March, 1909 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



77 



out the idea. For the ordinary mixed shrub- 

 bery is attractive only two months of the 

 year and an eyesore for five. This is simply 

 because the only shrubs we all know are 

 those with showy flowers. Consequently, 

 when ordering plants for a new shrubbery 

 we merely write down the names of all the 

 glorious old-time favorites such as lilacs, 

 azalea, mock orange, spirea, and hydrangea, 

 all of which are totally devoid of interest for 

 at least five-eighths of the year, while most of 

 them are also commonplace in foliage. The 

 same is true of the vast majority of shrubs 

 that are famous for their flowers. It is 

 absolutely impossible to get artistic effects 

 by this method. We must get rid of the 

 pestilential old idea that shrubs are only good 

 for flowers. The nurserymen ought to stop 

 writing "flowering shrubs" in their cata- 

 logues instead of "deciduous shrubs." 

 And they ought to quit booming the few 

 shrubs that flower 

 in July and August 

 because we do not 

 need excitement in 

 hot weather; we need 

 repose, and the most 

 reposeful color then 

 is green. Summer 

 is the natural resting 

 time for shrubbery, 

 between spring flow- 

 ers and autumn 

 fruits, and our nat- 

 ural time to enjoy the 

 texture of foliage. 

 It is all wrong to 

 try to make the 

 shrubbery brilliant 

 in midsummer with 

 alot of loud-mouthed 

 purplish-magenta 

 spireas like Anthony 

 Waterer, or "ever- 

 blooming bores " like 

 hydrangeas. It is 

 bad enough to have 

 our autumn land- 

 scape made monot- 

 onous by too many 

 top-heavy hydran- 

 geas in every yard, 

 without filling the 

 mer with these 

 A 



only in two or three months. The best way 

 to fill the big gaps is to employ a landscape 

 gardener. If you can't afford that, go to a 

 nursery and fill in your blanks from the 

 shrubs themselves, instead of checking 

 off names in an alphabetical list. If you 

 can't do that, make up your list with the help 

 of good classified catalogues and the lists of 

 shrubs for special purposes referred to at the 

 end of this article. 



The only part of this programme that seems 

 hard is the selection of summer or foliage 

 effects. But here 's the answer to that — 

 Cornus and Viburnum. We 've got to have 

 lots of those bushes anyhow for autumn and 

 winter effects. They may not be the show- 

 iest things in the world when in bloom, but 

 for texture of foliage, play of light and shade, 

 and individuality of bush they are hard to 

 beat. If you want to wake right up to our 

 "heaven-born opportunity" with shrubs, 



A glimpse of the famous azalea garden at Kew. but the best azalea gardens in England have a back 



ground of rhododendrons 



shrubbery in sum- 

 unnatural double flowers, 

 'night shift" may be proper at the glue 

 factory, but we don't want our shrubberies 

 to look as if they were working overtime. 

 In other words, what we ought to have in 

 every home shrubbery is flowers in spring; 

 foliage in summer; colors in autumn; and 

 berries and branches in winter. 



All this we can have by planning our 

 home grounds with reference to twelve 

 months instead of two or three. Forget all 

 about the old-time favorites for a minute. 

 You need not sacrifice any of them, but try 

 this easy plan and your eyes will be opened 

 to a new world of beauty. It is not even 

 necessary to know one kind of shrub from 

 another. All I ask is that you make a list 

 of the twelve months and have two or three 

 attractions for each month. Now list your 

 favorites and you will see that they help you 



go to Boston in summer and drive through the 

 Arnold Arboretum. For there you will see 

 all the long-lived American and Japanese 

 bushes that have the noblest or most graceful 

 personality, and you will see how cheap and 

 tawdry in comparison are such Coney Island 

 muckers as the golden elder and purple- 

 leaved plum. And then you will understand 

 what the best landscape designers and 

 nurserymen mean by such words as these: 

 "Flowers are not the main object; they 

 are only an incident. The principal thing 

 is the form, texture, and density of the foliage 

 masses and their way of carrying lights and 

 shadows." I used to think that such talk was 

 only "hot air" by the picayune brandof expert 

 who exalts the technical above the human — 

 the letter above the spirit. But it's plain, horse 

 sense. For any particular shrub blooms only 

 a fortnight or so; what you have to live with 

 every day for seven months is foliage. 



I am sorry to disappoint you if you were 

 expecting me to tell you how to copy English 

 effects with shrubbery, for there are n't any 

 worth worrying about. Of course, I took 

 about a bushel of notes on beautiful shrubs 

 I saw there, but when I came back I threw 

 them away, for they are no use to us. We 

 have got to hew out an entirely new path. 

 And it would be a sin and a shame for me 

 to crow about Cornus and Viburnum and 

 Hydrangea, simply because England can 

 never touch us there. For, the big fact is 

 that we are three hundred years behind 

 England on gardening and we ought to get 

 busy. The irregular shrubbery border is 

 "our game," but we play it in the wrong way, 

 and so the one thing we need most is not a 

 list of material, but a better way to plan a 

 border! 



No magazine can teach the people the art 

 of design. But here are a few rules that 

 anyone can use with 

 better results than 

 the haphazard meth- 

 ods we commonly 

 employ. First, draw 

 a diagram of your 

 home grounds to 

 scale. Then place 

 your trees where 

 they will shut out 

 unsightly things and 

 frame pictures of 

 beautiful objects in 

 the distance, such as 

 a church spire. Then 

 indicate where big 

 bushes are necessary 

 to hide what you 

 don't want to see, 

 and leave blanks 

 where they would cut 

 off the good views. 

 Then make a bold, 

 irregular outline for 

 your shrubbery bor- 

 der, leaving room 

 in front of the tall 

 shrubs for low ones. 

 The rest should be 

 unbroken lawn. 

 Next comes the 

 selection of the best bushes for the chief 

 mass effects — say twelve kinds, one for 

 each month, and then the arrangement of 

 these. Don't try to select all your bushes 

 now, and don't put off arranging them 

 until the shrubs arrive. Make twelve 

 slips, or one for each important period — 

 April effect, May effect, and so on. Add 

 to each slip the ultimate height of the bush 

 and the color of the flowers. This is the 

 easiest way to secure "finish" and avoid 

 color discords. 



The next job is to separate the slow 

 growers from the quick-growers, for the 

 former cost most and are soon crowded to 

 death by the latter in the ordinary mixed 

 border. The quick-growers are privet, 

 spirea, mock orange, hydrangea, golden 

 bells, deutzias, red- twigged dogwood — 

 anything you can buy in the form of one or 

 two year old plants at $8 to $20 a hundred. 



