In the Garden One of the more pleasing spectacles in
the garden at the moment is a hedge composed of those two cousins, Berberis Darwinii and B. Steno- phylla. Both make a good, useful and attractive hedge. The flowers of B. Darwinii are of a deeper and, to most eyes, a more pleasing colour, but B. Stenophylla excels in grace of form. I have never seen it as a hedge, but its close habit suggests that B. Henrii would make even better a hedge than Darwinii. I tried B. Dictyophyllum, but its growth was too long and lusty. What- a vast number of hedge-plants there are ; and how very few are used! It is averred in a standard book on shrubs that the number amounts to a cool hundred at least. A surprising lack of imagination is suggested by the rarity of hedges, that is of garden hedges, consisting of a mixture of bushes. The best 'hedge I ever grew contained ten species ; and they most agreeably consented to a mutual relation when firmly pruned.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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