GOOD TREES AND SHRUBS 



MANY of the most beautiful trees and shrubs for the garden 

 are either unknown or their importance unrecognised. Only 

 kinds of great beauty and usefulness are mentioned in the 

 following alphabetical enumeration, and these are adapted for 

 small gardens as well as those of moderate dimensions. 



Perhaps no beautiful shrub is more neglected than Exo- 

 chorda grandiflora, the Pearl Bush. Its near relatives (the 

 Spiraeas) are in every shrubbery, but one may go through 

 twenty and not see Exochorda. Even of the Spiraeas one 

 does not half often enough see 5. Tkunbergi, a perfect milky- 

 way of little starry bloom in April, and a most shapely little 

 bush, or the double-flowered 5. prunifolia, with its long wreaths 

 of flower-like double Thorn or minute white Roses and autumn 

 bravery of scarlet foliage. The hardy Magnolias are not given 

 the opportunity they deserve of making our gardens lovely in 

 earliest summer. Who that has seen Magnolia stellata in its 

 April dress of profuse white bloom and its summer and 

 autumn dignity of handsome though not large foliage, would 

 endure to be without it, or who would not desire to have the 

 fragrant chalices of M. soulangeana with their outside staining 

 of purple, and M. conspicua of purest white, in the early 

 months of March and April ? And why does not every 

 garden hold one, at least, of the sweet Chimonantkus, offering, 

 as it does in February, an abundance of its little blooms of a 

 fragrance so rich and powerful that it can scarcely be matched 

 throughout the year. 



Cassinea fulvida, still known in nurseries by its older 

 name of Diplopappus, in winter wears its fullest dress of tiny 

 gold-backed leafage in long, graceful sprays, that are borne in 

 such profusion that they only beg to be cut to accompany the 

 rare flowers of winter that we bring indoors to sweeten and 

 enliven our rooms. 



Of small-flowering trees none is lovelier than the Snowy 

 Mespilus (Amdanchier), and for a tree of somewhat larger size 

 the good garden form of the native Bird Cherry is beautiful 

 in the early year. The North American Hafesia (the Snow- 

 drop tree) should be in every garden either as a bush or tree, 



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