub four feet high. MY SHRUBS in This would be a treasure, but I know not if it is in cultivation. There are other varieties of less note, the best perhaps being S. rosea, a pretty thing with dense, pale pink inflorescence. Smilax aspera, the Prickly Ivy of Southern Europe, I have collected about Mentone. It makes a mighty mass on a wall, and the little flower clusters are abundant ; but the shrub has not set its beautiful bunches of berries here. The well-known Sarsaparilla is made from the roots of a Chinese Smilax. S. ornata must be a beautiful foliage plant, but I have only seen Nicholson's figure of it. S. australis differs little from S. aspera, but has more showy spray of white blossoms. Of Solatium, the familiar S. crispum, from Chili, makes a large shrub on a wall, and will stand well in a shrubbery. The blue flowers are like those of a potato, the fruits red. S. jasminoides, another South American, will prosper best in half shade, and gladdens an east and west wall in autumn with racemes of pure white blossoms. S. Wendlandii, from Costa Rica, is the monarch of the species. A cold house is the right place for it ; but in very favoured corners, with winter protection, it may stand out of doors in the south. The flower is a beautiful mauve approaching blue, and is as large again as that of S. crispum. Sollya heterophylla is a treasure from Australia — a climbing evergreen for a warm wall — which covers itself with innumerable little blue bells in summer time. Far more dainty even than this is Sollya Drummondii, a plant from fairy-land direct. The wee blue flowers tremble among the lace- work of foliage. Give it a wall to climb on, and keep this gem in a cold house. Sophora, including Edwardsia, is beautiful in all its manifesta- tions. I have a good specimen of the deciduous Pagoda-tree, S. 112 MY SHRUBS japonica pendula. The foliage and form are beautiful, but, though it has prospered here for ten years, I have never seen the creamy panicles of flowers. S. microphylla is evergreen, and has orange- coloured flowers of large size. This New Zealand laburnum needs a wall. " Kowhai" they call it there, and I have raised a good batch from seed that a friend despatched to me. But the plant is of slow growth. S. viciifolia, now in cultivation, has blue flowers, and makes a good shrub in the open. Upon the huge subject of shrubby Spiraeas I -say nothing. It is a noble and a beautiful race, but they grow so large that, with a few quite unimportant exceptions, they are not here. My space is too precious and my half shade too full of plants I like better. Not a whisper against them ; I know not one that is not beautiful in prosperity; but they are not fairly represented here, and so enough. Sparmannia africana is a notable shrub for the greenhouse border. This South African only needs a temperature to open its bunches of pure white flowers with their tassels of purple- tipped filaments. The evergreen, pubescent foliage is also a feature of this familiar pot plant. It flowers in a small size, but is much more splendid when it reaches adult dimensions. Sphacele Lindleyi is an uncommon evergreen of brisk, up- right habit from Chili. This sage-like shrub bears lavender blue, bell-shaped flowers, and may be accounted quite hardy. There are character and originality about Sphacele , and it should win many friends. Stachyurus prtecox is the Japanese variety of this excellent plant, the other being Himalayan. Stachyurus flowers with spikes of lemon-coloured inflorescence in March, somewhat after the MY SHRUBS 113 fashion of Corylopsis. It likes half shade, and is a very conspicuous object in springtime when successful. Staphylea is a widely scattered plant, and the familiar S. colchica comes from the Caucasus. There is a great delicacy and charm about its racemes of white flowers, for the petal texture is very beautiful. S. pinnata, known as John's Tears, is a South European, and S. holocarpa comes from China. This last-named variety is a rare shrub that I have not seen. It is declared to have rosy flowers occasionally, and must then be a treasure indeed. Stauntonia latifolia is a vigorous and hardy climber from the Himalayas. It will reach your tallest chimney, and give you a most fragrant but inconspicuous inflorescence during Spring. Stephanandra flexuosa makes a good clump on the grass, and the wands