SHRUBS— DESCRIPTIONS 
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SHRUBS 
Shrubs are the most important ornamentals. They are valued and appreci- 
ated more and more, as indicated by a thousand sold now to one a generation ago. 
They have the greatest range of color and bloom, and occupy the most important 
space in the garden— and they give the quickest results. They are especially 
valued where there is only room for a few trees. The tall shrubs planted as a 
boundary make an elfectual screen, and even on the larger estates an under- 
growth of shrubbery is usually planted under the trees along the boundary. Many 
fine old places have an excellent growth of trees, but lack a proper planting 
of shrubs. Shrubs are the natural complement of trees, fiUing in the gap between 
their branches and the ground, and it is possible to get homelike results from shrubs 
tliat it would take years to acquire with trees alone. Anyone who has walked 
through woods from which all the natural undergrowth has been cleared away by an 
over-tidy owner, realizes that they liave lost half their charm. 
Trees can not be planted close to a house without robbing it of light and air, 
but tall shrubs, as a background for lower ones grouped around them, take off the 
sharpness of the corners, and let the sunshine stream in at the windows. Banked 
in front of foundation walls, they relieve the harshness of the line where house and 
land meet. The home nestles cosily in a nest of green, instead of springing suddenly 
from the lawn like a Jack-in-a-bo.x. 
It is cheaper to use shrubs to hide a steep bank or a deep cavity than it is to 
grade them. Many a house set on a narrow ridge of hUl-top would appear to be 
less in danger of falling over the edge if the slopes around it were broadened by shrubs . 
