32 HARDY PERENNIALS 
unrestricted sunlight and open air, though some 
deUght in cool, moist shady nooks, and many will 
thrive where only a moderate amount of either 
morning or afternoon sun reaches them. It is 
obviously unwise to deliberately shut out air and 
sunshine by surrounding a garden with coarse- 
growing evergreen shrubs. The favourite plan of 
the average jobbing gardener who undertakes to 
lay out a new garden is to surround it on all sides 
with Privet hedges, and plant clumps of common 
Laurel, Aucuba japonica, common Thuya or Cupres- 
sus, to 'afford shelter,' as they say. It is sadly 
uneducated taste that finds enjoyment in the daily 
contemplation of these dull features of the usual 
run of suburban gardens, and it should be remem- 
bered that every yard of space occupied by these 
hungry, moisture-absorbing and air-excluding shrubs 
spoils two or three adjoining yards for the proper 
growth of choicer flowering plants. A wind-swept 
site will certainly be improved by the provision of 
wind-breaks, but a neat wooden fence, which can be 
covered with interesting climbing plants, will afford 
better shelter and occupy less space than any of 
these common shrubs. It is, of course, quite per- 
missible to plant a few trees, but at any rate where 
space is limited, it is far better from every point of 
view to plant deciduous flowering trees, such as 
Almonds, double Cherries, the finer Crab Apples, 
the purple-leaved Prunus pissardii, golden-flowered 
Laburnum or double May, than to overwhelm the 
