PARK AND CEMETERY. 
222 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES of SHRUBBERY PLANNING 
A shrubbery is mostly used as a 
frame to a lawn or other open sur- 
face and should be designed on sim- 
ilar principles to those of any other 
frame whether of a picture or a pic- 
torial scene; whether the jamb of a 
door, the cornice of a building, the 
border of a rug, or anything else used 
to enclose and separate a composi- 
tion of any kind from its surround- 
ings. In other words, it should be 
designed on similar principles to those 
of the picture it encloses, with pre- 
dominance of some particular motive, 
due subordination of parts and pro- 
priety of detail — if any. But the aver- 
age shrubbery is put together with 
little regard to these cardinal princi- 
ples; it is a thing of shreds and 
patches, particularly patches of shrubs 
striking in color or texture; it is 
made up of masses of the most showy 
bushes available with little regard to 
the effect of their 'size, shape, color, 
texture and position on the whole. 
It may be useful to shortly discuss 
one or two typical examples. Sup- 
pose for instance a shrubbery bound- 
ing a small lawn, in plan like Fig. I, 
in dimensions about 100 feet over 
all. Looking for something to start 
from, it becomes plain that the plant- 
ing at each end must be deeper, and 
consequently higher at each end; oth- 
erwise the plants at the back could 
not be seen over those in the front. 
This will give a more or less con- 
cavely curved outline to the top of 
the planting. Now, as the first use 
of this mass of foliage is to make a 
frame for the lawn, it ought to be 
clearly one thing and not several, 
that is, it should be homogeneous in 
general effect. This ddes not mean, 
however, that it should be all alike, 
though even if it v.^ere, it might be 
a very fine thing; for instance a mass 
of rhododendrons or kalmias of suit- 
ably adjusted heights and sizes, or 
conifers dwarf and otherv/ise, or, in 
fact, of almost any kind of foliage 
that could be made to fill the required 
space and kept in the required pro- 
portions. 
But this kind of thing, though strik- 
ing, would in many situations seem 
monotonous, and we will try the 
mixed type of shrubbery as being 
more interesting and pertinent to our 
present purpose. Any kind of regu- 
lar pattern in this kind of design is 
plainly out of the question, so we 
will look about for salient features 
to stand out of and give variety to 
the w'hole. It seems as if some tall 
columnar forms would look well 
among the mass of round topped 
bushes, so we try the effect of a 
couple at 1, say Thuya pyramidalis 
or the glaucous red cedar for in- 
stance. So far, so good, but it would 
seem as if there might be something 
to balance them at the other end, not 
alike in form, but about equal in spe- 
cific gravity, perhaps a dogwood or 
magnolia conspicua set at No. 2; both 
are trees of about the same scale and 
color. These will break the outline 
and give the eye something to rest 
on. Now we might cast about for 
subordinate accents, not in size or 
shape, but in texture and color, and 
it occurs that something light and 
strong in color in the bend of the 
planting where it will be often seen 
in perspective will be well placed 
seen behind some spreading and 
darker foliage; so at No. 3 we put 
Spirtea Thunbergi, golden elder oi; 
Rubus odorata, not forgetting that 
none of these will always harmonize 
in texture with others, and that Spirsea 
Thunbergi is especially difficult to 
place satisfactorily. Yellow or var- 
iegated foliage will always look well 
in conjunction with the green forms 
of the same species. A dark spread- 
ing growth like Forsythia viridissima 
with branches overhanging the grass 
will probably look well at 5. Some- 
thing with pinnate leaves such as su- 
machs would relieve the generally 
round and solid masses of leafage and 
we will try Rhus glabra or copallina 
at 2. The rest of the space may be 
filled in with growth of the desired 
height and character in groups mixed 
or of one variety, choosing varieties 
that will not conflict in foliage and 
texture, viburnums, privete, philadel- 
phus, shrub dogwoods, where they 
have room to spread, and so forth. 
Care must be taken not to put large 
masses of light foliage next to masses 
of dark because of the resultant 
patchy effect. All this material indis- 
criminately mixed would look well in 
mass, or the foliage might be graded 
from one end to the other from light 
to dark or vice versa, or from the 
ends to the middle; with light tints 
behind the dark evergreens or dark 
ones harmonizing with them, or any 
other scheme that the designer may 
prefer. In front of these tall plants 
may be put Spiraeas of various kinds, 
Rosa rugosa, Clethra, several kinds of 
bush roses (not H. Ps.) Stephanandra 
FIG. I. 
