Read We Made a Garden for Free Online

take too long to flower. Now I have two, and both flowered about two years after I planted them. Another climber I always hankered for was a bignonia, and in this case Walter was quite right not to indulge me. I put one in myself, it grew so robustly that I could not curb it, I was always hacking at it to enable me to see out of my bedroom windows, but it never flowered, so it had to go. But it has not gone yet, it keeps reappearing quite unabashed, and I keep digging it out. I put in a Chimonanthus fragrans in place of the bignonia and it is more rewarding. It flowered—just—after about two years, and every year I get a few more of its heady-perfumed flowers. No garden is complete without this wonderful winter shrub, planted as near the house as possible so that one can enjoy its perfume without venturing far into the cold. Chimonanthus Iragrans lutea is another exciting shrub. The blossom is all yellow, in a delicate shade, and to see its waxy flowers with the wintry sun shining through them makes one wonder if they are real. I believe this form is more difficult to propagate than the more usual variety, so it is rather expensive, but what a lovely way to be extravagant.
    Another newcomer to the front of the house is a stauntonia. I hope it will prosper in this sheltered spot and I look forward to its scented green flowers. On the north wall facing the house I have put a Garrya elliptica , with its neat evergreen leaves and graceful swaying tassels of palest green arriving most happily in the winter. It is worth taking a magnifying glass to study the exquisite workmanship of these super catkins.
    Against the pink brick wall at the end of the malthouse there is another winter-flowering shrub, Lonicera Iragrantissima. The white waxy flowers of this honeysuckle are wonderfully fragrant, but for picking are rather swamped by the luxuriant green of the foliage. I find if I pick them they look far more attractive if the leaves are taken off the flowering stems, using some sprays of leaves that have no flowers, with them.
    A plant I like and have in various parts of the garden is Thygelius capensis. This too is evergreen, with dark glossy leaves. It is often used as a bush and I don’t think it makes a very satisfactory one as it grows unevenly and needs constant checking. But plant it against a sheltered wall and it will reach five or six feet. Its large sprays of tubular flowers, brick red in colour, are generously given and come in the late summer and autumn when there is too much lavender and yellow in the garden. If happy this plant is inclined to encroach on less assertive plants, and has to be curbed. Less invasive is its more refined brother Thygelius aequalis. It does not grow so quickly and its flowers are longer and paler, and delicately touched with green. Eucalyptus Gunnii is growing well against the south wall of the cowhouse. This is the hardiest of all the eucalyptus family and has come through several hard winters very well. It needs tying back firmly, as I discovered when to my horror a gale snapped off the top. In brilliant sunshine the fluttering leaves make delicate shadow effects on the wall. Its grey green foilage is delightful for decoration and lasts a very long time in water. When flowers are scarce early in the year I use the new leaf tips of clear pink instead of flowers in the house.

 
    6. Hedges
    After clothing the walls, Walter turned his attention to hedges. We had our high wall on one side and we wanted something equally high and impenetrable on the other side and along a low wall beyond the house on the south side. Our thoughts turned to Cupressus macrocarpa. We were warned that it had a limited life, in fact, just when we were considering our hedge the local doctor showed us a magnificent hedge he had planted at the back of his tennis court the year his son was born. That year his son was thirteen and the hedge was beginning to die. Of course we did not heed and we planted mac-rocarpa along