The Cistuses delight in a groundwork of Heath; the wild Calluna looks as well as any, but if cultivated kinds are used they should be in good quantities of one sort at a time, and never as hard edgings, but as free carpeting masses.
For the edges of other kinds of woodland the free Roses are always beautiful; where a Holly comes to the front, a Rose such as Dundee Rambler or the Garland will grow up it, supported by its outer branches in the most delightful way. The wild Clematis is in place here too, also the shade-loving plants already named. In deciduous woodland there is probably some undergrowth of Hazel, or of Bramble and wild Honeysuckle. White Foxgloves should be planted at the edge and a little way back, Daffodils for the time when the leaves are not yet there, and Lily of the Valley, whose charming bloom and brilliant foliage come with the young leaves of May.
Where the wood comes nearest the house with only lawn between, it is well to have a grouping of hardy Ferns and Lilies; where it is giving place to garden ground and there is a shrubby background, the smaller Polygonums, such as P. compactum, are in place.
FERNS AND LILIES AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE NEXT THE WOOD.
GYPSOPHILA AND MEGASEA AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE.
The spaces more or less wide between large shrubs and turf are full of opportunities for ingenious treatment; they are just the places most often neglected, or at any rate not well enough considered. I have always taken delight in working out satisfactory ways of treating them. It seems desirable to have, next the grass, some foliage of rather distinct and important size or form. For this use the Megaseas are invaluable; the one most generally useful being the large variety of M. cordifolia. Funkias are also beautiful, but as their leaves come late and go with the first frosts or even earlier, whereas the Megaseas persist the whole year round, the latter are the most generally desirable. These shrub-edge spaces occur for the most part in bays, giving an inducement to invent a separate treatment for each bay.
The two illustrations with the front planting of Funkia Sieboldi are two adjoining bays; one showing the charming shrubby Aster Olearia Gunni in the middle of June, the other some groups of Lilium longiflorum, planted in November of the year before, and in bloom in early August.
Sometimes a single plant of Gypsophila paniculata will fill the whole of one of the recesses or bays between the larger shrubs; Hydrangea paniculata is another good filling plant, and the hardy Fuchsias; both of these, though really woody shrubs, being cut down every winter and treated as herbaceous plants.