Where the garden has been planted with mixed trees—such as yew, holly, boxwood and horn-beam, the clipping should all be done in the autumn so as to give the garden a tidy and uniform appearance. Autumn is not generally considered the right season of the year for holly clipping, but if there are some, more or less, planted among the yews in the Topiary garden, it is necessary that they should be clipped at the same time as the other subjects, for the sake of appearance. But if hollies are planted by themselves in some isolated part of the garden, whether in hedges or bushes, the work of clipping them should be carried out towards the latter end of May or beginning of June; then hard clipping every other year will suffice for them. At Levens we clip the holly hedges which are not actually in the Topiary garden hard back to the old wood every alternate year, and other years we merely go over them with a pair of shears and cut away the long shoots. I am rather of the opinion that hard clipping of hollies every year is more injurious than beneficial to the trees. It is evident to anyone who has seen an old Dutch or Topiary garden, that, in the formation and laying out of the grounds, boxwood has always been considered one of the principal features, and in most of them it remains so to this day. Where box succeeds well and remains in perfect health, no care or attention should be spared to keep it so, for there is no edging that can be used in the garden to be compared with it for beauty. It has, however, some drawbacks, the principal one of which is the excellent accommodation it affords to snails and other garden pests; but its advantages more than counterbalance its defects. Like the hollies, every other year is sufficient for clipping it, and there is no more suitable month for the work than June. There should be no clipping done to boxwood until all danger of frost is gone, as it is extremely dangerous to clip before that period has passed. There is nothing more injurious to newly clipped boxwood than sharp frosts. I have seen boxwood that was over a hundred years old clipped in April, with the result that a few sharp frosty nights killed the whole of it. [Illustration: LEVENS GARDENS GENERAL VIEW ] Excepting during the clipping season, there is very little work to be done to the trees in a Topiary garden, unless it is top-dressing them with some sort of manure, or keeping a look-out for branches that have become loose through wind or some other cause. If this occurs, the branches should be immediately tied back into their places before any injury takes place to the tree.