LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 13 



1 



mezereum, Mahonia aquifoUa, Hypericum percinum, barberries 

 qf all aerta, and also privet, are good plants for the purpose. For 

 covering the ground in the summer, in places where the grass 

 fails to succeed, the varieties of vinca, of ribbon grass, Hypericum 

 hirsatum and Irish ivy are among the many good vines and 

 creepeis &at may be used. 



Hardy Shrubs are readily propagated from cuttings of the 

 present year's growth of wood. 



It is letter to make cuttings of all hardy shrubs, as currant?, 

 gooseberries, wieglas, spiraeas, etc., in the autumn than to delay 

 •until mid-winter or spring. At this time the wood and bud are 

 all in full health and capable of sustaining themselves into 

 growth in spring independent of the root ; but late in winter 

 they are often so much enfeebled by exhaustion and exposure to 

 extremes of cold, that often they fail to grow even under the 

 best of care. This loss of vitality, if the shoot or bud were left 

 on the parent plant, would be renewed in the spring by means 

 of the roots, but when separated therefrom, can not be replaced, 

 and hence the cause for a too oft failure in growing winter-made 

 cuttings. Cuttings early in Autumn may be at once planted out 

 in the open ground where they are to gro-vy, and covered entirely 

 first with earth, then over it with a light character of mulch, ^s 

 straw, meadow hay, etc., the mulch to be remo.ved in spring and 

 the earth also down to a strong bud. Or the cuttings may be 

 tied in bundles and packed in clean sand in a cool cellar or pit, 

 or. they may be packed away in thin layers, with moss inter- 

 vening, and so kept for planting out in early spring. 



Bases Propagated by means of Layers should, as soon as it is 

 certain they have become rooted, be taken up and potted off in 

 good sharp, rich, sandy soil. It is no trick to form the layer, 

 but many rose-growers know to their cost the loss attendant 

 duuring winter of layered plants taken up and potted or heeled in 

 at the close of the growing season. Pot them as soon as they 

 have made an inch of root ; set them in a shady place, water 

 mrdHlly for a few days, ox until there is no appearance of their 

 flaggiog, when the pots luay be plwiged in the soil, out in ib& 



