CHAPTER XXIX. 



EVERGREEN TREES AND SHRUBS. 



" Oh the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree, 

 They flourish at home in my own country." — Old Ballad. 



The above lines might be worth thinking of by those bent on 

 planting evergreens for any of these uses, as if it were borne in 

 mind that the evergreens we plant have to face winters in an Oak 

 and Ash land, we should have less of the frightful waste owing to 

 the planting of rampant but not hardy evergreens which perish in 

 numbers after hard winters. 



There are no background hues prettier than afforded by some 

 evergreens like the Yew, Box, and Ilex ; but their use requires 

 care ; we may have too many of them, and they should not take 

 the place of flowering shrubs and flowers of many kinds. It 

 is outside the flower garden that evergreens are most useful gene- 

 rally, and in a cold country like ours, especially on the eastern 

 coasts and in wind-swept districts. Holly banks and hedges of other 

 hardy evergreens are often a necessity. In our country we have the 

 privilege of growing more evergreen shrubs and trees than continental 

 countries, species resisting winter here which have not the slightest 

 chance of doing so in Central Europe. 



Noble Native Evergreens. — Into our brown and frozen 

 northern woods come a few adventurers from southern lands that do 

 not lose their green in winter, but take then a deeper verdure — Ivy, 

 Holly, and Yew enduring all but the very hardest frosts that visit 

 our isles, some bright with berries as well as verdure ; giving welcome 

 shelter to northern and wind-swept gardens, and in our own time 

 each varying into many noble varieties. These native evergreens 

 and their varieties are, and for ever must be, the most precious of all 

 for the British Isles. 



When after a very hard winter we see the evergreen trees of 

 the garden in mourning, and many of them dead, as happens to 

 Laurels, Laurustinuses, and often even the Bay, it is a good time to 



