July , 19 11 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



351 



anything that will afford a green back- 

 ground for these flowers is worthy of 

 diligent care. If the trees come to you 

 with a ball of native earth well burlapped 

 around their roots they are certain to grow. 



In the matter of spruce, we in the North- 

 west are as fortunate as the more favored 

 sections of the East. A feature worthy 

 of note is that all our spruces are compact 

 growers, while the only one that shows any 

 openness in its growth cannot be classed 

 as reliably hardy. The white spruce 

 {Picea alba) is a rather slow grower, some- 

 what stiff in the carriage of its branches, 

 with the shade of its green possibly a bit 

 lighter than that of the Norway spruce. 

 In its ability to bear crowding, it resembles 

 the ash, and like the ash should be used 

 where a large number of trees is desired 

 on a small area. The prettiest of all the 

 spruces is a native variety of the white 

 spruce, commonly known as the Black 

 Hills spruce {Picea alba, var. compacta). 

 It is compact in its habit of growth, 

 more decided than other forms in its 

 shade of green and altogether the 

 proper tree for a specimen evergreen on a 

 lawn. Individual plants will take on 

 color as marked as that of a Colorado blue 

 spruce, though they are of a more steely 

 blue and more suggestive of refinement. 

 In both the white and the Black Hills 

 spruces the needles are shorter, the twigs 

 more slender and the growth more com- 

 pact than in the blue spruce. A Black 

 Hills spruce has a tendency to carry its 

 branches and twigs at right angles to its 

 trunk, producing much the same layer- 

 like effect with its foliage that is such 

 a marked feature of the Colorado blue 

 spruce. Both the white and the Black 

 Hills spruce transplant readily. 



The vexatious thing about a Colorado 

 blue spruce (Picea pungens) apparently 

 more pronounced in the West than in the 

 East, is the uncertainty concerning its 

 color. I know of a specimen that did 

 not show a particle of color until it was 

 twenty years old. Equally, three-foot ma- 

 terial that I planted as blue is now plain 

 green, while some of those originally green 

 are turning blue, within three years. 

 Concerning its hardihood there is no 

 question, and transplanted with the least 

 care one need not lose a tree. This spruce 

 cannot well be used in mass planting, 

 not so much because of its striking color 

 for there are green ones enough to be had, 

 but there is never any telling how these 

 may turn out. In a planting of consider- 

 able extent, where there is sufficient green 

 to set off its color, a Colorado blue spruce 

 can be used with excellent results; but 

 where a spruce is desired in a planting 

 of limited area, a green specimen of 

 the Black Hills spruce is to be preferred. 



The Norway spruce (Picea excelsa) 

 requires shelter on the prairies and in 

 itself will not produce a dependable shelter 

 belt against our sweeping winds. On the 

 grounds of the Agricultural College of 

 North Dakota there is a well developed 

 hedge row of these trees, twenty-five feet 



The dwarf juniper is valuable for fronting down. It seems to be quite indifferent as to soil 



tall and twenty-five years old. Protec- 

 tion has made them possible. Trees from 

 this very hedge row, grouped out in the 

 open where the prairie winds can reach 

 them, are fast failing; as the outer ones 

 die and are removed the inner ones, lacking 

 this protection, also fail. The soil in which 

 the exposed group was planted is exactly 

 like that of the hedge row. Norway 

 spruce is apt to fail in soil in which the 

 white, Black Hills and Colorado blue 

 spruces do well. This spruce possesses 

 neither the drought-resisting nor the wind- 

 combating qualities of the others and can 

 not be recommended for extensive planting 

 in the Northwest ; and as none of the hardy 

 spruces droop as the Norway does, we 

 must forego this effect in our landscape. 

 As an auxiliary to a deciduous windbreak 

 the Norway spruce might be considered, 

 though even here the white or the Black 

 Hills spruces have the advantage, being 



far more rugged and, of course, fully as 

 effective in holding back the surface wind 

 during the winter. A well developed 

 spruce with its low spreading branches 

 is about as good a playhouse for children 

 as can be devised. 



The firs and the hemlocks are out of the 

 question in the Northwest. Arborvitse 

 (Thuya occidentalis) will grow well, and the 

 reason that most persons experience such 

 trouble with it is that they do not fully 

 understand its requirements. It should 

 be borne in mind that this evergreen is 

 native to cool, wet soils and, where dry 

 soils and a lack of rainfall prevail, young 

 arborvitse can scarcely be watered too 

 much. It appears not to be a matter of 

 cold or of winds, but merely a matter of 

 sufficient moisture that determines failure 

 or success with an arborvitae. However, 

 when the grace and beauty and hardiness 

 of a red cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) are 



The white cedar or arborvitse needs moisture and therefore is not so useful as the red cedar. 



at the extreme left 



Jack pine 



