FLORA OF MICHIGAN. 27 



friends as well as our insect foes. They learn to look for certain insects 

 about the plants of a certain species, genus, or family. 



Here the landscape artist can study the plants with reference to produc- 

 ing certain effects. Some are subtropical, some suitable for bog or 

 pond, some for sunshine all the day long, others only for shade. Some 

 are best in groups of one kind, others are best massed with one or 

 more sorts; some are eccentric, some noble, some clean, some strag- 

 gling. Plants with tall, slender, or naked stems may be properly 

 planted in or near low bushy ones which will support or cover 

 their nakedness. With some the chief glory lies in their flowers; with 

 others in the foliage. Some are out early in spring, and go to rest 

 during the heat of summer, while others barely get into flower when the 

 frosts of September appear. Some will be well cared for if all the allied 

 hardy species are placed in a ward or group, while others, like the violets, 

 shoot their seeds for a yard or more in every direction and soon become 

 hopelessly mixed. 



Some plants are suitable for dry, sunny slopes, others retire to the shade. 

 Study the soil and location of wild plants to learn how to treat them in a 

 wild garden. The following are excellent to hang over the crest of banks 

 in exposed places: Wintergreen, bearberry, trailing arbutus, dwarf blue- 

 berries, dwarf June-berry, violets, harebell, wild asters, the sweet golden- 

 rod, anemones, the bushy andropogons and panicums, and the dwarf 

 sedges. 



Cheap and unique ornaments are the sprouts of low stumps cut back each 

 spring to near the old roots. For this purpose use any oak, the Juneberry, 

 witch-hazel, the maples, ashes, basswood, poplars, alders, birches or 

 chestnuts. 



If once well selected and well started in a wild garden, plants may 

 remain very attractive for a great many years without much attention, 

 save now and then a little thinning of the most vigorous to keep them from 

 overrunning their more retiring neighbors. Considering the outlay, if the 

 taste leads that way, one will get better returns for labor spent in a wild 

 garden than he will from the one neatly shorn near the house. 



AUTUMN FOLIAGE. 



For reasons which need not here be explained, the leaves of many of our 

 native trees during autumn assume different colors from the usual green of 

 spring and summer. In the autumn of some years, many trees are truly 

 gorgeous, and become the admiration of everyone. To set off these autumn 

 tints to best advantage, some evergreens or deciduous trees are needed 

 which retain their green colors till late in the season. 



In planting along the roadside, in parks, cemeteries, or near the home 

 buildings, too little attention is usually given to the selection and arrange- 

 ment of trees with reference to what pleasure they may afford in 

 autumn. To render the subject more complex and the effects more uncer- 

 tain, trees of the same species do not all of them assume the same colors at 

 the same time in autumn. Certain trees or parts of trees are more bril- 

 liant than others. Different leaves or branches, or different parts of the 

 same leaves of some sumachs will be red, crimson, orange or yellow. The 

 red maples may be orange or gold, crimson or scarlet and many leaves 

 may contain clear blotches of bright yellow, and scarlet splashed among 

 4 



