GARDEN BOUNDARIES 



As for the mechanical side of garden boundaries, the all- 

 important consideration with the living ones, whether hedges 

 or irregular planting, is that the trees or the shrubs should 

 grow, and that speedily. 



In a bordering plantation near the seacoast or for a wind- 

 swept garden it is necessary to plant closely at first, yet not to 

 make a solid wall of trees that will offer a broadside to the 

 wind and so be easily demolished or seriously injured. The 

 gales should be met head on by small groups of trees standing 

 shoulder to shoulder, one a bit behind the other, in a kind of 

 wedge-shaped formation, so that the foreground ones in any 

 stress of weather lean back on their brothers and do not take 

 the brunt of the gale alone. Whatever the desired form of 

 the tree-belt on the garden side, this should be the formation 

 for the windward side. Later, when the trees are well estab- 

 lished, they will close up and form, if you wish it, a solid wall 

 of green for the garden boundary, but these broken groups 

 are the speediest way to establish it. 



The soil should be, of course, well prepared and deeply 

 dug; especially is this necessary for a hedge. If during its 

 early years the hedge is clipped hard back, it will be thick and 

 bushy at the bottom, where thickness and bushiness is espe- 

 cially desirable. If this has not been done, no amount of 

 cutting back in later years will make an evergreen hedge throw 

 out branches at the base. 



In an irregular shrub -and- tree border the most important 

 care is rarely given, and that is adequate thinning. Many a 

 landscape-gardener makes his plantation with an eye to imme- 

 diate effect, intending, of course, to thin later, when the trees 

 are fairly well grown, but he never has the chance to do it, 

 and the owner of the place either neglects it completely or 

 else, if aware something should be done, is afraid to touch it; 



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