of this graceful shrub are covered with creamy masses of flowers during June and July. It is an effective plant, though certain Spiraeas are finer in the same style. Stranvcesia glaucescens comes from the Khasia Mountains, where it attains a height of twenty feet and must look very splendid. My plant is not glaucescent, but dark green. The flower appears in white corymbs, and the fruits are orange yellow. Stranvaesia is Latin for the Hon. W. Fox Strangeways, F.R.S., the plant being so-called in honour of that learned gentleman. With Stuartia pseudo-camellia I have failed, but this beautiful deciduous shrub from Japan is being attempted again. More able gardeners will show it to you successfully as a bush six feet high and covered with large white flowers with golden stamens. S. pentagyna is a North American and S. virginica, still rare in culti- vation, is declared to be the fairest of the family. A cool corner in n4 MY SHRUBS peat should satisfy the plant with us, though elsewhere a cold house might serve it better. Styrax is a handsome and fairly hardy deciduous shrub of many species. I have but two, both of flowering size. S. Obassia is a Japanese treasure, and grows to a small tree in Cornwall. Its fragrant flowers are like snowdrops, and hang with grace among the large leaves. S.japonicum has made a little bush on my sunny rockery. The blossoms are like those of the larger plant in form, but of smaller size. This prospers well enough and flowers freely. *S. Benzoin, from Sumatra, yields the gum resin of that name. Sutherlandia frutescens, the Cape Bladder Senna, is a splendid wall plant among us, but still rare in my experience. I only possess strong and promising seedlings from a friend. They have already flowered and fruited in their youthful state — my picture represents one not three years old — but an established plant familiar to me covers a wall with the fine grey-green foliage and splendid scarlet racemes of pea-shaped flowers. The inflated pods are like little Rugby footballs. Under the name of Colutea frutes- cens, this Bladder Senna is well figured in the " Botanical Magazine " (No. 181), where I find the shrub first came to England in 1683. Worth is indeed but tardily recognised. Sycopsis sinensis is a very graceful dark evergreen with delightful habit — a most pleasing novelty. The rosy gold inflorescence adorns the shrub in April. Half shade would seem desirable, for I had a good specimen that perished in full sun. It may be a lime-hater, but I do not know as to that. Symplocos cratcegoides, from Japan, is a deciduous climber for a south wall. The neat foliage and very beautiful white flower trusses — feathery and light as swansdown — make this a welcome SUTHERLANDIA FRUTESCENS MY SHRUBS 115 new-comer. S. tinctoria, the Sweet Leaf of the Southern United States, has sugary foliage from which a yellow dye is manufac- tured. Symphoricarpus racemosus, the Snow Berry, is a familiar shrub- bery weed, of which the variety S. vulgaris has red berries and a most beautiful habit. Syringa one need no more than mention. You doubtless have your favourite hybrid lilacs, and there is no more precious thing than a mighty junket bowl full of their dark purple and pure white. The species are seldom seen or sold, but nurserymen can provide the true, late-flowering S. japonica — creamy white in a dense thyrse of blossom — and I am fond, too, of the little S. persica, whose delicate lavender trusses never fail to please. CHAPTER XII 1 ^ACSONIA VAN-VOLXEMII grows within ten miles of me on a wall in a garden beside the estuary of Dart. But this most beautiful passion-flower from New Grenada, though a rampant thing under glass, cannot be counted upon out of doors even in the West Country. Mine used to flourish in a vinery, and hang out its pure, deep rosy blossoms with the utmost generosity ; but against a snug south wall it soon passed away. There are few more beautiful climbing shrubs than this. The Tamarix has many fine forms, and no garden reasonably near the sea should lack a specimen or two. If you have room for a drift of them, then so much the better for your garden's beauty. The old T. gallica is only beaten by one species in my opinion, but the rosy pink panicles of T. odessana, a splendid Russian, are better. These deciduous shrubs yield to none in grace and charm. They enjoy full sunshine and chime harmoniously with other things. Combined with Ceonothus, for example, they are a joy. T. chinensis, from Canton, should be here, but I do not find it offered to me by nurserymen. Taxodium distichum, in its youthful state, makes a neat little deciduous conifer. To see this most beautiful tree in full splendour one must doubtless go to the United States ; but it would be hard to imagine more striking specimens than those in the public gardens at Milan. There they stand with their feet in water, their high tops a glory of young feathery green when the Spring comes. 