SHRUBS 



feet in height, but I am sure that one in my yard 

 has attained a height of eight feet — at least, 

 that its branches would measure that if they were 

 straightened. It is a free bloomer, the flowers 

 lasting from the end of May to mid-July. It 

 loses a branch now and again, not from disease, 

 but apparently from age, and these dead limbs 

 will be amputated, of course. It also appreciates 

 a little fertilizer, yet it grows easily, and in any 

 common soil. 



I doubt if the azalea will stand our winters; 

 at least, the cultivated sort, bearing red and 

 white flowers, is sensitive, and the wild azalea, 

 with its watery buff, yellow and salmon blossoms 

 makes so much less of a show, in the north, that 

 it has yet to win its place as a garden plant; but 

 its congener, the rhododendron, deserves admir- 

 ing consideration. This splendid shrub, most 

 glorious of all spring vegetation, its thickets 

 bombarding the hills with flashes of red, pink, 

 purple and white, is a winter ornament, because 

 its leaves are always green and glossy, and it 

 pushes forth its buds in the fall, so that all 

 through the winter it seems as if an hour of sun- 

 shine would set it flourishing; but after its season 

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