September 2, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



411 



and opens its dewy cups to catch the first kiss of the 

 sunlight. 



In other corners the wild Rose clusters, thorny and 

 sweet, and, if the ground be damp and sedgy, one may 

 find Cardinal-flowers, and the sculptured white petals of the 

 Arrowhead, mingling with the blue of Pickerel Weed, and 

 the pink blooms of the Milkwort. 



In drier places little seedling trees are apt to spring up, 

 kept warm and shaded by embracing Jewel-weeds, till their 

 roots gain vigor enough to force the strong young shoots up 

 into the sunlight, or, perhaps, a Clethra may have strayed 

 away, with a sweet Fern for a companion, from neighboring 

 woods, filling the air with a forest-fragrance. 



No matter how rough and ugly a field may be, its fence- 

 corners, if neglected, become its redeeming feature, so that 

 one is grateful to the careless farmer whose sense of duty 

 does not drive him to clear up what he considers rubbish, 

 but allows the wild things to gladden us in their own way, 

 with their dainty forms and graceful attitudes, as they hide 

 the coarse rails with their soft leaflets, or wreathe the rough 

 surfaces with garlands of flowers and festoons of foliage. 

 Such little pictures as this are to be seen on every hand by 

 all who will look for them by the way-side. Free, indeed, 

 is the gift of beauty to man, when from neglect he can 

 reap loveliness, and from disorder, grace. 



A 



Winter Beauty in the Home Grounds. 



LETTER in Downing ' s Horticulturist Tor 1851 shows that, 

 forty years ago, there were some persons who appreci- 

 ated the charm of a garden outlook especially prepared to be 

 beautiful in winter. "I saw, not long since," this letter runs, 

 *' a country house where there was a novel feature that de- 

 lighted me. This was a winter landscape or scene on one 

 side of the house upon which the two rooms occupied by the 

 family in winter looked. A broad glade of lawn was agree- 

 ably varied and quite surrounded by beautiful evergreen trees 

 and shrubs. From the windows commanding this scene not 

 a leafless tree was in sight, nor any other feature which re- 

 minded you that the leaves had fallen. The grass still green, 

 and the White Pines, Spruces, Firs, Hemlocks, Junipers and 

 Laurels, from large trees to small shrubs, were all arrayed in 

 the richest green — so as fairly to belie the season. Even when 

 the lawn is covered with snow the evergreens are still cheer- 

 ful, and their verdure is heightened by the contrast. I have 

 seldom seen a happier idea, or one better carried out. It 

 seems to me particularly well suited to country houses in 

 which the family passes the whole year." To this Downing 

 himself added : " An excellent arrangement, and one which 

 may be heightened in the execution. With the American 

 Holly and the Winter-berry to decorate it by their brilliant 

 berries, and such plants as the Yucca and Chinese Honey- 

 suckle, which hold their foliage all winter, to give it variety, a 

 winter garden might be a gay and agreeable thing to look upon 

 when January is at its bleakest." 



Perhaps country homes may now be found here and there 

 where careful provision has been made for the pleasure of the 

 eye in winter as well as summer. But certainly they are not 

 common. Coniferous evergreens are not so generally planted 

 now as they were some forty years ago, when the rage for 

 them in England, like other horticultural fashions before and 

 since, extended to this country also. The results of this fash- 

 ion are, of course, still everywhere conspicuous, and we often 

 see plantations around houses where the family resides only 

 in summer almost entirely composed of dark and heavy coni- 

 fers. Conversely, now that deciduous trees are more gener- 

 ally liked, we frequently see houses that are inhabited all the 

 year round encircled by grounds which, as winter approaches, 

 show only bare trunks and leafless masses of shrubbery. 



No rule, even of the broadest sort, can be laid down to de- 

 termine where evergreens should be planted, in what num- 

 bers, or in what combinations. The very essence and interest 

 of gardening lie in the fact that each problem is a new one 

 which must be solved in accordance with the habits and tastes 

 of the family in question, as well as with regard to the size, 

 situation and character of the grounds. But we can at least 

 assert that there is no reason why the owner of a house occu- 

 pied in summer only should prepare for beautiful winter 

 effects. His aim should be to attain a special, temporary effect, 

 and he can secure this more completely than his neighbor 



who is obliged to provide for the whole circle of the seasons. 

 But if it would be foolish for him to think of winter beauty, it 

 is still more foolish for those who must look at their grounds 

 in winter also, to think only of the summer, or, as we some- 

 times find to be the case, almost exclusively of the spring. 

