Slimmer Meeting. 87 



ORNAMENTAL PLANTING. 

 Best Twelve Shrubs for Succession of Bloom. 



(By O. A. Chandler, Kansas Ciiy, Mo.) 



Ornamental planting may have several objects. First, the pleasure 

 one may derive from working with nature ; second, making a given piece 

 of ground appear beautiful and attractive to others, thereby increasing 

 its desirability and value. 



Frank Scott says the highest object is the appreciation of and desire 

 to create with nature charming effects of sunlight and shadow or lovely 

 examples in miniature of what we call landscapes. 



In ornamental planting there should be more thought than the mere 

 gathering together of material and planting where it will grow, although 

 these are both important. One must think of whether the plants will coin- 

 cide with the surrounding architecture and conditions. The plants them- 

 selves should be grouped so as to bring out some desired effect or 

 end. 



The texture of the foliage, the color of the flowers, the season of 

 bloom, and the rapidity of growth all must be considered. 



All of a homesite, for example, must not be filled with plants, but 

 let there be broad acres of green grass bordered by masses of shrubbery 

 so arranged as to produce long vistas or views, giving an unobstructed 

 vision of beautiful or picturesque points in the distance. The habit of 

 scattering plants all over a yard or of planting in rows in several given 

 directions is not ornamental planting. While the plants, when looked 

 at in detail, may be beautiful and the highest works of nature, yet such 

 planting gives the idea of a wilderness, and as a whole is unsightly and 

 spoils the individual beauty of the plants instead of bringing it out. 



The bordering lines of a place and the inside curves of a walk or 

 drive usually require groups of shrubbery, also the corner of a building 

 needs some mass of green to tie the building to the ground, or, in other 

 words, break the line between the building and the ground. 



Unsightly objects should be completely covered by a screen of trees 

 and shrubbery. Barnes, outbuildings and fences usually do not have 

 much architectural beauty and can easily be hid from view by proper 

 planting. 



There is an endless amount of material with which one may work. 

 First of all, the foundation of all landscape work are the trees; these, 

 together with the shrubs, form the framework of a place. . 



