138 The Landscape Gardening Book 



field-mice into winter quarters, else they may take up their 

 abode among the straw and dine on the roses' winter buds, as 

 field-mouse living goes up under the season's advance. 



Such a covering for roses is unobtrusive and inoffensive; it 

 does not suggest the dismal side of winter, and it is quite as 

 effective as boarded-over shelters, providing the shelter belt of 

 shrubs or evergreens is properly placed. Both, however, must 

 be resorted to, to make the work assuredly well done. Usually 

 branches of hemlock may be used to clothe almost anything 

 requiring it, in such a way that the objectionable features 

 attending the use of straw are entirely done away with, and a 

 resemblance to a small evergreen tree is created. Where a 

 shrub must be boimd up, I should advise always using such 

 material. 



Personally however, I should have nothing in a garden which 

 required elaborate winter cover. Some of the tenderest things 

 are grown in chilly northern sections, with simply a suitable 

 arrangement of windbreaks and shelter belts. A specimen of 

 the giant tree of California has been raised from a tiny seedling 

 until it has reached a height of probably forty feet, on a Long 

 Island estate, by placing it in such a position that winter's fury 

 is tempered by hardier native trees, which do guard duty on 

 every side. These are not close to it, but they are so placed that 

 what one fails to intercept in the way of winter wind, the next 

 one catches — and the protection is very complete without in the 

 least obscuring the Sequoia. 



A large garden should have provision for its tender plants — if 

 its gardener insists upon growing them — in the form of pits and 

 outside cellars. Whatever cannot be protected without calUng 

 attention to its infirmity, and thereby spreading an atmosphere 

 of gloom over all the landscape that is within view, should be 