116 TAMARIX ODESSANA MY SHRUBS 117 Taxus baccata nana is a good dwarf yew for the rockery, while T. baccata variegata makes a beautiful golden bush. T. canadensis, the ground hemlock, is a spreading shrub and keeps low. Templetonia retrusa, the Coral Bush, is a handsome Australian, which I lack. The pea-like blossoms are scarlet, the leaves scanty, or wholly missing. They have a fine specimen of this rare and beautiful shrub at Kew. Tetranthera calif ornica is a hardy shrub known as the Oreodaphne and also by its Japanese name of Litsea. There are many varieties, of which my Californian is evergreen with leaves of an overpowering aromatic pungency. T. glauca is probably a handsomer species. My plant has never flowered. Teucrium latifolium, the Tree Germander, is a silver-grey bush with pale lavender flowers. This grows tremendously, but the spikes last well in water, and may be cut by the dozen in summer time should you want to reduce your plant. Teucrium is a native of Spain, and though hardy and cultivated in this country for two hundred years, has never won the popularity that it deserves. I understand that Teucer, King of Troy, first used this species medicinally. Let us hope it did him good. Thea viridis grows with me in a snug half shady corner, but I have not had it long, and this little camellia has yet to open its white blossoms here. Thunbergia coccinea, from India, is a great climber for the stove, where given space it makes a fine spectacle with scarlet or orange coloured blossoms in Spring. T. mysorensis is another strong climber, and a rampant grower when prosperous. There are many more restrained shrubby varieties of Thunbergia , but I think all need the stove. n8 MY SHRUBS A dwarf Thuya or two may be added to your miniature forest. Of these tiny Arbor Vitce, T. occidental™ globosa is good ; also T. japonica pygnuza and a nurseryman's plant, T. " Rheingold" a little golden bush. Thymus striatus is a neat little upright shrub from Greece — a good and fragrant hardy thyme for the sunny rockery. I should like Triphasia trifoliata^ a handsome monotype from Manilla. This Lime-berry Tree is largely cultivated for its fruits, but I know not if it exists in this country. Nicholson's de- scription, which I borrow with due acknowledgment, is very attractive. Trochodendron aralioides is a Japanese evergreen of the mag- nolia race, though much more like an ivy. The starry inflorescence is pale green and very beautiful. This fine shrub is worthy of a sheltered corner. The new Tetracentron sinensis belongs to this race. For Ulex I have no affection under cultivation, though, seen in its home, a gorse brake, or a waste of the dwarf autumn furze, is worthy of all praise and affection. One shares the enthusiasm of Linnaeus when first he saw the splendid shrub. Ulmus pumila, the Siberian Elm, is the only dwarf species, but I know not if it be in cultivation. Ungnadia speciosa is a showy, monotypic, half-hardy shrub from Texas, resembling Pavia. It should be grown in a pot, plunged in summer, and withdrawn to the cold house when October returns. The flower is pink in corymbs, and appears about June. Vacdnium — the Bilberry, the Cranberry, the Huckle-berry, the Bearberry, and the rest — is a large genus of which I have but few representatives. They do not succeed. V. vitis idcea, the Mount MY SHRUBS 119 Ida Whortle, I collected in the Peak, and there is no daintier little gem where prosperous. It flourished for a few years, then passed away. V. leucobotrys, from Bengal, must be a grand shrub for the stove, with white flowers and white berries curiously marked with black, but I know it not. V. corymbosum — rose pink flowers and blue-black berries — is a choice North American species, which makes a very big bush. Veronica