MY SHRUBS 
INTRODUCTION 
not generally receive the attention they deserve.” The 
statement continues to be true, though things are more 
hopeful for these plants ; they are coming into their own gradually, 
and the shrubbery begins to be a valued feature of the garden, 
instead of that worthless jungle with which our fathers were 
content. Your true gardener naturally seeks and aspires to the 
unattainable, and since my patch is but little larger than a table- 
cloth, my desire has always been towards trees. This is 
the normal ambition of people with small gardens, while others, 
who possess ancestral acres, and could display a forest and plant 
pinetums for posterity, will be found to cultivate the moraine, and 
desire nothing more than enough limestone or granite chips to 
fill a hatbox. For such is our contrary human nature. 
Trees, then, being out of the question here, I have bowed 
to fate in this matter, and fallen back upon shrubs, or trees that 
will preserve shrubby dimensions, until my concern with them 
has ended and I go where our “ half-hardies ” cease from troub- 
ling and the Alpines are at rest. Even shrubs cannot receive all 
the accommodation they desire ; but, on the principle that a lord 
would rather be elbowed by another lord than a chimney-sweep 
or a coal-heaver, I only suffer my plants to be hustled by their 
A 
o G ee said George Nicholson, thirty years ago, “‘ do 
