456 
DECIDUOUS SHRUBS^, 
“ landscape-gardening ” style ; and whether the shrubs are to be 
used in masses, or for single specimens. All these considerations 
will render one or another shrub more desirable according to its 
size and form ; and size and form will, therefore, be the qualities 
that must first be considered. But, aside from the question of size 
alone, there are certain general qualities that will apply to all 
shrubs to make them always more or less desirable in well-kept 
places. The most essential is, that the foliage be so luxuriant on 
all parts as to cover the branches. Next, that the leaves come out 
early, and retain a good color till hard frosts. Third, that the 
flowers be conspicuous, of pure colors, and fragrant. Fourth, that, 
while preserving a shrubby character, they be free from a suckering 
habit, by which the ground or lawn for some distance around the 
collar of the stems is annually incumbered by sprouts from the 
roots. Shrubs which have stems uniting like the branches of a 
tree in a common heart or trunk, provided they cover the ground 
in a shrubby manner, are likely to be more graceful, and certainly 
neater and more gardenesque than those which throw up suckers 
far from the centre stems ; but there are some, like the flowering 
currant, for instance, which have this bad quality, and are yet in 
dispensable for their many other good features. 
Now, if we bear in mind these most essential qualities, and 
look over any good list of shrubs, to select a half dozen of the best, 
it will be found that our most common materials, such as the lilacs, 
bush-honeysuckles, syringas, snow-balls, deutzias, and weigelas, are 
the ones which approximate most nearly to perfect shrubs ; and we 
shall find it difficult to select another half dozen, no matter what 
expense we are willing to incur, that equal the six species in 
beauty of form, foliage, or bloom , though single shrubs may be 
named that will excel some of them in many qualities. 
Enthusiastic amateurs, as well as professional gardeners and 
nurserymen, hail with delight every change and shade of change 
from old forms, not because the new things are any more beautiful 
than the old, but simply because they are novelties ,* and from 
much the same impulse that we prefer new books to old ones, with- 
out stopping to compare closely their intrinsic merits. Men who 
are constantly studying trees and shrubs, learn to observe with in- 
