116 FLOWER GARDENING 
large enough to use evergreen conifers, it is best 
expressed by box and ilex; though conifers of 
very small size may be allowed with equal propri- 
ety to pass as shrubs. Box is the most beautiful 
edging and normally is very hardy. As shrubs 
go, it is expensive; but with five-inch edging at 
three dollars a hundred and five dollars for fine 
single specimens about four feet high, the price is 
not prohibitive. Both the English holly (Ilex aqui- 
folia, var. Hodginsii) and the American holly (J. 
opaca) may be had in four-foot specimens for about 
half the price. Clipped California privet of the 
same size costs five dollars or so for a pyramid 
or globe; the shrub itself is cheap, but the train- 
ing has to be paid for. 
For less formal or wholly unconventional ef- 
fects there are more than a dozen evergreen shrubs 
whose worth in the garden itself does not begin 
to be appreciated. Foremost among them, because 
superb bloom is added to strongly effective foli- 
age, are certain rhododendrons and the mountain 
laurel (Kalmia latifolia). These have thrived in 
a full exposure; but if the garden has no shaded 
spot, they are safer when planted where the sun 
does not beat down on them relentlessly in sum- 
mer and the force of the winter’s winds is broken 
by protecting trees and shrubs on the North. 
Moreover, such a situation, perhaps on the edge 
of the garden, best becomes them. Both require 
soil made fibrous by peat or leaf mold; also a 
heavy winter mulch of leaves, to be left on as a 
