TREE OR CREEPER ?
It would be worth the while of many gardeners to grow the common laburnum, which is flowering this year in unusual profusion, as a wall creeper, like a wistaria. It runs up a wall very readily, and the side branches are easily trained. I have one on a south wall which had trusses of flower five and six inches longer than any of the tree laburnums, though they flourish within a few yards. It flowered, too, a good fortnight earlier. Even the speed of growth has been almost com- parable with a wistaria. This year more than ever I have been struck by the strange preference of the most popular of all wall-climbers for the north. If you plant Ampelopsis veitchii on a north wall it runs straight up : its habit is vertical. If you plant it on either an east or west wall—such is my expe- rience—it drifts at once northwards and may grow almost horizontal. There are to be found, of course, many exceptional shoots ; but it seems to me that this general tendency is quite beyond dispute. Has anyone a theory of the cause ? Perhaps it is the desire of the tender top of the shoot for darkness. One plant drifted strongly north till it reached the roof, when the top shoot grew southwards under the eaves. Ivy, though it enjoys the sun, is a light-hater as regards the growing tip.
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