40 



IRISH GARDENING. 



"IRISH GARDENING." 



an illustrated monthly. 

 Offices-53 Upper Sackville Street. Dublin. 



Publishing Date. — First da> o( each momh. 



Subscription. - 3 per annum, post tree. 



Hditorial.— All Editorial CommilnicationB, cot >, ^n.l photographs 

 shoul.i be a.l.lressed to "The Editor." 



Business Communications.— All letters regarding Subscriptions, 

 Advertii,enients. ana o:her business tnatters irtnst be addressed to 

 " The Manaeer." 



Lawson's Cypress. 



By .A. E. MOERAN, Portumna. 



FIFTY-FOUR years ago Lawson's cypress 

 was unknown in Europe, but to-day it 

 outbids in popular favour every other 

 tree for ornamental planting, and in many ways 

 it certainly deserves the '" vogue " it has 

 enjoyed. It has proved itself perfectly hardy 

 in our climate, and indeed seems to prefer it to 

 that of its far-off home on the Pacific slope. A 

 well-grown specimen, some twenty or thirty 

 years old, of this tree is the very type and 

 embodiment of luxurious, overflowing health 

 and feathery verdure. Such specimens we have 

 in thousands all over Ireland, not onl)- in the 

 great parks, but in the suburbs of our towns, 

 before the farmer's hall-door, in our country 

 churchyards, and even bursting out of the little 

 lo X 5 garden of the wayside cottage, where it 

 is treated with much undue reverence under the 

 borrowed name of "palm." 



Being a new tree to us, many people only 

 know it as a convenient green sort of shrubbv 

 thing that does to plant close to an avenue or be- 

 tween two flower beds. As a matter of fact Law- 

 son's cypress is the largest cypress in the world, 

 and reaches a height of 200 feet and a girth of 

 40 feet, so wherever possible it should be given 

 at least 30 feet elbow room. It will take a long 

 time to make 200 feet in height, but it is 

 astonishing how soon it begins to overgrow the 

 aforesaid avenue or flower bed that seemed so 

 far away when it was planted, and it is a 

 thousand pities to see a tree maimed by pruning 

 just when it is beginning to develop its real 

 beauty. 



Lawson's cypress is a fast-growing tree, and 

 there are very few soils that do not suit it. It 

 will grow on poor mountain land, and on bog, 

 so ordinary garden soil is luxury to it. By the 

 way, some people kill their young trees as fast 

 as they get them (and then blame the nurserv- 



man) by putting in manure when planting 

 them. On very poor soils a mulch overhead 

 after the hole is filled in is useful, but never, 

 never near the roots. of the young tree. 



Very few trees care for wind, and this par- 

 ticular tree is no exception. Harsh, continuous 

 blowing it abhors, and to be, and look, happy it 

 must have shelter from, at least, the prevailing 

 wind. Unlike some accommodating animals 

 that, it the elements are rude, grow an extra 

 warm coat to shield themselves, the poor 

 Lawson proceeds to shed what clothes she has, 

 and daily becomes more threadbare and ragged 

 and dejected until she would never be recognisd 

 as full sister to that graceful lady round the 

 sheltering corner, with her thousand dainty 

 green frills and her widespread skirts, for all 

 the world like the flounced furbelows of our 

 crinolined grandmothers. 



Of the varieties of Lawson's cypress there are 

 no end. It is from the States that we get those 

 wonderful mechanical inventions such as the 

 combination piece of furniture which, on having 

 its button pressed, develops itself in turn into 

 everything to make home happy, from a mouse- 

 trap to a motor bicycle. From the States, too, 

 comes Lawson's cypress, and its transfigurations 

 are almost as wondrous, though about them 

 there is positively no delusion. From parent 

 trees of the common type hundreds of " sports " 

 have been produced and perpetuated, so that it 

 is really no exaggeration to say that we could 

 plant a whole park with this one species and 

 have no two trees alike in shape or colour. 



There is " Erecta " {Ciiprcsst/s La-wsoniana 

 erecta) with all the branches close together and 

 pointing upwards like a sweeping-brush. It has 

 one unpardonable fault — the older it grows 

 the more it shows its ugly feet and ankles, and 

 whatever comes above ankles. For this impro- 

 priety, which nothing can cure, I would, if I 

 planted it at all, make Erecta stand behind a 

 good, thick clump of laurels or rhododendrons. 

 A very handsome variety is " Stricta " or 

 " Frazeri," growing in a slender, dense column, 

 with beautiful blue-green foliage, and feathered 

 down to the very grass. 



Then there is Compacta and Nana, both low, 

 compact shrubs used for terrace-planting, and 

 to be had in green, light or dark, and in silver 

 and gold. Of course, there is a Pendulo too, 

 and between these there are scores of inter- 

 mediate forms and colours, most of them named. 



