Making and Maintaining a Hedge 



By F. A. Waugh, A 



mherst. 

 Mass. 



THE PROPER HANDLING OF NEWLY SET OR OLD ESTAB- 

 LISHED HEDGES— WHEN TO PRUNE AND TRIM — GOOD 

 REASONS WHY WE OUGHT TO PLANT MORE HEDGES 



IACK of privacy is the national and 

 constitutional defect in American 

 j home gardens. The place is all a 

 " front yard " — to use the common 

 vernacular — a phrase which in fact focuses 

 attention squarely on the defect. 



We need less front yard and more real 

 home life in our gardens. This in turn sig- 

 nifies that we must use the back yards and 

 side yards more; also that we must secure for 

 them the seclusion which will enable an hon- 

 est citizen after the day 's work is over, to 

 retire to his home garden, pull off his coat 

 and, in short, make himself perfectly at 

 home. 



In old-fashioned, old-world gardens this 

 domestic privacy was forcibly secured by 

 building high walls of brick or stone. Lichens 

 and mosses and climbing vines soon softened 

 their outlines and took away the possible 

 feeling of the jail-yard. These walled 

 gardens in fact became in the highest degree 

 agreeable and attractive. 



Yet there are many cogent reasons why 

 the stone wall is not suited to democratic 

 America. It would be misunderstanding 

 our people and our climate to recommend 



Van Houttei's spirea makes an excellent flowering hedge for ornament growing even in shade 



that particular means of privacy for 

 Detroit, Mich., and Ponca, Okla. 



We can substitute the living hedge for 

 the wall. 



It is ratner unfortunate, of course, that 

 so many boys and girls should have known 

 the osage orange as the hedge plant 

 of their youthful days. It is hard 

 for those folk, now making gardens 

 of their own, to think of a hedge 

 except as something sav- 

 age. The hedge about the 

 home grounds should be 

 nothing of that sort, 

 surely ; but 

 there are very 

 few trees and 

 shrubs which 

 are not alto- 

 gether better 

 for this partic- 

 ular use. 



Now the 

 hedge which is 

 to shut in the 





For flower effect in August the rose of Sharon (Alllidsa Syriacus) is unequalled, but it comes into leaf late in spring 



287 



back yard and the side yard and thus pro- 

 vide a place for the privacy of daily domestic 

 life may be either formal or informal. It 

 may be of one straight row of trees precisely 

 pruned to straight lines, or it may be of 

 mixed trees and shrubs, irregular in outline, 

 varied in texture and color, and presenting 

 the appearance of a garden border. It will 

 indeed be a genuine garden border, but it 

 will be so thickly set and so continuous 

 along the property lines, as to serve fully 

 the purposes of any hedge. Again it may 

 beformalon the outside, trimmed tostraight 

 lines, and yet entirely irregular and informal 

 on the inside of the same hedge border. 



To make an informal hedge it is simply 

 necessary to plant a border of mixed species 

 of hardy character and rather strong-grow- 

 ing, upright habit. Some of the sorts which 

 are particularly adapted to this sen-ice are 

 Comus candidissima, Forsythia viridissima, 

 Deutzia scabra, the common lilac, Spircea 

 intermedia, Rosa rugosa and any of the 

 upright native hardy roses, the common 

 privet, Amorpha fruticosa, Berberis cana- 

 densis and vulgaris, Caragana arborescens, 

 native hawthorns, native plums, Japanese 

 quince, Diervilla florida and other kinds, 

 Eleagnus angustifolia, Exochorda grandi- 

 flora, Ilex verticillata, Lonicera Morrowi 

 and Tatarica, Physocarpus opnlifolins, Ribes 

 aureum, Rubus odoratus, Sambucus Cana- 

 densis and pubens, several of the viburnums, 

 and others. In other words there is a great 

 wealth of first class material for this sort 

 of thing. 



If a plain straight simple trimmed hedge 

 is desired the list of practicable materials 

 is fully as long. This seems to be a point 

 of general misapprehension. People have 

 adopted the idea that only a few species of 

 plants, such as the privet and the arbor- 

 vitae, are capable of hedge service, whereas 

 the real fact is that almost any hardy species 

 will answer the purpose, and most of the 

 common shrubs will do admirably. While 



