136 The Landscape Gardening Book 



The thought of it should always lie back of every garden's 

 arrangement. Every garden may be planned so that the pro- 

 tection of its delicate citizens need not present such difficulties 

 as it commonly does. It is only a question of beginning right, 

 just the same as practically all the other garden questions — 

 beginning right and using common sense, along with a little 

 ingenuity. 



First of all it is necessary to know just what it is that con- 

 stitutes the winter's danger to vegetation. Commonly we think 

 of it as being the cold, and the snow and sleet and storms gen- 

 erally; but as matter of fact, these are not as grave a menace to 

 many things as the stmshine. The rays of the sun stimulate 

 plants to premature activity if allowed to fall directly upon 

 them, on even what may seem a cold winter day ; and this pre- 

 mature activity is what is so fatal. Winter protection is designed 

 to keep warmth away from them — to keep them in the cold 

 quite as much as it is to keep them from it — in other words, to 

 keep them dormant during the season when they should be 

 dormant. 



The sunlight that is injurious to their tops is just as injurious to 

 their roots too ; for, although it only reaches ground above the 

 roots, it thaws this after it has frozen, and warms it too much 

 during the middle of the day. Then follows a chill when the 

 sun sets and freezing begins again. So the groiind aroxmd roots 

 needs protecting as well as the top of the plants; indeed this 

 shielding over the roots is all that many very tender things 

 require. Some of the most disastrous winters have demon- 

 strated this beyond question. 



Nature's own protection is leaves — leaves scattered on the 

 ground where the roots get the benefit of them. Nature groups 

 her vegetation too, so that one plant affords defense for its 



