XVII 



HOW TO SET OUT SHRUBS 



Any one who likes to have his place look well and has not 

 time to compass the constant watchfulness which flower-beds 

 need had best "get him to a nursery" and invest in shrubs. 

 Then he can view with serene philosophy the incursions of 

 stray dogs or cats, or even hens, knowing that Rugosa roses 

 and barberry -bushes are competent to take care of themselves, 

 that chickens can scratch about his bushes and accomplish 

 nothing but good. 



With shrubs one hides the clothes-line from the street; 

 with shrubs one has a polite but effective barrier between one's 

 land and one's neighbor's line of vision; with shrubs one makes 

 a house seem comfortably settled on its site, which before was 

 but perched uneasily; with shrubs one banishes from a high 

 piazza the bald, strained look as of a forehead from which the 

 hair has receded. 



The following are some of the best shrubs; they are radi- 

 antly described in catalogues. 



Tall-growing shrubs: Althea or rose of Sharon (Jeanne 

 d'Arc and rosed), dogwood (Cornus Amomum and C. candidis- 

 sima), barberry (B. vulgaris), forsythia, Japanese snowball, 

 lilacs, syringa, viburnums. 



Shrubs of medium height : Japanese quince, laurel, Rugosa 

 roses, spirseas (S. prunifolia, S. Thunbergii, S. van Houttei). 



Low-growing shrubs: Berberis Thunbergii, daphne, Deut- 

 zias (D. gracilis and D. parviflora, flowering almond, rhodo- 

 typus and Azalea mollis. 



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