148 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



could have only one or shrubs, I should certainly choose only those 

 with the most attractive flowers. But who is there who cannot have 

 an abundance of shrubs if he will? Plant many instead of few shrubs 

 then, and choose them for the variety of their foliage effects as well 

 as for their flowers. Not long ago a prominent professional man of 

 Lincoln was bemoaning the fact that we could not have in the West 

 the foliage effects, the luxuriant masses of light and shade seen in the 

 parks and home grounds in the East. But we can have them if we 

 want them. It is merely a matter of choosing the kinds of shrubs 

 adapted to our conditions, of planting lots of them, of arranging them 

 properly and of tending them with some care. So long as we are 

 satisfied with one Van Houtii spirea, one snowball, one Persian lilac 

 and one mock orange, better shrubs than which there are none for 

 our state, and so long as we are cotnent to set these in little holes in 

 the sod in the middle of the front yard, and so long as we let them 

 take care of themselves, we should not expect too much either in flower 

 or foliage effects. 



WHAT SHALL WE PLANT? 



First plant the hardy things, the things that can't help growing. 

 Don't be afraid of the wild things. You do not think you would like 

 sumac in front of the house? You wouldn't plant the elderberry by 

 the front walk? You think wild currant and wild gooseberry and buffalo 

 berry are too scraggy for the lawn? You think choke cherry and coral 

 berry (buck brush) and the rest of the wild things would sprout up 

 and take the whole front yard? Well, maybe they v/ould. I would 

 not plant them myself — not in the front yard. I wouldn't plant any- 

 thing there, in fact, but grass. As a matter of fact, I have all of these 

 things and more like them in my own yard and they have not spoiled 

 it either. They make the best sort of screen for the chicken yard and 

 they hide the vegetable garden and protect it from the wind. They 

 do well under the big apple tree near the back end of the house. How 

 much better the spireas, mock oranges, hydrangeas and hardy roses, to 

 say nothing of the phloxes and peonies and columbines and larkspurs 

 and iris and Shasta daisies — how much better and brighter all these 

 things look in front of this vigorous, hardy background of wild things 

 than they would standing out singly in the front yard and wishing 

 that the owner of the place would keep the sod away from them so 

 that they could grow. 



I need not give a list of the things to plant. Look up the list recom- 

 mended by our society. That is what it is for. Get the shrubs from 

 home nurseries or from your neighbors. If you cannot afford to buy 

 many of a kind, get a few and increase them by layers, by bending 

 the limbs down and covering them part way with earth. If they do not 

 root well, break them a little below ground or notch them or girdle 

 them. They can't help rooting then. You can grow most of the hardy 

 shrubs from cuttings, but you have to watch cuttings closer. Get lots 



