THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



Colorado blue spruce (Abies pungens). Hardy 

 enough to endure a temperature 30° below 

 zero without injury, it also puts up with 

 the dust and smoke of cities better 

 than other conifers. In ordering from deal- 

 ers, a nice sage specimen should be 

 asked for as only about one in thirty in 

 the nursery now exhibits a striking shade, 

 rt has a pleasing hue, as if covered with bluish 

 hoar frost. It must be given good cultivation 

 or it turns green. The first year after trans- 

 planting it generally loses lustre, but it gradually 

 recovers. There are many other choice ever- 

 greens which we have not space to treat of. 

 Thuja occidentalis, Peabody and lutea, with 

 their golden and chocolate brown winter robes, 

 are the most brilliant in the large collection in 

 Queen's Park, Toronto. For carpeting the 

 ground beneath evergreens the Periwinkle is 

 useful, and is easily grown. 



The plan of the garden will be somewhat dif- 

 ferent from that we have indicated if the best 

 effects are desired from the road or street out- 

 side the grounds, or from the drive or walk 

 leading to the house. If the idea is to have 



the property look well from the road, the 

 grounds should have some low hedge border- 

 ing on the street, the centre of the grounds 

 should be left open, and most of the trees and 

 shrubs should be ranged along the side lines. 

 Choice trees and shrubs would be planted at 

 projecting points in the waving outline of the 

 border masses. For the low hedge the Ameri- 

 can Arbor Vitae would be good, or if a choice, 

 though more expensive one is desired, one of 

 Thunberg's barberry, or of the Colorado blue 

 spruce, will be highly ornamental. 



Should the planter desire privacy, and to 

 have the grounds look best from the approach 

 to the house, he should plant some tall hedge, 

 such as hemlock or Norway spruce, along the 

 street, or if he can get plenty of rough stones 

 he might build a picturesque wall and cover it 

 with creepers. The walk to the front door of 

 the dwelling might be bordered by a pretty 

 hedge, and the plantation arranged with large 

 trees in the back-ground and smaller ones in 

 the middle space of the prospect as one ap- 

 proached the house. 



Toronto. A. E. Mickle. 





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Note. — Buttercups were still flowering in Toronto on ist of December, and a pink water lily was 

 still bloomin'g on 3rd of December, and even at beginning of same month some thirty carnations were 

 in bloom in a garden. 



