SHRUBS WHICH KEEP 
THE WINTER GARDEN GREEN 
miwt'r. 
H 
B. Y. MORRISON 
Many Good Evergreens and Other Shrubs Colorful in Fruit and 
Stem which Defy Rigorous Days Even in Gardens of the North 
H HEN the frosts of autumn have made their first havoc 
in the garden, removing all the tender things in a night 
and marking even the hardiest survivors with a touch 
of dissolution, evergreens appear with a new value 
among their deciduous kin. This was emphatically proven to 
me this year in a small garden in the making of which Box is 
used to outline all the beds. As a young garden and one that 
receives only a moderate amount of attention, it aims for few 
effects and as yet achieves them only in part, as the owner has 
not completed even the skeleton of his scheme. The whole of a 
long terrace is graded, however, and the long path with Box 
edges already makes a charming passage. Through the summer 
the half-filled borders are reinforced with annuals, chiefly 
maroon colored French Marigolds, Ageratum, and white 
Petunias, which so occupy the front of the border that the Box 
counts for little save to keep the lines of the beds. But after 
the frost, the edging stands out rich and green, full of health and 
fatness, while the blackened Marigolds and Ageratum are carried 
away and the flowerless 
but still green Petunias 
are ignominiously pulled 
up. 
So much can be said 
for Box, its romantic 
associations, its elegance 
of contour and color, its 
fragrance and perma¬ 
nence! But the thing 
which should be stressed 
most is that Box is not 
nearly so slow in 
growth as it is com- 
monly reported. 
Eight years ago 1 
planted a hedge of the 
ordinary Box (Buxus 
sempervirens) and 
to-day it has grown to 
a little more than 
thirty inches from its 
original size (the four- 
to-six inch grade of the 
nursery) and, in addition, 
has provided cuttings for 
more than two thousand 
new plants. A rate of 
three inches a year is not 
to be compared with the 
rate of growth of a Privet 
or a Barberry, to be sure, but the 
cumulative effect of three inches a year 
is really astonishing and, like so many 
garden works, needs only a beginning 
to offer proof. Meantime the hosts of 
small plants that were raised from the 
clippings alternate years, are growing 
vigorously to make new hedges. If the dwarf or suffruticose 
form of Box edging is used, of course there will be no such 
growth, and eight years would probably show no more than 
eight inches of compact growth. 
Aside from a Golden Box, which displays rather ugly yellow 
green stripes on new growths, only to lose them in summer, I 
have not grown the other forms of Box, but they are an interest¬ 
ing field for further exploration, from the loose growing tree 
Box to the slow growing myrtle-leaved Japanese form. 
N EGLECTED, not because of its rate of growth but because 
it is less well known, is Siebold’s Euonymus (Euonymus 
patens of the botanists). This excellent shrub appears from 
time to time in the catalogues, but it is not common in gardens. 
Unlike the stiff and erect Japanese Euonymus, it grows with tall 
arching branches and slender graceful twigs. The foliage is a 
vivid pale green on the new shoots, darkening through the sum¬ 
mer and showing some tints of brown and purple in the late 
winter. In the North, 
the plant becomes de¬ 
ciduous, but here near 
Washington, D. C., it is 
practically evergreen. 
The flowers are abun¬ 
dantly produced in late 
August and although 
they cannot compete 
with the hardy Hydran¬ 
geas or Hibiscus flower¬ 
ing at that time, their 
pale green clusters 
show well against the 
dark foliage. They 
are followed by small 
fruits, white tinted 
with pink, opening to 
display orange seeds. 
The fruits on my 
plants are not pro¬ 
duced with the free¬ 
dom of the flowers, 
due possibly to the fact 
that the plants are grow¬ 
ing in the shade of Oak 
trees. This may also 
account for the fact that 
the tallest growths have 
reached not more than 
six feet, which is less 
than the plant is reported to attain. 
Holly can be passed by with mere 
mention save that, like Box, it is not 
as slow as one might think and should 
be planted freely in all its kinds but 
especially the American, English, and 
Japanese, this last (the shrubby Ilex 
FIRE-THORN (Pyracantha Lalandi) 
“If brilliant fruits are desired, no evergreen shrub 
can surpass the Fire-thorn.'' The orange berries 
of the variety Lalandi are extraordinarily decora¬ 
tive and it has proven perfectly hardy here in The 
Garden Magazine gardens at Garden City, N. Y. 
405 
