3o6 OLanbscape Hrcbitecture 



related to their more important neighbours, but to have 

 too many of them, or to locate them improperly, works 

 often great injury to the picture and mars, in various 

 ways, its harmony. The following remarks, therefore, 

 will bear chiefly on this fitness of a plant for a landscape 

 picture both in appearance and general habit. 



To follow the seasons and make each one interesting 

 as it comes forward in turn will always have much 

 value for many people. One of the earliest things to 

 come in leaf and flower is the willow, and as a lawn 

 plant it has many good qualities. It wiU Hve and 

 thrive in almost any soil, especially a wet one. The 

 fresh-looking flowers it bears in early spring are always 

 a kind of revelation or forestate of good things to come. 

 Not all willows are of equal value in lawn planting 

 although there are numerous species and varieties. 

 The difficulty with the wiUows is that they are liable 

 to become naked and bare of foliage as they grow older, 

 and like most soft wooded trees their beauty is apt to be 

 short lived. One of the best willows for its retention 

 of beauty, bushiness, and general health is the common 

 white willow, SaKx alba. It is superior for this reason 

 to the red-stemmed willow and the yellow, Salix vitellina 

 aurea, and especially the weeping willow, Salix baby- 

 lonica. The latter grows often into a fine tree with 

 great spreading branches, but it is brittle and stiffers 

 much from ice storms, which, helped by windstorms, 

 generally succeed eventually in destroying it. There 

 seems to be little reason for using this willow along 

 watersides. Its drooping habit is not specially attrac- 



