THE ORNAMENTAL EVERGREENS 



917 



and will '^vnw anywhere Init in a swamp. A third siher- 

 blue evergreen is the Irish juniper, looking something 

 like a common red cedar in form but its foliage is feath- 

 er}' light blue-green, thinner than cedar and growing up 

 almost perpendicularly from the trunk. It makes a tall, 

 narrow, graceful tree, and a specimen 4 feet high and 

 a foot wide will cost $1.50. Whenever you want a strik- 

 ing vertical nute in the shrubbery that is your plant. 

 Good for a jutting out corner location where- it will stand 

 out boldly to be admired of all the world. 



An exceedingly ornamental but costly shrub is the 

 Biota Orientalis. It looks like a big golden-yeUow egg 

 set on end, and its leaf fronds all stick out edgewise like 

 the Iea\es of a book. It is very dense and bushy, and a 

 specimen 3 feet high would be worth four or li\e dollars, 

 so the only way to rejoice in Biotas is to get them little 



tree is symmetrical and distinctive in shape and makes 

 an ornamental feature at some 'vantage point in front of 

 o group of firs and hemlock. The pitch pine has coarse 

 sap-green needles, three in a sheath, and thick bushy 

 foliage, always a pleasing note of color in any shrubbery. 

 Few nurserymen keep it, the substitute usually offered 

 being the European Scotch pine. Both it and the white 

 require at least ~> feet of room from their trunks to the 

 nearest neighbor, and specimens 4 feet high and spreading 

 '.' feet in diameter cost $1 to $l..j() each. 



Among the spruces the best filler at the price is the 

 Norway spruce, a large, handsome, dark green tree, 4 

 to 3 foot specimens costing 75 cents each. A good tree 

 to [jut in an empty corner, to round out and soften the 

 general contour of your house or hedge line. It ought 

 to be planted not less than 8 feet from each face of the 



ri.A.\ri.\(. I-iiK .\ b.M.Al^L ^LIIL'UUAX IIU.Mli 



Left to riglit — Hemlock, retinospora plumosa. Irish juniper, I\oster's blue spruce. Irish juniper, hemlock, thread branched retinospora pluniosa and 



Norway spruce 



and let time do the rest. A little one IG inches high and 

 8 inches in diameter costs 75 cents, but, at that, gives you 

 a striking yellow note in your mass of evergreens. 



The basis of all evergreen planting should, however, 

 be solid green masses of color in our own native trees 

 such as the hemli}ck (almost as beautiful as exotic R. 

 pluiiiosa), the balsam fir, and our white cedar, the 

 American arborvitae. These are all comparatively cheap, 

 running frum 75 cents to $2 in 24-inch to 4-foot speci- 

 mens. The American arborvitae, beng long and tall, 

 costs less in proportion to height, a 6-foot tree costing 

 $1.25; while the hemlock which is feathery and bushy, 

 is expensive in large sizes but it well repays the cost 

 as it is undoubtedly the most beautiful of our eastern 

 evergreens. With these will be wanted pines and spruces 

 to give variety in shape and foliage, the white and pitch 

 pines being the best American species, while the white 

 and Norway spruces fill the bill for standard types of 

 the shrubbery spruce. The wdiite pine has live needles 

 to the sheath, giving a feathery dark green foliage. The 



building in corners, and one should be careful about 

 planting it in front of a window when a fine view is had, 

 for the Norway spruce grows so rapidly that in a few 

 years it would blot out your outlook. The white 

 spruce, native of Canada, is smaller and if possible more 

 SNinmetrical in shape. With its light green silvery 

 foliage it is a most ornamental tree ; o-foot specimens cost 

 $1. The balsam fir, belonging to the genus Abies, the 

 pine family, has the same general type of growth, but 

 flat needles, dark green above and silver white under- 

 neath. Its trunk is light gray, and the characteristic 

 odor of balsam which continually exhales from the tree 

 makes it a favorite planter. 



In general your large inexpensive American ever- 

 greens should form the background of your masses of 

 greens, with the smaller exotics in the foreground. In 

 laying out each of the accompanying planting diagrams 

 I had the pleasure of helping a neighbor whose house 

 had just been finished in selecting and planting a suitable 

 shrubbery for this place. The first is of a typical sub- 