is not a favourite genus with me, though many of the shrubby species make excellent hardy plants, and some of the new hybrids, of salmon and scarlet and purple, are handsome enough. V. Hulkeana, from New Zealand, is a very beautiful but tender plant that must be protected if frost is about. This shrub has exquisite sprays of lilac flowers. V. lycopodioides is another New Zealander, with the appearance of an erect clubmoss, hardy and handsome on a well- drained rockery. Mine puts forth its neat white flowers every June, and is prosperous enough. V. Tr aver si — again from New Zealand — makes a splendid bush, and V. Andersoni variegata is a beautiful foliage plant, a garden hybrid, hardy in the West. V. glauco ccerulea is a pretty, decumbent species with blue flowers, while for a wall the variety V. salicifoliay with long racemes of cold white blossoms, makes a fine shrub in July. This New Zealander is very desirable. The Speedwell family is vast, but I lack space, or a mind, to more than these. With the hosts of the Viburnum I am forced to a severe dis- crimination also. New Viburnums are pouring in from China, but few fairly beat the old ones. I cleave to V. dilatatum, from Japan, an excellent shrub ; V. Carlesii, a lovely and hardy species from Korea, pink in the bud with pure white clusters of fragrant flowers, and V. Rhytidophyllum — what a rollicking name ! The felted ever- i2o MY SHRUBS green foliage of this Chinese plant is very striking, while V. macro- cephalum, also from China, with large trusses of snowy flowers, is a treasure I have yet to acquire. I know not if V. odoratissimum, from the Khasia Mountains in China, is cultivated to-day. The species must be beautiful, though half-hardy. The blossom is said to have the scent of Oleafragrans. Vinca, or Pervinca, which changes into Periwinkle quite easily, is a good and familiar hardy trailer for spare corners in sun and shade. There is a pretty variety of V. minor, with gold and green leaves and white flowers. I have a great mass of V. media from the Mediterranean region which grew wild round about Hyeres, and was collected there by me. It is a very pale blue — almost white — with dark bright foliage. V. rosea, from South Florida, belongs to the stove, and I have not seen it, but it must be a beautiful subject. Out of Madagascar the seed of this plant first went to France and then came to England — from Mr. Richard, gardener to the King at Versailles and Trianon. So Curtis tells us in 1793 ; and a hundred years earlier, Mr. Miller, who first cultivated Vinca rosea in England, wrote how, " during the summer they should be kept in an airy glass case, and in winter must be removed into the stove." Is this good thing still in cultivation ? If not let us send to Madagascar and regain it. The only Vitex that prospers in England out of doors is the deciduous V. Agnus castus, the Chaste Tree, or Monk's Pepper Tree, and even this South European is disappointing. With us the shrub is hardy enough on a wall, but its late flowering habit usually means that October finds the panicles still in bud, and after the first fall of temperature, they make no further effort to open, Bignonia grandiflora has the same unfortunate habit. I grow both plants in full sun on a snug south wall, but have seldom been repaid MY SHRUBS 121 by the pale lilac blossoms of the former. The other varieties of the genus Vitex belong to the greenhouse or stove. The great race of Vitis, if even reasonably presented, would fill my garden, for every year sees a few new beautiful ornamental vines from China or Japan added to our cultivation. I have the familiar V. Coignetite, Madame Coignet's superb monster from Japan, whose autumnal colours are resplendent, and V. labrusca, the American Fox Grape, which does not fruit with me. Vitis armata, V. megalophylla, with huge bi-pinnate foliage, V. Henry ana — a beautiful thing of Ampelopsis character — velvety and white veined, and V. Titanea from Japan, which should fruit, but only flowers abundantly, are also climbing here. V. heterophylla variegata is a pretty little creeper, or climber, with foliage spattered cream and pink, while V. purpurea, the Claret Vine, is a strong grower with wine-coloured foliage and occasional clusters of purple berries. V. Brandt, a hybrid, promises good grapes on a wall, though as yet I have not seen