garlands and hanging ropes of
bloom shows its truest and best uses much better than when it is trained
straight along the joints of walls or tied in more stiffly and closely.
Even if there are only a few stiff bushes such as Gorse or low Thorns to
support and guide it, it gladly covers them just as does the Traveller's
Joy (_Clematis Vitalba_) of our chalkland hedges. This climber, though a
native plant and very common in calcareous soils, is worthy of any
garden. _C. V. rosea_ is a very fine variety. _Clematis Flammula_ is
another of the family that should be more often treated in a free way,
and grown partly trained through the branches of a Yew or an Ilex. The
less-known _Clematis orientalis_, with yellow flowers and feathery
seeds, and the fine October-blooming _C. paniculata_, make up five
members of one family, apart from the large-flowered Clematises, that
all lend themselves willingly to this class of pictorial treatment.

[Illustration: _CLEMATIS MONTANA OVER ROUGH WALL._]

One of the most important of our climbing shrubs, the _Wistaria_, makes
grand growth in all the south of England. This also can be used to
excellent effect trained into some rather thinly-furnished tree such as
an old Acacia. Its grey snake-like stems and masses of bloom high up in
the supporting tree are shown to excellent effect. This is also a fine
plant for a pergola. A few plants growing free and rambling full length
would, after the first few years, when they are getting old, cover a
pergola from end to end. The piers or posts could also be covered with
the same, for though the nature of the plant is to ramble, yet if kept
to one stem and closely pruned it readily adapts itself to pillar form,
and bears a wonderful quantity of bloom.

[Illustration: _CLEMATIS MONTANA OVER ARCHWAY._]

Among the Grape Vines there is a great variety of ways of use other than
the stiff wall training they generally receive. If they are wanted for
fruit they must be pruned, but most outdoor Vines are grown for the
beauty of their foliage. Here is another first-class pergola plant,
making dense leafy shade, and growing in a way that is delightfully
pictorial. Nothing looks better rambling over old buildings. Now that so
many once prosperous farms are farms no longer, and that their
dwelling-houses are being converted to the use of another class of
occupier, the rough out-buildings, turned into stabling, and adapted for
garden sheds, often abut upon the ne