42 ARRANGEMENT OF SHRUBBERIES 



becomes necessary to keep them within their limits by pruning, or else to 

 provide room for their continued growth by an occasional thinning and 

 rearrangement. Such a shrubbery ought never to be allowed to get 

 crowded, otherwise the individuality of each plant is lost. A "loose" 

 arrangement should be maintained. It is because shrubberies made on 

 this plan are so often neglected, and the coarse growing plants so often 

 allowed to crush out the weaker species, that the grouping system is so 

 preferable. For public paiks the latter is decidedly the best, as it is 

 also for large private gardens or, indeed, wherever sufficient space is 

 available for planting on broad lines. 



It would be absurd to suggest that anyone with a small garden should 

 make what little shrubbery they may have consist of masses of a few 

 things merely. But even in a small garden, if the planter is using for his 

 shrubbery three, six, or a dozen of a kind, he will do better to make a 

 group of each sort than to sprinkle them over the whole length of his 

 border. It is for new shrubberies that the grouping system is so desirable. 

 In old, well-managed ones, planted in the mixed style, each plant is 

 attaining or has attained its full size, and produces somewhat the same 

 effect as a group of younger ones. Here, at any rate, dignity is not 

 lacking. But nothing can look more feeble than the common mixed 

 shrubbery in the early years of its being. 



