10 DWAEF AND SLOW-GROWING C0NIFEB8 



forest trees, they fit themselves into the scheme of the 

 garden. This year I noticed a small pyramidal tree of 

 Picea excelsa, var. mucronata, which was planted on a rise 

 in the Rock Garden; it is about 3 feet high by 2 feet 

 through (3 feet by 2 feet). All around it the ground was 

 covered with the prostrate stems of the pink Bosnian 

 pansy — Viola Bosnaica ; a prostrate stem coming in 

 contact with the boughs of the tiny spruce had pushed its 

 way in and up, and had come out again and was flowering 

 at the sides and top of the "tree," in exactly the same 

 manner in which a clematis will climb and flower on an 

 arborescent tree, and the effect was exactly the same, on 

 a microscopic scale. The gardener who gives personal 

 thought to the arrangement of his garden will be surprised 

 to find the number of spots in which a baby tree can be 

 inserted with effect. 



Useful as they are in the large garden, they reign supreme 

 in the small garden. Mr. John Dunbar, of the Department 

 of Parks, Rochester, N.Y., informs me that in many of the 

 villa gardens around Geneva, N.Y., one may still find old 

 specimens of the dwarf Picea excelsa, var. Maxwelli, that 

 originated in Maxwell's Nursery, and have remained in 

 their new homes long after the nursery has disappeared — 

 and this is only one form. There is scarcely a garden 

 patch so small but that it would contain half a dozen tiny 

 trees that would give their owner more pleasure in their 

 possession than he could ever receive from the doubtful 

 joy of owning one arborescent tree. 



As to Soil. — Dwarf conifers are not very particular; 

 most of them (except the junipers), like their bigger 

 brothers, prefer any soil to a pure chalk soil; the majority 

 of them thrive in any soil not too dry or too water -logged. 

 With me, most of them seem indifferent, and grow equally 

 well in a limestone soil, and on my raised peat rock beds. 

 The spruces seem to like moisture, the junipers, sun. 

 Forms with fine heath-like foliage, like some of the 

 junipers and the "juvenile forms" (referred to later), 



