Shrubs 169 



prevent it from slipping and washing. Many a house set on a 

 narrow ridge of hill-top would appear to be less in danger of falling 

 off the edge if the slopes around it were broadened by shrubs. 

 How narrow and sharp would the cones of many mountains appear 

 were it not for the trees that pad their sides! 



The kinds of shrubs to plant anywhere will necessarily depend 

 upon the peculiar conditions of each place, the climate, the soil, 

 the situation and the personal preference of the owner governing 

 the selection of them, it might go without saying. However one 

 may admire camellias, hibiscus and oleanders in Southern and 

 Californian gardens, one may not hope to grow them except under 

 glass at the North. A stiff clay soil would prove a cemetery for 

 any of the fine, fibrous-rooted heath tribe; therefore azaleas and 

 laurel must be stricken from the list unless one is able to prepare 

 for them the light loam, made cool and mellow with humus, that is 

 their necessity. A bleak, windy side of a house one need not 

 expect to beautify permanently with the holly-leaved Mahonia. 

 Books and the carefully prepared catalogues of high-class nurseries 

 may help the novice in deciding what to plant, but if he cannot 

 afford to employ an expert landscape gardener to direct his choice, 

 he is likely to learn far more from studying what nature uses most 

 effectively in her garden that lies about him. Let him select the 

 shrubs native to his region as a basis for other planting, not only 

 because they are most likely to thrive, but because they, like the 

 indigenous trees, will prevent his place from looking like an island 

 in the landscape, wholly unrelated to its natural environment. 

 Unless one's time is worth nothing, it is actually cheaper to buy 

 the native stock, improved and strengthened by cultivation 

 in a nursery, rather than to dig it oneself from the woods. A 

 shrub from Japan may easily cost you less than one from a 



