SHRUBS 197 



winter is naturally mild, but the ubiquitous English laurel (which 

 we cannot grow) makes it cheerful and beautiful, while ours is 

 bleak and ugly. I cannot understand why horticultural writers 

 nearly always jumble these two elements in the same article on 

 "shrubs." For good landscape gardeners rarely put both in the 

 same shrubbery border. And we can have no clear thinking or 

 good design unless we make a sharp distinction between precious 

 and worthless material for winter since, in the North, this com- 

 prises five eighths of the year, or from the middle of October to 

 the middle of April. Therefore, the present article deals only 

 with the deciduous bushes. 



And now comes the third great advantage of our shrubbery, 

 for we can excel England on red berries that last all winter and on 

 shrubs with brightly coloured bark. (See lower picture on plate 73.) 

 And just as the Canadians have made their long, steady winter 

 an attractive season for tourists by their picturesque sports, so 

 the fickle winter of the northern United States can be made to 

 draw people from all parts of the world to experience the unique 

 charm of highly coloured berries and branches. 



Now, then, the threefold superiority of our shrubs is apparent 

 the burst of flowers in spring, the vivid foliage in autumn, the 

 brilliant berries and branches in winter. But have we developed 

 our shrubberies along these natural lines? Not at all. On the 

 contrary we have blindly and slavishly followed European prece- 

 dents. We import all their man-made freaks and dot our lawns 

 with them, so that they look like Joseph's coat turned inside out 

 or the side-shows of a circus. For, every great personality among 

 the shrubs that we ought to know and love for its own sake has its 

 cut-leaved, weeping or purple-foliage variety, and as to such 

 gaudy stuff we are simply mad. It is worse than a crime to plant 



