274 Landscape Gardening 



and likely to do what is ultimately expected of them, their 

 temporary mean or meager aspect may be entirely disre- 

 garded. And although the peculiar developments which 

 result from accident may sometimes yield combinations 

 superior to any that the most cultivated art could produce 

 — such is the adaptive and plastic power of nature — yet 

 as such fortuitous groups can never be calculated upon and 

 may never arise, it is right to act as if all depended on the 

 provisions of art and place each plant where from its known 

 constitution it is most likely to yield the wished-for effect 

 whether of outline, harmony, or contrast. 



8. Planting Out. — Having got the ground into a proper 

 condition for planting, and remembering that the place 

 should assume as good an appearance as possible both 

 immediately and prospectively, the next consideration will 

 be as to the time and manner of effecting this operation. 

 The first of these will relate to the season and the weather 

 alone. The other is much more comprehensive. 



Whatever may be said of plants bearing to be removed at 

 almost any season of the year, if a due regard be paid to 

 their nature and wants, it is pretty certain that the fall of 

 the year, when the leaves of deciduous plants are just shed, 

 is the most appropriate period for transplanting them, where 

 choice is allowed; while evergreens will probably be less 

 injured by being planted about a month earlier. Into the 

 reasons for this view it would be needless here to enter, as 

 both theory and experience confirm it. But planting may 

 be conducted throughout the whole of the winter in open 

 weather, and until the buds develop pretty vigorously, or 

 the beginning of April. For deciduous plants, however, the 

 earlier they can be got in the less they will suffer in the 

 following summer; and evergreens, if unplanted at the time 

 of the occurrence of the first sharp winter frosts, should be 



