FLORICULTURE 471 



ises into subordination with this feature. In home grounds this 

 central feature is the house. To scatter trees and bushes over the 

 area defeats the fundamental purpose of the place the purpose to 

 make every part of the grounds lead up to the home and to accentu- 

 ate its homelikeness. Keep the center of the place open. Plant the 

 borders. Avoid all disconnected, cheap, patchy, and curious effects. 

 It is not enough that the bushes be planted in masses. They must 

 be kept in masses by letting them grow freely in a natural manner. 

 The pruning-knife is the most inveterate enemy of shrubbery. 

 (Cornell Exp. St. B. 205.) 



The use of flowers and bright foliage and striking forms of 

 vegetation is not discouraged, but these things are never primary 

 considerations in a good place. The structural elements of the 

 place are designed first. The flanking and bordering masses are 

 then planted. Finally, the flowers and accessories are put in, in 

 just the same way that a house is painted after it is built. Flowers 

 appear to best advantage when seen against a background of foliage, 

 and they are then, also, an integral part of the picture. The flower 

 garden, as such, should be at the rear or side of a place, the same as 

 all other strictly personal appurtenances are ; but flowers and bright 

 leaves may be freely scattered along the borders and near the 

 foliage masses. 



What kinds of shrubs and flowers shall be planted is a wholly 

 secondary and largely personal consideration. Be sure that the 

 main plantings are made up of hardy and vigorous species, and 

 have lots of them. Then get the things liked best. Some like 

 bull-thistles, lilacs, hollyhocks, burdocks, rhubarb, dogwoods, spi- 

 reas, elders and such careless things. But others have better tastes. 

 There is endless merit in the choice of species, but the point to 

 emphasize is that the arrangement or disposition of the plants is far 

 more important than the kinds. 



It should be said that the appreciation of foliage effects in the 

 landscape is a higher type of feeling than the desire for mere color. 

 Flowers are transitory, but foliage and plant forms are abiding. 

 The common roses have very little value for landscape planting, 

 because the foliage and habit of the rose bush are not attractive, the 

 leaves are inveterately attacked by bugs, and the blossoms are fleet- 

 ing. Some of the wild roses and the Japanese Rosa rugosa, how- 

 ever, have distinct merit for mass effects. Wild bushes are nearly 

 always attractive when planted in borders and groups. They im- 

 prove in appearance under cultivation, because they are given a 

 better chance to grow. In wild nature, there is such a fierce strug- 

 gle for existence that plants usually grow to few or single stems 

 and they are sparse and scraggly in form; but once given all the 

 room they want and a good soil, and they become luxurious, full 

 and comely. In most home grounds the body of the planting may 

 be very effectively made by the use of bushes taken from adjacent 

 woods and fields. The masses may then be enlivened by the addi- 

 tion here and there of cultivated Bushes, and the planting of flow- 

 ers and herbs about the borders. It is not essential that one know 



