In the Garden A rather new, but already very pleasant,
garden has just received a charming decoration. A concrete birdlpond- has been inserted in a corner of the lawn, and at one end of its seductive pattern—it is narrow with two cup-like ends—has been planted a young weeping willow, a Vitellina Pendula, which to my eyes is the most beautiful of all the weepers. Its yellow shoots • shine very pleasantly in the winter sun, and it comes into tiny leaf, like Browning's elm bole, at an absurdly early date in the spring. The speed of its growth is fantastic and any cutting takes whether large or small. Birds delight in it as a perch. The one mistake made in this pond is that it deepens too quickly. Birds like the very shallowest water, and I have found it best so to design the floor of such ponds that it rises here and there into miniature islands. It is a mistake to suppose that willows (or the balsamic poplar, a lovely garden tree) need water. They enjoy it, of course, but will grow well and fast out of reach of any brook or pond. At the same time it is surprising, if you plant one for fitness' sake by a concreted pond, how it will contrive to send pink rootlets overground to find the neat water. The growth is so free that the trees many be pruned into symmetry as severely as you will.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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