OUR OWN EVERGREEN GARDEN 
LEONARD BARRON 
Here the ever welcome visitor may easily compare the various attractions of a hundred or more ornamental evergreens 
GARDEN of evergreens may be composed of two quite 
distinct classes of plants, generally spoken of as “Coni- 
ferous” and “Broad-leafed.” This description is an easy 
way of general distinction, but it is not strictly exact; 
because some evergreens that are not broad-leafed do not bear 
their fruit in “cones,” and some cone-bearers are not evergreen. 
But for horticultural purposes these divisions have a certain 
convenience. 
Regarded as garden material, plants that are “evergreen” are 
especially valuable because the persistent foliage lends color all 
the year round and gives life to the picture in winter; and more- 
over these evergreen trees are particularly useful as screens and 
as wind breaks. If evergreen screens were more largely planted 
it would be a great help, by reason of the shelter thus provided, 
to increasing the number of available plants for seasonal effect 
in the borders. From a landscape point of view, too, the ever- 
green is important in affording a suitable background against 
which the flowering merits of many shrubs, trees, and herbaceous 
plants can be seen to best advantage. And quite apart from 
these secondary considerations of their value the evergreens 
appeal strongly for their individual characteristics— their di- 
versity of leaf form, their rich range of coloring, and their “tex- 
ture” of the mass. 
The evergreen garden recently planted in the Garden Maga- 
zine grounds at the Country Life Press, Garden City, is chiefly 
a collection of the cone bearers — which is the general popular 
conception of an “evergreen” — but it has also a few examples 
of other things, for illustration and comparison. As originally 
planted this collection of evergreen conifers numbered about 
i 50 species, varieties and garden forms, as offered ordinarily in 
the nursery catalogues. A number of these have not proved 
hardy in the climate and conditions of Garden City, and quite 
recently there have been added a number of the newest intro- 
ductions of Mr. E. H. Wilson, from China — some of these we 
are glad to say promise to be among the best examples of their 
kinds in this country. The soil at Garden City is of a sandy na- 
ture, dry, and not deep — hence the Pines are favored more than 
the Spruces, etc. 
The coniferous evergreens are generally native of the cooler 
regions of the earth, inhabiting in greatest variety the northern 
climes or, as we proceed southward, the elevations of the moun- 
tains. They include some of the most gigantic trees on the face 
of the earth, and some of its oldest living occupants as seen in 
the Big Tree of California. The gardener, however, is perhaps 
quite as much interested in the multitude of dwarf forms that 
lend themselves so well to ground of small dimensions. 
And to him these are quite familiar, while only travelers into 
their native regions can have any knowledge of the adult forms 
which may be giant trees. 
Coming down to this age from the most remote era, the coni- 
fers furnish a direct connection with the vegetation that gave us 
the coal measures, perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago. 
Some of the trees that we know as living things to-day are, in- 
deed, almost, if not quite, identical with some among these 
ancient forests; and, identical or not, as we know them are the 
direct descendants of a very, very ancient vegetation, which 
occupied the earth long before the majority of our present-day 
deciduous trees appeared. 
To the botanist the cone bearing trees thus are of absorbing 
interest, in which the gardener may well share. May it not be 
that certain uncertainties among these plants are related to the 
struggle for existence that has gone on, and still is going on? In 
the evolution of the present day forms, in the effort to adapt 
themselves to the changing conditions, plants have undergone 
many changes. The marked tendency in some species or groups 
to variation, especially in the stage of youth, is curiously inter- 
esting in this association — for example the so-called Retinis- 
poras, which are juvenile forms of two species, and which in 
due season, as they age, assume a very different character. The 
range of variation observed in the several forms of Yew may 
also be nothing more than the geographical adaptation of forms 
of one common origin over long ages. 
Considered with the coniferous evergreens are the Yews, 
although they do not bear cones; and this group includes the 
curious Maidenhair-tree, which however is deciduous — i. e., 
it sheds all its foliage annually, as does the Larch which does 
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