THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



29 



58. Dwarf-growing varieties of arborvitae and reti- 

 nospora with some of the yews for height are hardy 

 in window boxes. Lawson's cypress, commonly used 

 is not hardy, and must be replanted each season 



THE UMBRELLA-PINE TYPE 



The Japanese umbrella pine {Sciadopitys 

 verticillata) . 

 the japan cypress type (See page 27). 



UNPLEASANT TRUTHS ABOUT FORMAL GARDENS 



Any lady who is socially ambitious and has 

 only a modest purse to draw on, would better 

 think eleven times before deciding to have a 

 formal garden. It costs more in the first 

 place than an informal garden, and is costlier 

 to maintain. She can never compete with 

 the wealthy, who can do things on a bigger 

 scale. Even they cannot maintain a formal 

 garden generation after generation in a coun- 

 try where estates are not entailed. Formal 

 gardens in America are usually either crude 

 and new or old and dilapidated. If the ever- 

 greens and hedges fail to get their annual 

 trimming they soon get beyond restora- 

 tion. Every bit of untidiness in a formal 

 garden is conspicuous. Every break in 

 a hedge is an eyesore and can be filled 

 only by plants of the same size from a 

 reserve store grown especially for the pur- 

 pose. The dominant evergreens of Eng- 

 lish and Italian formal gardens — box, yew 

 and laurel — are not sufficiently hardy from 

 Philadelphia north. Only in positions that 

 are protected from winter winds and sudden 

 bursts of sunshine, or in other exceptional 

 circumstances, is box hardy in New England, 

 and you can never tell what mild and inno- 

 cent-appearing winter will kill a branch here 

 and there in your oldest and most precious 

 specimen. The North can never compete 

 with the South or California in evergreen 

 formal gardens. It will always be an uphill 



struggle, full of losses and disappointments. 

 Formal gardens become monotonous. 



A great deal better thing to do is to grow 

 conifers of known hardiness in simple, natural 

 groups, so that the failure of one specimen 

 does not spoil the whole effect. 



But there are certain natures and certain 

 situations that demand a note of formalism, 

 and the least expensive way to gratify it is to 

 lay out the garden in geometrical fashion; 

 edge the paths with some coniferous ever- 

 green which can be kept at a height of two 

 feet by annual pruning, and grow flowers in 

 the beds thus formed. If perennials rather 

 than annuals are grown, there will be less 

 trouble and expense and the garden will be 

 far more interesting in April, May and June. 



THE GREAT SUPERIORITY OF RED CEDAR 



Anyone who has noticed the numberless 

 half-starved red cedars in the country stand- 

 ing up on so many stilts, would hardly 

 imagine that this evergreen is by far the most 

 promising of all material for formal gardens 

 in the northeastern United States. Yet so it 

 is. The red cedar can be trained into nearly 



every shape that is demanded in the formal 

 garden. These dominant forms are as follows: 



1. The standard or bay -tree form. — Of 

 course, no conifer can take the place of a 

 broad-leaved evergreen, but the bay must be 

 kept in a house all winter. 



2. The dome. — For this purpose the globose 

 arborvita; is superior to box, privet and 

 Catalpa Bungei, since box is not hardy 

 enough and the others are deciduous. 



3. The pyramid. — In this form, the red 

 cedar has to compete with arborvitae, Nord- 

 mann's and the silver fir, and the Douglas, 

 white and Norway spruce. 



4. The spire or column. — In this shape, the 

 red cedar will reproduce the effect of the 

 cypress in Italian gardens. 



5. The arch. — In default of a hardy ever- 

 green vine, red cedars can be trained in 

 pairs over iron pipes to form perfect garden 

 arches six feet across and ten feet high. 



Finally, the rugged picturesqueness of the 

 famous Swiss stone pine can be reproduced 

 by moving battled-scarred old cedars thirty 

 or thirty-five feet high, their bare trunks 

 crowned with an irregular tuft of foliage. 



59. Tender evergreens liKe Lawson's cypress can be used for interior decoration. They endure about 

 a year under such conditions as shown here— in the vestibule of an office building in New YorK City 



