CHAPTER XV 

 DWARF TREES AND SHRUBS. 



THERE are many places in the garden where dwarf shrubs shrubs, that 

 is, which never get more than 3 ft. high, or take many years to do so 

 are almost indispensable. In the Rock Garden, for instance, they are 

 of great value as giving diversity, shelter, and winter-furnishing without 

 encroaching upon or interfering with the regular occupants. In places, 

 too, where plants are wanted not so tall as to obstruct the view, such as 

 in front of windows or alongside low terrace walls, naturally dwarf shrubs 

 are infinitely to be preferred to taller, stronger-growing ones, continually 

 kept low by cropping over with knife or shears. They are also useful in 

 small formal arrangements. 



Besides those shrubs whose dwarfness is a natural and specific 

 characteristic, there are numerous others well known in gardens, in which 

 it is an abnormal one. Trees long in cultivation very frequently produce 

 dwarf sports and varieties as well as fastigiate and pendulous ones. They 

 mostly retain their dwarfness after being propagated by cuttings or by 

 grafting, and are usually distinguished by such names as nana, pumila, 

 dumosa, and pygmaea. The common spruce, one of the giants of 

 European forests, is very prolific of dwarf varieties; they occur also 

 among other conifers in the Scotch pine, Weymouth pine, Douglas fir, 

 yew, silver fir, Corsican pine, black spruce, common juniper and savin, 

 Lawson cypress and Cryptomeria japonica. Some of these forms, 

 although sprung from trees naturally 100 to 200 ft. high, will take twenty 

 years to grow i yard high. 



The dwarf varieties of deciduous trees are, as a rule, more vigorous 

 in growth than the evergreens, and not so well adapted for the special 

 places mentioned above. They occur in the field and Norway maples, 

 Mahaleb, and gean cherries, Catalpa bignonioides. Viburnum Opulus, 

 wych elm, common ash, white poplar, Robinia Pseudacaria, hawthorn, etc. 

 The dwarf hawthorn (Cratczgus monogyna var. semperflorens] flowers 



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