RIGHT USE OF FLOWERING SHRUBS 239 



associations. An Apple tree seems to belong to a 

 different world from a Rhododendron, and a Mag- 

 nolia from a Hawthorn. Associations may be quite 

 arbitrary and may change from time to time; but 

 you can no more ignore them in the use of shrubs 

 than in the use of words. There are some shrubs that 

 always have an exotic look, and need to be used as 

 discreetly as foreign words or phrases. You cannot 

 plant them without incongruity among those shrubs 

 that seem to belong to the immemorial past of our 

 gardens. Some day, perhaps, the hardy Azaleas will 

 look as homely as a Damask Rose; but at present they 

 still seem to belong to the Far East, so closely are 

 they associated in our minds with Japanese drawings 

 and decoration; and it is not easy to find plants that 

 will combine well with them. 



We have said enough to show that the problem of 

 flowering shrubs a problem at once horticultural 

 and aesthetic is peculiarly difficult; and it is better 

 not to use them at all than to use them badly, especially 

 in the formal garden. It must be confessed that 

 formal gardens, so far as flowering shrubs are con- 

 cerned, are at a disadvantage compared with wild 

 or even with ordinary landscape gardens. The best 

 tradition of formal gardening was developed when 

 there were but few flowering shrubs, and it afforded 

 few opportunities for the use of them. It was timid 

 even in the use of Roses, the chief of all flowering 

 shrubs; and now that there are so many Roses that 

 can be treated as true flowering shrubs and not as 



