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 sunshine. 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 ground around 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 



