LITTLE GARDENS 



has passed and it has begun its summer rest, It is 

 apt to grow dull and ragged; hence the planter 

 should make the most of it, and group it by 

 colors, where possible. These clusters are not 

 to be crowded, to be sure, for the plant requires 

 room to develop itself to its full height, and if 

 It finds a place to its liking it becomes a tree. 

 Such clusters are large for the town yard, and 

 are better apportioned to country estates, es- 

 pecially for covering a hill slope and concealing 

 spots of poverty or ugliness at the bottom. The 

 laurel, with its waxen cups, is a contemporary of 

 the rhododendron, as to bloom, and suggests it 

 at a distance. It Is sometimes used to fill out 

 masses of shrubbery in which the latter bush is 

 dominant. As foliage the andromeda is also to 

 be viewed with favor, and its white spikes sprin- 

 kle it with snow at about the time the bigger 

 rhododendron Is lavishing its bloom. Special- 

 ists tell us that all of these shrubs, azalea, rhodo- 

 dendron, laurel and andromeda, which are 

 American In origin and come to their best with 

 us, succeed in a peaty soil, or one In which old 

 leaf-mold, rotted turf and a modicum of stable 

 manure have been mixed. In England they re- 

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