them ; but my favourite vine is V. heterophylla humuli- jolia^ the Turquoise-berried Vine from North China and Japan. This hardy climber, given a south wall, or the roof of a garden house, performs wonders. In autumn the foliage is a fine yellow, and after a hot summer the plant, now grown huge, is covered with clusters of dainty berries every shade of amethyst, purple, and sky blue. This is a most precious climber, and none with a place to grow it should deny himself the shrub. The fruits often germinate and seedlings spring up round about, but cuttings strike readily and soon make respectable pieces. The Weigela (which should be Dievilla by the way) is too familiar to demand more than passing admiration. It has been a favourite shrubbery plant since the time of our great grandfathers, and its Q 122 MY SHRUBS graceful habit has charmed and cheered generations of gardeners. Japan and China, Siberia and North America produce the genus, and the hybridizer is still busy with them. I possess a few scattered about the garden, and best I like W. argentea variegata, a beautiful shrub with white and green foliage and pale rose-pink flowers. The Canadian, W. trifida, has yellow blossoms, but I know not if it is cultivated. The honey-yellow W. sessilifolia, from Eastern United States, is also a handsome plant. Westringia is an extra-tropical Australian, but W. rosmarini- formis, the Victorian Rosemary, will succeed in a sunny, well- drained corner with winter care. It is not a very showy shrub, but has a neat, crisp habit, and the little, labiate, white flowers are freely produced. Whipplea modesta is a tiny shrub — a high alpine from California. I have it in half shade in a moraine looking very unwell. Wistaria, named after Professor Caspar Wistar of Pennsylvania University, is a small genus, of which W. chinensis is the splendid and familiar climber. The Japanese variety is white, while W. multi- jugay also from Japan, has lavender racemes, much longer and thinner than the Chinese plant. An adult and prosperous W. multi- juga will give you tresses of two feet in length. There is no lovelier thing than this on a standard, or grown espalier fashion. A pink variety is now in cultivation. Of W. frutescens, the shrubby North American species, there are some fair hybrids, and I should dearly like to learn where Wistaria/, magnifaa may be secured. Xanthoceras sorbifolia is an excellent monotypic species from China. Its delicate mountain-ash-like foliage is deciduous, and the flowers are white touched with crimson at the base and borne in simple racemes during April. This good and beautiful shrub will MY SHRUBS 123 stand anywhere provided the soil be fairly moist. My plant thrives in peat, though peat is not essential. It sets three-celled seed-pots, but does not bring them to full size and ripeness here. Xanihorhiza apifolia is another hardy monotype from North America. This little deciduous shrub has light pinnate foliage and racemes of very minute dark florets which appear in early spring. It is worth a corner in a rockery, for the growth is modest and it will always remain a dwarf. Of Xylomelum, the Wood Apple, I have had the wooden, pear-shaped fruits brought to me from Australia, and striven to germinate the seeds, but failed to do so. This is a bush shrub, or tree, of the Protea order, probably not in cultivation. Xylosteum Philomihe is an evergreen fly honeysuckle, with pink flowers in early Spring. With Zanthoxylum we approach an end. This genus, known as the Prickly Ash, or Toothache Tree, is a large one represented over most of the world. Whether the evergreen prickly and aromatic leaves of my plant — Z. planispermum — or its little clusters of red carpels in winter, or the bark of the shrub, are good against toothache, I cannot find. It flags under frost, but soon pulls itself together again when the cold has passed. This most handsome foliage plant prospers in half shade. Zauschneria calif ornica, the Calif ornian Hummingbird's Trumpet, may be called a sub-shrub, though its habit is herbaceous. The downy, grey foliage and scarlet tubular flowers make a fine mass on the sunny rockery. I cut my plants back hard in autumn, and they break again, travel underground, and rapidly increase. Zenobia, so called after the great Empress — a noble name really worth keeping — is now lost, and the shrub, so