What America Can Teach England About Shrubs— By w. Miller, 



THE ONLY IMPORTANT MATERIAL IN WHICH WE HAVE A STRIKING CLIMATIC ADVANTAGE OVER 

 ENGLAND— WHY WE HAVE IGNORED OUR OPPORTUNITY AND HAVE EVEN STARTED ON A FALSE SCENT 



New- 

 York 



THE only material in which America 

 has a striking climatic advantage over 

 England is shrubbery. When my colleague, 

 Mr. Leonard Barron, came to America, the 

 one horticultural feature that struck him as 

 new and strange was the burst of spring, 

 especially the dramatic fortnight when the 

 fruit trees are in bloom. For in England 

 spring comes so early and gradually that 

 March is a month of unique floral charm, 

 with its thousands of daffodils and Lenten 

 lilies, its exquisite blue carpets of Grecian 

 windflowers, and its 

 lambent sheets of 

 gold wrought by the 

 winter aconite. But 

 in America March is 

 a rough and flower- 

 less month in the 

 North, and spring 

 comes with a rush 

 when the orchards 

 bloom. England's 

 fruit trees are mostly 

 hidden from view 

 behind high brick 

 walls in private gard- 

 ens. And while we 

 know nothing about 

 amateur fruit grow- 

 ing for quality, we 

 lead the world in 

 commercial orchard- 

 ing; consequently our 

 whole landscape is 

 a mass of shimmer- 

 ing white at the poetic 

 moment of the year, 

 just before the trees 

 leaf out. Now, the 

 largest group of flow- 

 ering shrubs belongs 

 to the same family 

 as the fruit trees, 

 and ninety per cent, 

 of all our shrubs 

 join the mighty chor- 

 us that celebrates 

 the death of our 

 atrocious winter. 



Another dramatic 

 moment comes in Oc- 

 tober, when the 

 American landscape 

 has vivider foliage 

 effects than the Eng- 

 lish. True, the big- 

 gest masses of color 

 are supplied by the 

 trees, but the shrubs 

 give the finishing 

 touch to a perfect 

 picture. England 

 can never enjoy such 

 an autumn show be- 

 cause her cool and 



moist summers prolong growth, while our 

 hot and dry ones promote maturity. Eng- 

 land can never produce so thrilling a 

 spring flower show, because her autumn is 

 cool and moist and therefore the shrubs 

 cannot properly ripen their wood and make 

 good buds. 



The neglect of shrubs in English gardens 

 will be apparent if you examine any of the 

 sumptuously illustrated books on English 

 gardening. The greatest collection of large 

 photographs on this subject is called "The 



An ash-leaved sorbaria from Afghanistan that ought to run out of our gardens 

 blooming spireas that have stiff cones of purplish flowers (Sorbaria 



75 



Gardens of England," yet I have just turned 

 over the 272 plates thus far published 

 without finding a single picture in which 

 flowering shrubs play an important part! 

 In American gardens shrubs have always 

 been a common feature, and the most 

 precious old gardens we possess generally 

 contain a few grand old bushes of such height 

 and magnificence as one never sees in the 

 ordinary mixed shrubbery. 



But we need not "throw out our chest like 

 a Russian sleigh " because of this one 

 advantage. For it 

 will be at least three 

 hundred years, in my 

 opinion,bef ore Amer- 

 ica becomes one great 

 garden, as England 

 is. And our advan- 

 tage in deciduous 

 shrubs is more than 

 counterbalanced by 

 her advantage in 

 evergreen shrubs, es- 

 pecially hybrid rho- 

 dodendrons. For 

 these gorgeous plants 

 not only have their 

 showy bloom, but 

 their magnificent fol- 

 iage is full of inspi- 

 ration all winter, 

 while deciduous 

 shrubs, broadly 

 speaking, look naked 

 and shivery in our 

 climate. The Eng- 

 lish winter is natur- 

 ally mild, but the 

 ubiquitous English 

 laurel (which we can- 

 not grow) makes it 

 cheerful and beauti- 

 ful, while ours is 

 bleak and ugly. I 

 cannot understand 

 why horticultural 

 writers nearly always 

 jumble these two 

 elements in the same 

 article on "shrubs." 

 For good landscape 

 gardeners never put 

 both in the same 

 shrubbery border. 

 And we can have no 

 clear thinking or good 

 design unless we make 

 a sharp distinction 

 between precious and 

 worthless material 

 for winter since, in 

 the North, this com- 

 prises five-eighths of 

 the year, or from the 

 middle of October to 



the miserable summer- 

 Aitchiso/ti) 



