CHAPTER IX 



TREES 



WHAT place have trees in a flower garden ? Will they 

 not rob the lesser plants of food and drink, 

 stifle them with shade, and ultimately strangle 

 them to death? 



At the outset, it must be confessed that few trees could be 

 admitted within the garden proper, only those smaller ones which, 

 like the boxwood, the bay, the laburnum, the lesser magnolias and 

 dwarf evergreens, have a decorative value not overbalanced by their 

 destructiveness to flowering plants. But in a larger sense the 

 garden picture includes both its background and its frame, 

 and as it would be difficult indeed to make a really good one 

 without trees which serve most effectively for both, perhaps 

 no apology for including them in this book is necessary. To 

 break the sky line, to give diversity of outline and colour at 

 different seasons, to increase the interest of the home grounds, 

 to unite the house and its garden with the surrounding land- 

 scape, to form windbreaks and boundary belts, to afford shelter 

 and shade, to screen off unsightly places, to emphasise the 

 height of a hill top, to draw the eye toward a lovely view, to 

 improve the quality of the atmosphere around a dwelling, to 

 furnish masses of bloom, to attract birds that will keep insect 

 pests in check and sing while they work for you, to make a 

 place comfortable and beautiful in winter as well as in summer 

 these ends are not by any means all that may be accom- 



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