Christmas Cheer Outdoors All Winter—By Jabez Tompkins, 
Connec- 
ticut 
THE TRUE STORY OF AN ‘“‘OLD-TIMER’’ WHO GETS ALL THE ‘“‘FUN’’ OF GARDENING 
WITHOUT A LICK OF WORK, A CENT OF COST, OR EVEN A COLD IN THE HEAD 
1 MAY be a 
wrong - headed 
old man, but I be- 
lieve I have the 
“grandest scheme 
on earth”’—a prac- 
tical plan by ‘which 
all of us can enjoy 
the warmth and 
gaiety of the Christ- 
mas season all win- 
ie, Sineill I ell 
you how I stumbled 
upon it? 
- When I pulled 
out of Wall Street 
ten years ago and 
resolved to “do 
nothing ever afterward except just be happy 
on my country place,” I confess that the 
first winter away from town seemed mighty 
dull. I never noticed before how pesky hard 
the wind blows in the country and what a 
cold proposition the snow is—the whole 
earth covered with a glaring sheet of white, 
broken only now and then by the tattered 
rags of some old weeds. 
“Total amount of interest in this land- 
scape,” said I, “ought!” I know well 
enough that city grammars call for naught, 
but the word was n’t equal to the occasion. 
If there is any country that looks more cheer- 
less and monotonous for five-twelfths of the 
year than America I wish you ’d name it to 
me. So I cast about for some “fun.” 
“Why don’t you have a greenhouse?” 
asked Deborah. ‘You’re as fond of gar- 
dening as anything and you could putter 
around indoors when it’s too cold to go 
out.” 
I thought about anthracite at six-ought- 
five a ton and my pulse refused to quicken. 
Then I remembered a bill for repairs on his 
**T give the palm to Amer- 
ican holly ’’ 
ro 
t 
| 
| 
L 
“*It is certainly the most graceful of the roses for 
winter effect.’’ The multiflora 
greenhouses John Hinchman once showed 
me and I gagged. 
“Gardening in summer is all night 
enough,” I retorted, “but in winter I draw 
the line on work. I’m busy enough with my 
books and my fire. I’d be willing to look 
at something pretty outdoors if I did n’t have 
to go out on windy days or wait on a furnace.” 
When in doubt go to—Boston. Any 
problem can be solved there. I might have 
remembered that, but, as it happened, I 
went there merely on a visit to my daughter. 
One sunny day she drove me out to see the 
parks. 
“What are all those red things?” I 
inquired. 
“Those are shrubs with red berries on 
them. This is part of the Arnold Arbo- 
retum.”’ 
“Who was Arnold and what is an Arbore- 
“The winterberry you see glowing in the swamps 
at Christmas.’’ Black alder ( lex verticillata ) 
tum?” thought I, but didn’t dare to ask. 
I never did find out about Arnold, but I 
soon saw for myself that the Arboretum is 
the finest collection of trees and shrubs in 
America. 
“Those red things” excited me greatly. 
They warmed the whole landscape. Judg- 
ing by the effect on me they were a pretty 
fair substitute for coal. There were other 
colors, too—more varieties than I had ever 
dreamed of. We got out at what my 
daughter called the “Fruticetum” and 
walked up one path and down another until 
I had taken the name of every bush that 
struck my fancy. For now I was sure I had 
_ my idea for making winter interesting. I 
would have a collection of these berried 
shrubs. From every window of the house 
there should be visible some bright patch of 
color. I would also scatter a few bushes 
along the roadway so that my winter drives 
might have a little “ginger.” 
Out of one hundred possible errors I 
suppose I made over ninety. First I bought 
a lot of cheap ten-cent stock, which either 
died or waited three years to make a decent 
show of berries, instead of good big bushes at 
222 
oo erage Agee og ep oa 
f 
thirty-five to fifty 
cents which will 
give a fine display 
the first winter, if 
planted in the 
spring. Then the 
birds ate all the 
berries of some 
kinds, while others 
dropped their fruits 
soon after frost or 
else lost their at- 
tractiveness by 
Christmas. 
But my second 
winter in the coun- 
try was not so dull, 
for my barberries 
alone were worth all the trouble. They 
burned brightly against the snow all winter 
and I was convinced that I had a “tail holt” 
on a good idea that was practically unknown 
to books and landscape gardeners. IL 
searched forty “works” on gardening that 
The long-stalked holly 
(Ilex monticola ) 
winter in a vain hunt to find one single word. 
of appreciation for the new world of beauty 
that had been opened to me. Finally, I 
went to two or three landscape gardeners. 
for help, but they knew of nothing that I had 
not already planted. Their clients, appar- 
ently, were city men with summer homes, and 
the question of making the country interesting 
in winter had never come up in any large way. 
Two great facts now began to loom up: 
in my experience. First, the most valuable 
shrubs for winter effect are those which are 
attractive all winter, instead of falling by 
the way before Christmas. Therefore I 
would use the short-lived beauties only for 
spice and make my big plantings next spring 
of the kinds that would stay by me from 
November to March. | 
Second, I found that the cheeriest color 
*‘IT know a rose with even bigger ‘ hips” than rugosa 
and they last all winter!’’ 
