In the Brighton gardens fronting the sea, the plants mentioned and various others thrive nearly as well as in the back streets, provided there is a dwarf wall to protect them from the direct influence of the sea breeze and spray. These gardens, however, are very inferiorly kept to those on the London Road; partly because they belong to wealthy families who only reside at Brighton a part of the winter, and hence their gardens during spring and summer are neglected, and partly because they belong to lodging-houses, the keepers of which do not in general trouble themselves with flowers. The last winter was more than usually severe on the tamarisk, which forms the principal shrub in all the gardens and squares exposed to the sea, and hence these shrubs are for the most part cut in and just beginning to shoot. There are very few plants of the sea buckthorn about Brighton, but there are a few; and where the tamarisk has been cut to pieces the buckthorn has not been in the slightest degree injured. At Gosford, in East Lothian, the sea buckthorn has proved the hardiest of all marine trees or shrubs. The evergreen oak has not been injured at a very short distance from the sea in the back streets; and the Dutch, Scotch, and Chichester elms appear to thrive just as well as the common sycamore. In short, wherever there is a little shelter from the direct influence of the sea breeze, every kind of tree and shrub appears to thrive quite well; though, from the soil being poor, thin, and on chalk, and the great want of rain in the growing season, their growth is very slow, and they never can attain a large size, as may be proved from the trees on similar soils in the interior of the country. The Leycesteria formosa is a shrub which might be advantageously introduced into the sea-side gardens, not only, as our correspondent N. M. T. has shown (G. M. for 1841, p. 9.), because it stands the sea breeze, but because it makes the greatest show late in autumn, when Brighton is fullest of company. The Lycium barbarum, the common ivy and the five-leaved ivy, and climbing roses, thrive remarkably well when trained against the houses in the back streets, as would most other ligneous creepers, among which we would particularly recommend Clematis montana (p. 329.) and other species, Wistaria sinensis, and the common white jasmine.
