A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 



beauty year after year by failure to realize this 

 principle of the need of background, is a piteous 

 thing. The smallest bit of ground may be a pic- 

 ture, if little trees and dwarf shrubs are used. 

 Flowers should be the garlanding, so to speak, 

 the ornamentation of the finished structure, and 

 not its main feature. 



The old English practice of using flowering trees 

 in all flower-gardens should be followed everywhere 

 in our country. In our most beautiful gardens this 

 is so. The flowering tree gives permanency to the 

 garden, and when we have seen, as at the arbore- 

 tum, the perfect beauty of such things as the flow- 

 ering crab-apples — Prunus Sargentii, Prunus suh- 

 hirtella, Malus Arnoldiana — shall we be satisfied 

 with gardens which lack these ? Never. Shall we 

 be content without the delicious hardy azaleas, 

 running fires in our spring borders? Beyond our 

 garden walls shall we not wish for the lovely 

 overhanging crab, like a veiled bride among the 

 young green all about? This and much else you 

 may see in the Arnold Arboretum. Arrange to 

 make pilgrimage there this very May. Plan to 

 get others to go with you; they will see what 

 you will not, and point that out to you. Leave 

 at home your mirror or other small accessory, 



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