THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



CEDRUS. 



385 



CEDRUS (Cedar}. Noble trees of 

 the mountains of Asia Minor and India, 

 some hardy, and often planted on 

 lawns. The India Cedar (Deodar) is 

 really a tender tree, and though it may 

 seem to promise well in seashore and 

 favoured districts, planters should not 

 forget that it is to the Cedars of the 

 northern mountains they must look 

 the Lebanon and Atlas Cedars, which 

 have been proved 

 so hardy and so 

 well fitted for our 

 country. Nothing 

 finer can be within 

 view, but they 

 should never be 

 planted near the 

 house. 



In books and 

 catalogues a form 

 called C. Atlantica 

 is considered dis- 

 tinct enough to 

 merit a separate 

 name, but having 

 seen the trees on 

 their native moun- 

 tains, I think the 

 Atlas Cedar is the 

 same species as the 

 Lebanon Cedar 

 (C.Lebani). There 

 are varieties of 

 each in catalogues, 

 rarely so valuable 

 as the wild tree, 

 except the glau- 

 cous or silvery 

 forms, which are 

 worth planting. 

 The Deodar (C. 

 Deodari) is dis- 

 tinct from the N. 

 African Cedars, 

 and differs so also 

 in its tenderness 

 and unfitness for 

 our country gener- 

 ally. 



The Cedars, though hardy in our 

 country, are nevertheless the victims 

 of storm and snow to an often painful 

 extent, owing to the nearly universal 

 "specimen" way of planting these 

 trees. The pinetum is not only a mis- 

 take from an artistic point of view, 

 with its stuck-about trees, but it also 

 is so in the exposure of the trees to all 

 the storms and accidents of weather, 

 including heavy snowfalls. Naturally, 

 pines often grow together and shelter 

 each other, and where this is so, great 

 falls of snow do not harm them to the 



same degree. The lower boughs fall 

 off in due time, as is their nature, the 

 tree often showing a bare, mast-like 

 stem beneath its crown of leaves. 

 Clearly, when we isolate any tree in 

 the open and induce a tree which 

 naturally grows upright in a great 

 mountain forest to throw its limbs 

 out in all directions, we expose it to 

 an unfair test ; hence the Cedars of 



Cedrela sinensis. 



which we in England are so proud are 

 often swept down in numbers by heavy 

 gales and snowfalls. The idea that 

 every choice tree in our pleasure 

 grounds should be set out by itself 

 like an electric lamp-post is deeply 

 impressed in the gardening mind, and 

 we have to pay dearly for it. Even 

 where the Cedars are grouped, great 

 storms may do harm, but nothing like 

 what happens to the isolated trees. 

 Think of the weight that a Cedar of 

 Lebanon, with its great spreading 

 arms, would have to carry in a snow- 



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