170 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PLANTING FOR AUTUMN AND WINTER EFFECT. 

 By the Hon. Vicary Gibbs. 



Considering how many people in England spend their autumn and 

 winter in their country homes, and the spring and summer in London, 

 it is curious that more pains are not taken to plant trees and shrubs 

 which are at their best during the later season of the year. I propose in 

 this paper to make some suggestions as to plants suitable for this 

 purpose, and as to the way in which they should be treated. It is quite 

 a mistake to suppose that to get good winter-colouring it is necessary 

 to obtain rare and expensive or delicate specimens ; some of the finest 

 effects can be produced by quite cheap and common stuff if properly 

 handled. For instance, among trees, no finer contrast of coloured stems 

 exists than that between Scotch Firs, when they have reached a certain 

 age and lost their lower boughs, and Silver Birches, if they are inter- 

 mingled, and the latter are pruned up to a height of some 12 or 15 

 feet. Again, among shrubs, the common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos 

 racemosus), which generally occurs in neglected shrubberies as an un- 

 pleasing half-starved weed, if the suckers are collected and planted in a 

 solid mass in open ground, with nothing over them to obstruct the light and 

 air, and if in the spring, when the sap is rising and the first sign of foliage 

 peeps out, they are cut down level with the soil, so that nothing is 

 visible, they will produce an appearance hardly recognisable by those 

 who are only accustomed to them under ordinary conditions. They make 

 a compact growth during the year of 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet, are covered 

 with their delicate pink flowers in the summer, and in the autumn are 

 set all over with the white fruit-balls, which last until the birds have 

 eaten them. This plan of cutting down to the ground in the spring is 

 requisite, or at least highly desirable, with many other subjects to which 

 I shall refer later, where winter-colouring is sought for. I have often 

 found it very difficult to persuade gardeners (whether amateur or pro- 

 fessional) to carry out my recommendation in this particular with regard 

 to such things as Spircea Douglasii or Gomus sanguined, and even when 

 they have promised to do so, I have found that they have not been able 

 to harden their hearts, and at the last moment have adopted the half- 

 measure of cutting the plants a foot from the ground. This has the result 

 of showing in winter a stiff uniform artificial line through the bed with 

 bright colouring above the line and dull below. It should be borne in 

 mind that it is invariably in the young wood that the most vivid colour 

 is procurable. 



What is really wanted to show autumn and winter colouring to full 

 advantage is that the planting should be in groups and masses of the 

 same species, and though this can be more completely carried out in large 

 places, yet it can be done much more than it is at present in gardens of 

 every size. 



It is only of late years that it has been realised that Roses and 