 The letter we have quoted hints at the right scheme — a com- 

 paratively small reserved portion of the grounds, commanded 

 by rooms appropriated to winter use, and specially planted 

 with this season in view. 



Even here, however, too vigorous an effort ought not to be 

 made to "belie the season." In our climate this cannot be 

 done so successfully as, for example, in the southern parts of 

 England, where the grass remains green all winter, and many 

 broad-leaved evergreens flourish which would die with us. In 

 such a climate as that of our northern states winter will strongly 

 assert itself, no matter what we do to combat its supremacy. 

 And therefore our aim should be not to disguise its presence, 

 not to pretend we are still in the autumn or already in the 

 spring, but to show how beautiful winter itself may be in its 

 own proper character. For this reason we could hardly com- 

 mend an arrangement where "not a leafless tree was insight." 

 A true lover of nature takes especial delight in the beauty that 

 most trees display when stripped of their leaves. In winter 

 we see the structure of a tree in its sturdy trunk, diverging 

 branches and feathery spray, and this structure varies per- 

 petually as we pass from species to species. Moreover, the 

 effect of a plantation of evergreens, whether laden with snow 

 or not, is too heavy and monotonous unless lightened by some 

 intermixture of leafless branches. Therefore, instead of alto- 

 gether banishing deciduous trees, at least a few such should 

 be selected for the winter plantation with special reference to 

 their comparative beauty when leafless. A sturdy rugged Oak, 

 for instance, with its wide-stretching branches ; a Dogwood, 

 with its horizontal layers of branchlets ; a group of tall, nar- 

 row, fragile, light-sprayed Gray Birches, and an American 

 Beech, isolated perhaps so that the symmetrical beauty of its 

 shape may fully appear, will greatly increase the beauty of a 

 winter plantation. And the gain will be in effects of color as 

 well as in effects of form. The Oak will keep a large part of 

 its yellow or reddish leaves throughout the winter, and the 

 Dogwood some of its scarlet berries ; the trunks of the Birches 

 will shine like silver against the dark green background, and 

 the pale gray color of the Beech will be as attractive as the ex- 

 traordinary grace of its ramification. Finally, these trees will 

 vastly increase the beauty of the scene when summer comes ; 

 and we should not forget that even the winter plantation 

 ought to be beautiful in summer too. 



The Oak, the Birch, the Dogwood and the Beech are only 

 four among many deciduous trees which may be selected for 

 conspicuous beauty in winter, while the list of deciduous 

 shrubs of similar value is very long. A shrubbery composed 

 entirely of evergreens, even though ma»y broad-leaved forms 

 are mingled with the coniferous species, can never be so beau- 

 tiful as one which is enlivened by such plants as the Scarlet- 

 twigged Dogwoods, the Golden-barked Willows, the Kerria, 

 with its shining green branchlets, by the Carolina Rose, the 

 High-bush Cranberry, the Cockspur Thorn, the Black Alder, 

 and the Snowberries, each carrying well into the winter its load 

 of fruit, now black, now white and now a vivid red, and by the 

 Bittersweets, with their contingent of still more brilliant orange 

 and scarlet berries. Then, too, one might recommend the 

 planting in a winter landscape of a few very early-flowering 

 shrubs like the Forsythias and the Shad-bush, which, though 

 they will not add distinctly to the actual winter effect, will 

 prove spring's arrival at the earliest moment. 



As regards the choice of the evergreens to be used in 

 winter plantations we merely note that, since Downing's day, 

 the list of available exotics for this purpose has vastly in- 

 creased, while more attention is paid to those native plants for 

 whose use he so persistently and earnestly pleaded. We will, 

 however, recommend one single plant of the latter kind, com- 

 mon along our eastern shores but not nearly so well known as 

 many costly exotics of far inferior beauty. This is the Ink- 

 berry {Ilex glabra), which, in its native woods, grows tall and 

 rather straggling, but, under cultivation, assumes a compacter 

 form while losing none of its grace. Its beautifully shaped, 

 long, narrow leaves, delicately toothed at the apex, recall the 

 Laurel-leaves one sees so constantly in Grecian decoration ; 

 they remain bright green and glossy throughout the winter, 

 while an added attraction is offered by the clusters of small 

 black berries. This is one of the most beautiful of North 

 American shrubs, even when compared with others which 

 carry their leaves throughout the winter ; and in winter the 

 lightness of its spray and small size of its leaves contrast favor- 

 ably with the broad-leaved evergreens more generally planted. 



