140 The Landscape Gardening Book 



So it is not difficult to plan an all-the-year-roimd garden when 

 planning, and cheat the winter. And in a climate where so 

 many months are dull and colorless, if not actually wintry, this 

 is something which ought never to be overlooked. It is, in fact, 

 hardly too much to say that winter should have as much con- 

 sideration in the arrangement of the garden as summer. 



Where frosts are likely to come late in the spring or early in 

 the fall, a windbreak or shelter which is so dense that it does not 

 allow the passage of air at all, tends to encourage them by 

 keeping the air still within the space which it encloses. Still 

 air is, of course, favorable to frost. For this reason privet is 

 better, in some situations, than a denser hedge which excludes 

 all wind. It is a matter of tempering the wind, rather than 

 shutting it out altogether. Privet, as I have already said, holds 

 its leaves nearly all winter and grows so twiggy, through 

 repeated prunings, that it forms an impenetrable barrier to 

 animal life, and likewise to snow and biting winds. 



An evergreen winter garden, enclosed with a hedge so high 

 that winter is shut out, is something which every all-the-y ear- 

 round home should boast, for the encouragement which it will 

 give to outdoor life. This may be somewhat apart from the 

 subject under consideration, but I feel that it should be men- 

 tioned, because we are dealing with winter in the garden. Where 

 there is space to set apart such a spot, even though it is very tiny, 

 it ought to be done. Surround the evergreen shelter hedge — 

 which need not be trimmed, by the way, unless one prefers, but 

 may grow unrestrained — on the outer side with a shelter planting 

 of deciduous native trees, mingled with evergreens. Carry the 

 "walls" of the garden north and south, so that all the sun's 

 warmth may pour down unobstructed into it ; furnish it with 

 some weatherproof rustic or white-painted, wood seats, or 



