GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



look about their flowers which makes them fit mates 

 for the sea, and in winter they greatly modify its 

 gloom. Even though comparatively few owners of 

 seaside gardens visit them during the winter, it must 

 be a consolation to know that these green shrubs 

 are there making homes, perchance, for improvident 

 birds. 



Azaleas, which seem the natural companions of 

 rhododendrons from the contrasting piquancy of 

 their look, lose their leaves, for the most part, with 

 the first touch of frost. There is one, however, — the 

 little Azalea amcena, — which is as strictly evergreen 

 as the most dignified conifer. It is used as an edging 

 plant about beds of rhododendrons, and in fact 

 appears well wherever a low, brilliant evergreen is 

 desired. In June it unfolds masses of claret-colored 

 flowers which act as deep shadows when interspersed 

 with blooms more soft and delicate in tone. 



The laurels should find a place in every seaside 

 garden, or about the lawn where a shady nook can hide 

 them from too intense a sun. Under rhododendrons 

 they serve as well as azaleas to grade the planting 

 down to the earth. The native laurel, Kalmia lati- 

 folia, with its curiously formed, daintily colored flowers, 

 is invariably attractive, perhaps particularly so where 

 natural effects are desired. Sometimes it evokes the 

 complaint that after a year or two of garden life, or 

 a highly civilized existence near a lawn, its desire to 

 bloom seems to lessen and it has to be replaced. Never- 

 theless I have seen the native laurel in a seaside garden, 

 well protected by a friendly dwelling, live on indefinitely, 



