Ornamental Trees for City and Suburban Planting 



145 



or as a tree which the eye rests upon, 

 expecting all but perfect individuality. 



THE BLACK ITALIAN I'OPLAR. 



Another capital tree for screens is the 

 Black Italian Poplar (Populus monilifera). 

 If any one wanted rapidity of growth without 

 being particular as to handsomeness of habit, 

 then we would say plant the Black Italian 

 Poplar. It is quite a city tree, will grow in 

 spite of the want of light and the want of 

 pure, clear, bracing atmosphere. As the 

 Aucuba among shrubs or evergreens, so the 

 Poplar among trees, it seems to live and 

 thrive like the little urchins, in the lowest, 

 worst ventilated parts of London, among the 

 " dirt" that accumulates, throwing up its tall 

 gaunt branches to the amazement of those 

 who watch its progress. Fortunately, how- 

 ever, for the thriving citizens of London, the 

 suburbs are quite as healthful and as cheery 

 like — in some cases far more so than many 

 country villas. Far out of the reach of towns 

 the trees grow with a will, and make the 

 residences more like those fairy-land scenes 

 which poets and novelists paint, and which 

 could scarcely be credited in their reality by 

 those who look upon them for the first time 

 as glimpses of suburban London. 



THE KIND OF PLANTING REQUISITE. 



One particular grievance, as offending the 

 eye of taste, we have to complain of. It is 

 not, in our opinion, in good taste to have a 

 screen, covering we shall say a strip of 20 

 yards, planted with different descriptions of 

 trees. It is, indeed, quite as intolerable a 

 feature as having a coat or a pair of un- 

 mentionables made of different colours of 

 doth. Here a Lombardy Poplar, there a 

 Lime, next a Cytisus Laburnum, next an 

 Oriental Plane, next a Black Italian Poplar, 

 and last an Occidental Plane. It looks bad 

 even upon paper, and it appears a great deal 

 worse in reality. We have no sympathy with 

 those who wish this kind of variety in limited 

 places. One species of tree for a belting or 

 strip is all that ever should be aimed at. 

 Even supposing the frontage were more 

 considerable, it is in bad taste. Some turn 



VOL. IX. 



round upon us, and say, will you decry and 

 denounce straight lines of Pelargoniums, ri- 

 diculing them as aline of miniature red coats, 

 and why wish no variety in a tree margin ? 

 The two cases are totally different. You are 

 confined to a narrow margin. You want a 

 screen, and you demand something like good 

 effect. The space is too limited, both heaven- 

 wards and earthwards, to go in for variety- 

 effect ; and consequently the best thing to do 

 is to shew that the necessity ot the case 

 demands the formality wrought out. You 

 cannot conceal your object on the one hand, 

 neither have you scope to work upon to shew 

 up the forms and features of trees as you 

 would have to shew up the forms and fea- 

 tures of fugacious herbaceous plant life. 



HOW AVENUES SHOULD BE PLANTED, 



We even go a step farther and aver that for 

 avenue planting, in towns particularly, that 

 one description of tree, or as near as possible 

 one general habit of tree, should be selected. 

 It would be perfectly incongruous to plant a 

 Lombardy Poplar alternately with an Occi- 

 dental Plane. The one is strictly of conical 

 habit, the other of columnar habit. It would 

 be like placing a walking-stick in the centre 

 piece of a chain border alternately with 

 selected plants of the palmate Maple (Acer 

 palmatum). Nor should the Horse Chestnut 

 (^sculus Hippocastanum) rank alongside 

 of the Spanish Chestnut (Castanea vesca). 

 They are distinct types of trees, looking 

 beautiful as individuals, or, in some cases, as 

 avenue plants, but not fit associates for 

 avenue planting. Let a selection be made of 

 the particular kind of tree best suited to the 

 locality, and stand by it. Let not the hand of 

 time affect, as it is bound to affect, the uniform 

 growth of the plants. If they be of many 

 kinds and colours like Joseph's coat, the 

 seasons will not affect them simultaneously, 

 neither will the soil. Cold and heat, rain 

 and drought do not affect species in the 

 same way. It is desirable to have avenues 

 of trees as uniform in style as practicable; and 

 if it be so, generally speaking, it is so more 

 emphatically in the decoration of any avenues 

 there may be in town and suburbs. 