well worthy to bear 124 MY SHRUBS it, referred to Pieris or Andromeda. I mean Z. speciosa, from the United States, praised elsewhere as Pieris cassincejolia. This is among the most beautiful treasures in the garden. Give it half shade and peat, or good loam free of lime, and you should succeed, and rejoice at the splendid thing when June returns. Zizyphus I do not see in the catalogues, though Z. lotus, a South European, should be very nearly hardy. This, according to legend, yielded the sweet fare of the Lotophagi. Z. vulgaris, whose fruits are still appreciated, is counted hardy by Nicholson. These good shrubs should be introduced. Z. jujuba is the Jujube Tree, a species much cultivated, but only to be grown in the green- house at home. The last-named grows under glass at Kew, and they have Z. vulgaris in the open ; but neither fruits there. And now, before you escape, let me say a few words. It must not be suspected from this list of names, for the most part ugly, that I am one of those hopeless subjects, a gardener who only collects plants as other people collect postage stamps — for their rarity. I spurn the suggestion. No plant is here for its rarity, and few are rare. I could not be a competitive gardener, and would deprecate the least effort at competition even if it were possible. A shrub that has nothing else to commend it but its rarity possesses no charm for me. One's concern is to collect beautiful things for delight and not for pride. My garden is too trifling even to make a rite of showing it. You may complete an ambit in two minutes. The spot is merely an extension of study and workroom — a private sanctity in whose adornment I take my pleasure. There is no question of fashion here, for it violates all the latest theories of what a small garden should be ; rather is it a manifestation of individual taste MY SHRUBS izs struggling under increasing difficulties. For the Devon County Council has lifted up a huge Secondary School within ten yards of my garden. I begged them to respect old covenants under which I purchased my home, but they would not. The peace of a Devonian man of letters is nothing weighed against a cheap site for a public building ; so my plea was swept aside, compensation refused, and my garden and dwelling rendered valueless. In some countries they would have respected a serious artist — not in England. Even in some counties they might have thought twice before inflicting this grave wrong upon me ; but not in my own county. Still, until the Devon County Councillors commandeer my scanty acre for their own purposes, and bid me go hence, I shall continue to cultivate shrubs and contentment therein. These unexpected tribulations must leave no scar, for men are like wolves : they will do things when hunting in a pack that their cowardice would make them shrink from single-handed. Combined, these worthy but unsports- manlike souls possessed a giant's power ; and they used it like a giant. Last winter in The Times there appeared an article on how a gardener should enjoy his garden. I may quote from this pro- nouncement, and declare that even thus do I take pleasure in my modest garth. Only so may the full flavour and blessed anodyne of the garden be properly appreciated : " The successful gardener is he who can enjoy his garden when he is alone in it, as simply as though it were a spring meadow round his house. He may have done what he will with nature ; but all his labours will seem like nature to him, when he rests from them, and he will forget that his flowers owe their well-being to his skill. As for other gardens, there may be many more beautiful, and he ia6 MY SHRUBS is glad of it, as a poet is glad of all the poetry in the world. But his own garden is not to be compared with them, any more than his own wife with other women. It is there to be enjoyed for itself, without any pride of possession, and as a place to rest from all labours, even from those that have made it beautiful." That is a sound summary of what your garden should be to you, and what mine has always been to me. Keep the instinct for competition out of your garden, grudge no better man his triumphs, learn from all who will be good enough to teach, and if you find your plants becoming an anxiety rather than a rest or joy, then look to yourself and change your hobby. Beyond all things a garden