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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1912 



A dwarf Japan cypress known as Retinispora ob- 

 tusa. These cypresses are the showiest and most 

 popular of all dwarf evergreens, but are short-lived 



satisfaction in this world like that of plant- 

 the right kinds of trees — the ones that 

 will thrive for centuries after the cheap, 

 quick, gaudy kinds have perished. But I 

 should plant Japanese yew only for dividing 

 lines between the compartments of an estate 

 not in the garden, for the weight of English 

 authority is against yew in the garden, 

 because it robs the soil and, therefore, 

 increases unnecessarily the yearly cost of 

 maintenance. 



EVERGREENS FOR GARDEN VISTAS 



The smaller a garden the fewer and 

 smaller should be the trees in it, since trees 

 rob flowers of food, drink and sunshine. 

 Consequently the columnar evergreens are 

 especially valuable because they take little 

 room and cast no harmful shade. The 

 most famous of these is the Roman cypress 

 which does indifferently in our Southern 

 states. Our best tree for the purpose is 

 red cedar and next comes arborvitae. The 

 great temptations are Irish yew and Irish 

 juniper, which are so effective in Europe, 

 and so short-lived here. 



Perhaps you can frame the best vista 

 from your garden by means of two groups 

 of red cedars — say three in a group. But, 

 before you decide, ask some artist whether 

 your view should be framed by vertical 

 or horizontal lines. Perhaps white pine 

 would be better because of its marked hori- 

 zontal branches. The ideal, if your climate 

 warrants, is cedar of Lebanon or its equiv- 

 alent, e. g. Sargent's hardy form of it or the 

 Mt. Atlas cedar. 



Most gardens, however, have no good 

 outlooks, and therefore the vistas inside 

 the garden become doubly important. 

 The finest object in the garden eventually, 

 will probably be the tallest evergreen tree, 

 like the deodar in the centre of a famous 

 Southern garden. You will often see small 



houses dwarfed by tall trees, and small 

 gardens spoiled by a tall Norway spruce in 

 the centre. A tree of medium height is 

 usually in better proportion and a pair of 

 Japanese yews may be the ideal. This 

 thought is suggested by the venerable 

 pair of English yews at Haddon Hall of 

 Haddonfield, N. J. These trees are over 200 

 years old and are the heroes of the garden. 



Another way to improve vistas within 

 the garden is to have some beautiful object 

 terminate every walk. Here you want 

 some object at about the height of the eye, 

 e. g. a fountain, arbor, seat, or some low 

 evergreen of richest texture, like Fortune's 

 yew {Cephalotaxus Fortunei), Japanese 

 arborvitae {Thuya Japonica), mugho pine, 

 umbrella pine, or Chinese arborvitae {Thuya 

 orientalis). But be sure you have the right 

 conditions of sun, shade, shelter and 

 moisture for these aristocrats. 



A third way to improve the vistas is to 

 consider the skyline. Break up monotony 

 by means of arbor, summer house, vines on 

 the wall, or evergreens at the four corners. 



A fourth way to multiply vistas inside 

 a garden is to use arches. The normal 

 material for an arch is a vine, but I have 

 never seen an arch of evergreen vines in 

 the north and doubt whether it is practical 

 to use English ivy or climbing euonymus 

 in this way. Within the last decade red 

 cedars have been trained to arches. They 

 have been used by Dr. and Mrs. Peter B. 

 Wyckoff at Southampton, Long Island. 



EVERGREENS FOR YEAR-ROUND BEAUTY 



The special value of evergreens is that 

 they make a garden beautiful and com- 

 fortable in winter when we need extra in- 

 ducement to exercise outdoors. Unfortu- 

 nately there are cheerless and dismal ever- 





Norway spruce, another type of the short-lived 

 evergreens which are irresistible to beginners be- 

 cause the cheapest and prettiest in the nursery 



This garden would be very tame without the tall 

 hedge of arborvitae that surrounds it. Pink petu- 

 nias and box edgings at the Peters place, at Islip. 

 Long Island 



greens, as well as cheerful ones, and many a 

 garden is ugly in winter because they are 

 overhung by climatic failures, e. g. Norway 

 spruce, and the Scotch and Austrian pine 

 which get thin, brown, ragged, and sickly 

 in twenty or thirty years. The cheerfullest 

 evergreens in winter are the healthiest and 

 most robust ones, e. g. white pine, concolor 

 fir, Douglas spruce, red pine, Carolina hem- 

 lock, Nordmann's fir, and Japanese yew. 



Unhappily our own red cedar and arbor- 

 vitae get rather brown and dingy in winter 

 and therefore it is a mistake to use them 

 exclusively as many do. Moreover, lovers 

 of symmetry and color are naturally 

 attracted to the dwarf varieties of the 

 arborvitae, e. g. the silver, golden, globose, 

 pyramidal, pendulous, and crested. I 

 once saw twenty-five varieties of arbor- 

 vitae, all very showy in the buying season, 

 but dull and dead-looking in winter. 



The most surprising winter colors are 

 produced by the Japan cypresses or retinis- 

 poras, for some of them take on steely grays 

 and blues while others run through various 

 shades of bronze. The climax of showiness 

 is the dwarf golden Chinese cypress, called 

 by nurserymen Biota nana anrea, which 

 achieves a bright red near New York, but 

 at a certain cost in hardiness. Indeed the 

 bronzing of evergreens is generally a sign 

 that they are near the limit of their hardi- 

 ness, and therefore they are more or less 

 unhappy. Therefore, while I yield to none 

 in admiration of retinisporas, I would have 

 few or none in my ideal garden, because they 

 are inclined to look shivery in winter, as con- 

 trasted with warm, lusty and longer-lived 

 plants mentioned under the next heading. 



DWARF EVERGREENS FOR BEDDING 



Mr. Bowditch of Boston is said to be 

 chiefly responsible for the popular taste 

 in dwarf evergreens as he introduced the 

 practice of using beds of gaily colored ever- 



