A shrub for wall use that is much neglected though of the highest beauty is _Abutilon vitifolium_. In our northern and midland counties it may not be hardy, but it does well anywhere south of London. The flowers, each two and a half inches across, are borne in large, loose clusters, their tender lavender colour harmonising perfectly with the greyish, downy foliage.
There is no lovelier or purer blue than that of the newly opened _Ipomœa rubro-cœrulea_, popularly known as Heavenly Blue and well deserving the name. It must be raised in heat early in the year and be put out in June against a warm wall. Here it is in a narrow border at the foot of a wall facing south-west, where, by the aid of a few short pea-sticks, it climbs into the lower branches of a Vine. The Vine is one of the Chasselas kind, with leaves of a rather pale green, almost yellowish green, colour that make the best possible foil to the pure blue of the Ipomea. To my eye it is the most enjoyable colour-feast of the year. _Solanum crispum_, with purple flowers in goodly bunches, is one of the best of wall shrubs.
Another of the tender plants that is beautiful for walls and for free rambling over other wall-growths is _Solanum jasminoides_. Its white clusters come into bloom in middle summer and persist till latest autumn. In two gardens near me it is of singular beauty; in the one case on the sunny wall of a sheltered court where it covers a considerable space, in the other against a high south retaining-wall where, from the terrace above, the flowers are seen against the misty woodland of the middle distance and the pure grey-blue of the faraway hills. Turning round on the very same spot there is the remarkable growth of the Sweet Verbena that owes its luxuriance to its roots and main shoots being under shelter. There must be unending opportunities, where there are verandahs, of having just such bowers of sweetness to brush against in passing and to waft scented air to the windows of the rooms above.
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON A WOODEN FENCE._]
These notes can only touch upon the more careful use of a few of the many climbing plants and trailing shrubs. One of the many garden possessions that I ardently desire and can never have is a bit of rocky hillside; a place partly of sheer scarp and partly of tumbled and outcropping rock-mass, for the best use of these plants. There would be the place for the yellow winter Jasmine, for the Honeysuckles both bushy and rambling, for the trailing Clematises lately described, and for the native _C. Vitalba_, beautiful both in flower and fruit; for shrubs like _Forsythia suspensa_ and _Desmodium penduliflorum_ that like to root high and then throw down cascades of bloom, and for the wichuraiana Roses, also for Gourds and wild Vines. There should be a good quarter of a mile of it so that one might plant at perfect ease, one thing at a time or one or two in combination, in just such sized and shaped groups as would make the most delightful pictures, and in just the association that would show the best assortment.