is a place to forget your cares, not to breed them. I have known gardens where the owner did the worrying and the gardeners took their ease ; but this is to reverse the proper order. For their credit and honour let the professionals be as careful and troubled as possible : it is their duty ; but the amateur, if he be satisfied that the paid worker is justifying his existence, must preserve a peaceful mind. Above all, never call yourself " a great gardener," because, since Adam, the great gardeners have been far fewer even than most other great people, and not one man in a generation is worthy of such praise. For my part, when kind women tell me that their husbands or brothers are " great gardeners," I find myself a thought prejudiced against those husbands and brothers, well knowing that were such praise even approximately deserved, the objects of it would possess a knowledge and have acquired a sense of perspective to set their circle of admirers right in this matter. For gardening is like all creative art : the more a workman knows of his subject and the better, after life-long struggle, he has come to master his medium and learn its capabilities, the less inclined will he be to take any MY SHRUBS 127 other valuation of his performances than his own. There have been and still exist vain Masters in every branch of human achievement ; but they are happily rare, for, even in this, our time, modesty con- tinues to be a jewel in the crown of greatness. " If any one be in rapture with his own knowledge, looking only on those below him, let him but turn his glance upward toward past ages, and his pride will be abated, when he shall there find so many thousand wits that trample him under foot." The man who wrote that would have declared it impossible had he learned of the everlasting fame to attend his own genius ; yet from him William Shakespeare was very well pleased to borrow both wisdom and humour. INDEX t PAGE PAGE ABELIA 9 Bignonia 20 Choisya Abies . 10 Billardiera . 20 Chorizema . Abutilon 10 Boronia 21 Cistus . Acacia 10 Bouvardia . 21 Citharexylum Acer . 10 Bowkeria 21 Citrus . Actinidia II Brachyglottis 21 Clematis Adenocarpus II Brachysema 21 Clerodendron ^Esculus II Bridgesia 22 Clethra Akebia 12 Buddleia 22 Clianthus Alberta 12 Bupleurum . • 23 Cneorum Ampherephis 12 Buxus 23 Colletia Amygdalus . 12 Colquhounia Andrachne . 12 CjESALPINIA 24 Convolvulus Andromeda 12 Calceolaria . 24 Coprosma . Anopteris . 13 Callicarpa . • 25 Cornus Anthyllis • I3 Callistemon 24 Corokia Aralia ' 13 Calophaca . • 25 Coronilla . Arbutus . 14 Calothamnus . 26 Correa Arctostaphylos 14 Calycanthus . 26 Corylopsis . Ardisia 14 Camellia 26 Corynocarpus Aristea 14 Cantua . 27 Cotoneaster Aristolochia • 15 Caragana . 27 Crinodendron Aristotelia . • 15 Carmichaelia . 27 Cryptomeria Asimina • 15 Carpenteria . 28 Cydonia Athrotaxis . • 15 Castanopsis . . 28 Cyrilla Atragene • 15 Ceanothus . . 28 Cytisus Azalea . 16 Celastrus • 31 Azara . • 17 Cephalotaxus . 28 DAMNACANTHUS . Cerasus . 29 Daphne BACCHARIS . . 18 Ceratonia . • 3° Daphniphyllum . Banksia 18 Cercidiphyllum . • 3° Darwinia Barosma . 19 Cercis . • 3° Decaisnea . Baueria . 19 Cercocarpus • 3° Decumaria . Benthamia . . 19 Cestrum • 3o Dendromecon Berberidopsis . 19 Chamaecyparis . 28 Desfontainea Berberis . 19 Chimonanthus . 29 Desmodium Betula . 20 Chiogenes . • 31 Deutzia Biglowia 20 Chionanthus . 29 Diosma 129 28 33 28 29 32 32 32 33 35 33 34 34 34 34 34 34 34 33 33 36 35 35 35 35 37 37 38 38 38 39 39 39 39 40 40 130 MY SHRUBS Diospyrus . PAGE . 40 GAULTHERIA PAGE • 51 Kalmia PAGE Disanthus . . 4° Gaylussacia . • 51 Kennedya . 64 Distylum . 40 Genista • 51 Kerria . 64 Dorycnium . 4° Ginkgo • 52 Koelreuteria . 64 Drimys . 41 Gleditschia . • 52 Globularia . • 52 LABURNUM . 65 Gonocalyx , • 52 Lagerstrcemia 65 EDGWORTHIA . 41 Gordonia • 53 Lapageria . • 65 Ehretia 41 Grabowskya • 53 Lardizabala . • 65 Elaeagnus . . 41 Grevillea • 53 Larix . . 66 Elseocarpus . . 42 Guevina • 53 Lasiandra . . 66 Eleutherococcus . . 42 Gymnocladus • 54 Laurus . 66 Elsholtzia . . 42 Lavatera • 67 Embothrium . 42 HAKEA ' 56 Lavendula . I . 67 Enkianthus . . 42 Halesia • 57 Ledum . . * 67 Entelea • 43 Halimodendron . • 57 Leonotis wt 67 Epacris Ephedra • 43 • 43 Hamamelis . Hedera • 57 • 57 Leptospermum Leschenaultia I . 68 . 68 Epigsea . 43 Heimia . 58 Leucadendron . 