278 EDGING AND CARPETING PLANTS 



in which we Americans often take complacent pride! Many 

 people, otherwise cultured, take it for granted that there can be noth- 

 ing finer than a grove carpeted with grass. For picnics, yes; for 

 beauty and privacy, no. Call to mind the loveliest woods with 

 which you are acquainted. Do they not have flowers within 

 and a fringe of shrubbery without? So, too, the private parks of 

 England would lose their elegance and finish if there were no 

 fringe of shrubbery. This fringe, however, should not be con- 

 tinuous, as it often is in nature. There should be a long, solid 

 stretch of bushes to give seclusion to those in the wood and to 

 make the grove poetic, mystical, alluring. And then there should 

 be a break with a glimpse of cool ferns amid cathedral columns, 

 or gorgeous masses of distant rhododendron bloom. And at 

 such opening there should usually be a path or trail. Such is the 

 spirit of the English park a spirit that would ennoble our 

 groves, pleasure woods, and tree-girt lawns. 



SHRUBS FOR EDGING LAWNS 



Any kind of shrubbery will make a transition between trees 

 and grass, but most of the bushes that we love for their flowers, 

 especially the tall ones, are deficient in foliage at the base. There- 

 fore the most finished effect is produced by edging tall bushes with 

 low ones, whose branches arch over and meet the grass. Such 

 are Forsythia suspensa, which has- yellow flowers in April; Van 

 Houtte's spirea, with white blossoms in May; Philadelphus Lem- 

 oinei (plate 103) Stephanandra flexuosa, with white flowers in 

 June; Regel's privet, with white flowers in July; the shining sumach, 

 with greenish clusters in August; the yellowroot, which begins to 

 colour finely in September; the Indian currant, whose purple 

 berries last until November; and, best of all, the Japanese 



