THE 



GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



A\D 



HORTICULTURIST. 



DEVOTED TO HORTICULTURE, ARBORICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 



Edited by THOMAS MEEHA.N. 



Vol. XXIY. 



MARCH, 1882. 



Number 279. 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



There is no doubt the fashion now common of 

 clipping evergreens till they look like the little 

 mossy toys children play with, is an abomination 

 not to be tolerated in tasteful grouncJs. But it is 

 not wise to abhor all trimmed trees. It is the 

 fate of all good reforms to be run to extremes. 

 The taste for the natural in gardening is one of 

 these good reforms exaggerated. We do indeed 

 often meet with wild spots that are charming. A 

 huge pile of rocks, with ferns and mosses spring 

 ing from any nook or cranmy that will catch a 

 little soil, shaded by trees, and these again 

 draped and festooned by hanging vines ; or it may 

 be clump of wild bushe-' on mossy banks, along- 

 side of which gurgling streams or babbling brooks 

 pursue their everlasting way— all these antl other 

 lovely snatches of nature's art in landscape 

 adornment, are always to be admired— but gar 

 den art is another matter. It is not only that 

 we wish to get perfect specimens of natural 

 beauty; we wish furllier to show that we can 

 make nature do more than she would ; we love 

 to make her bend to our whims and fancies, and 

 then garden art will ever be more than mere 

 nature can give us. There is beauty in a wild 

 meadow with its buttercups and daisies, and the 

 tall grass bending before the breeze like the 



ocean waves; but no less beautifnl is the closely 

 shaven lawn. The hedge, beautifnl as the wild, 

 wayward plant might have been in some lonely 

 and neglected spot, is no less beautifnl under the 

 artistic shears of the hedge trimmer. In like 

 manner there should be no objection to trimmed 

 trees, when there is evidently an ideal of beauty 

 underlying the gardener's art. Mere resem- 

 blances to beasts or buildings without any other 

 meaning are usually failures. Trees clipped into 

 fancies, without any ideal beyond an effort at 

 resemblance, caused the reaction against all 

 clipping. But what is there against an arbor 

 formed by the drawing together of the tops of 

 half a dozen Linden or O^age Orange trees, and 

 then to have windows or doors cut as they may 

 be desired through the leafy mass? Why may 

 we not have clipped archways over gates, clipped 

 avenues, clipped ^^creciis, and even clipped trees 

 when they are trained to shapes in keeping with 

 some of the surroundings? There seems no 

 more reasonable objection to clipping trees and 

 shrul)S judiciously as a genuine part of good 

 garden taste, than to clipping our hair, and it 

 is to l)e hoped that there will be more of it seen 

 in good garden work than there has been. All 

 this is suggested by the fact that spring is the 

 best time for trimming evergreen hedges and 

 other plants that it is at all desirable to trim. 

 Trimming should be left till all danger of cold 