69 Erica . Erhiacea Eriobotrya . • 43 . 44 • 45 Helianthemum Helichrysum Hermannia . • 57 • 58 • 58 Leucocylus . Leycesteria . . Libonia . . . 69 . 69 Eriostemon . Escallonia . . 46 • 45 Hibbertia . Hibiscus • 58 - 58 Ligustrum . Limoniastrum . 70 70 Eucalyptus . Eucryphia . • 45 . 46 Hippophse . Hoherea • 58 • 58 Liquidambar Liriodendron 1 - 70 70 Euonymus . • 45 Hovenia • 59 Lomatia . . f 7O Eupatorium . 46 Hydrangea . • 59 Lonicera • . / w 71 Eurya . Exochorda . . 46 . 46 Hymenanthera Hypericum . • 59 • 59 Loropetalum Lotus . / • 71 • 71 TT trv 60 Luculia . 72 FABIANA • 47 xj^r-i-v • • • Illicium • vW . 60 Lupinus . 72 Fagus . • 47 Indigofera . . 60 Lycium • 73 Fallugia • 47 Inga . . 61 Feijoa . • 47 Ixora . . 61 MACKAYA . • 74 Fendlera . 48 Maclura • 74 Ficus . . 48 JACARANDA . . 61 Magnolia • 74 Fitzroya . 48 Jacobinia . 61 Malpighia . . 76 Fluggea . 49 Jamesia . 61 Mandevilla . . 76 Fontanesia . . 49 Jasminum . , 62 Manettia . 76 Forsythia . 48 Juniperus . 62 Margyricarpus • 77 Fothergilla . . 49 Justicia . 61 Melaleuca . • 77 Fraxinus • So Melia . • 77 Fremontia . • 49 KADSURA . - 63 Melianthus . • 77 Fuchsia • 50 Kalanchoe . • 63 Meliosma . . 78 MY SHRUBS Menispermum Menziesia . Mesembryanthemum Metrosideros Mimulus Mitraria Moltkia Montanoa . Muehlenbeckia . Mutisia Myoporum . Myrica Myrtus NANDINA . Neillia Nerium Neviusia Nierembergia Notospartium Nuttalia Nyssa . OCHNA . Olea . Olearia Ononis Opuntia Origanum . Osmanthus . Osteomeles . Osyris . Othonnopsis Oxycoccus . Ozothamnus PACHYSTIMA Pseonia Paliurus Panax . . , Parrotia Passiflora Penstemon . Periploca Pernettya AGE 78 Perowskia . PAGE . 90 Robinia PAGE . 105 78 Persoonia . . 90 Rosa . . 105 78 Petrophila . . 90 Rubus 106 79 Pettaria . 90 Ruscus . 107 79 Peumus . 90 Ruta . . 107 79 Philadelphia . 90 79 Philesia . 90 SALIX . . 108 79 Phillyrea • 91 Salsola . 108 80 Phlomis . 91 Salvia . . 108 80 Photinia . 91 Sambucus . . 108 80 Phylica 91 Santolina 109 80 Physianthus ' 91 Sarcococca . . 109 80 Picea . . 94 Satureia 109 Pieris . . 92 Schizandra . . 109 83 Pinus . . 92 Schizophragma . IIO 83 Piptanthus . . 92 Senecio IIO 83 Pistacia . 92 Serissa . IIO 83 Pittosporum • 93 Shepherdia . . IIO 83 Plagianthus . • 93 Skimmia . IIO 83 Plagiospermum . . 94 Smilax III 84 Platycarya . . 94 Solanum . Ill 84 Podocarpus . . 94 Sollya . . Ill Polygala . 94 Sophora . Ill 84 Polygonum . • 95 Sparmannia . 112 85 Pomaderris . • 95 Sphacele . 112 85 Protea • 95 Spirsea . 112 86 Prunus • 95 Stachyurus . . 112 86 Pterocarya . . 96 Staphylea . • "3 86 Punica • 95 Stauntonia . . 113 86 Purshia . 96 Stephanandra • "3 87 Pyrus . . 96 Stranvsesia . • U3 87 Pyxidanthera . 96 Stuartia • "3 87 Styrax . . 114 87 QUILLAJA . . 96 Sutherlandia . 114 87 Sycopsis . 114 RHABDOTHAMNUS • 97 Symphoricarpus . • "5 87 Rhaphiolepis • 97 Symplocos . . 114 88 Rhaphithamnus . • 97 Syringa • "5 88 Rhododendron . . 98 88 Rhodora . 103 TACSONIA . . 116 88 Rhodothamnus . . 103 Tamarix . 116 89 Rhodotypos . 104 Taxodium . . 116 89 Rhus . . 104 Taxus . . 117 89 Rhynchospermum . 104 Templetonia • H7 89 Ribes . . 105 Tetranthera • "7 132 MY SHRUBS Teucrium . PAGE . 117 VACCINIUM Thea . • U7 Veronica Thunbergia . . 117 Viburnum Thuya . 117 Vinca . Thymus . 118 Vitex . Triphasia . 118 Vitis . Trochodendron . . 118 WEIGELA ULEX . . 118 Westringia Ulmus . 118 Whipplea Ungnadia . . 118 Wistaria PAGE PAGE 118 XANTHOCERAS 122 119 Xanthorhiza • 123 119 Xylomelum . • 123 I2O Xylosteum . • "3 120 121 121 ZANTHOXYLUM . • 123 122 Zauschneria • 123 122 Zenobia • 123 122 Zizyphus . . 124 THE END HANDBOOKS OF PRACTICAL GARDENING UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF HARRY ROBERTS Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, is. 6d. net per vol. THE BOOK OF ASPARAGUS. With sections also on Celery, Salsify, Scorzonera, and Seakale. By CHARLES ILOTT, F.R.H.S., Lecturer on Horticulture to the Cornwall [County Council. Together with a chapter on their cooking and preparation for the table by the Editor. THE BOOK OF THE GREENHOUSE. With a special chapter on the little Town Greenhouse. By J. C. TALLACK, F.R.H.S., Head Gardener at Shipley Hall. THE BOOK OF THE GRAPE. By H. W. WARD, F.R.H.S., for 25 years Head Gardener at Longford Castle, author of My Gardener. THE BOOK OF OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS. 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