58 How to Make a Flower Garden 



with the planting, since shrubs grow to the height of one's eyes ; whereas 

 trees grow far above us, and most herbs are far below us. 



Aside from these general considerations, shrubbery has specific uses. 

 It affords a most excellent and quick-growing screen to cut off undesirable 

 objects. Thus, a thick planting of shrubs may screen a chicken-yard, a 

 clothes-yard, a neighbour's premises, the kitchen door, the vegetable garden, 

 the rear fence, the children's playground. It may afford a good cover for 

 high and bare foundations, serving to tie the house to the greensward. 

 It may cover rough and intractable areas, as rocky places. It may hold 

 banks from washing. It is useful for filling all odd and unmanageable 

 comers, as the comers by the steps and in the wall. It may be made to 

 cover naked and unsightly places under trees and under wide eaves. Nearly 

 every important group of trees should have more or less shrubbery at its 

 base. Compare the tree-groups that please you in the parks with those 

 that do not, and see whether shrubbery does not enter into the composition 

 of the former. Observe the treatment of the roadsides in modern parks. 

 Why is the old fence -row so attractive ? 



If the reader has been patient enough to follow me thus far, he will 

 understand how very difficult it is for any one to give general advice on the 

 kinds of shrubs to plant. The shrubs must suit the objects for which they 

 are to be grown, and must adapt themselves to the particular conditions. 

 The questioner must first analyse his subject ; then the question may answer 

 itself. If you are wholly at sea as to what you want to do, call in a landscape 

 gardener. Do not think that because your place is small you want a small 

 landscape gardener. Often the most difficult questions are those concerned 

 with small areas. Get good advice, or else take your own. If you know 

 what you want as to effects, but are unacquainted with the kinds of shrubs 

 to produce these effects, again take advice, and be willing to pay for it. Ask 

 some competent landscape gardener or some reliable nurseryman what 

 shrubs will thrive, for example, in shady places in your climate, what ones 

 will bloom in July, what ones will grow in wet places, and the like. Perhaps 

 there is a park nearby to which you can go to see the kinds of shrubs. The 

 superintendent or some other officer will be glad to tell you what they are 

 and what they are good for, and to answer any other intelligent question. 

 This is one of the things that parks are for — to afford information to the 

 intending planter, as well as to be things of beauty in themselves. 



My own predilections are for the native shrubs — for those, I mean, 



