August, i 9 i 6 
11 
The common hobble-bush, one of the vibur¬ 
num family, shows handsome white flowers 
and large leaves turning red in autumn 
N ATIVE gardening for the amateur is 
a new art, though the soft beauty of 
the landscape work in our modern city 
parks has become a source of refreshment 
and pleasure to thousands of people. But 
the fact is not realized by many people that 
the high-priced artists who have created it 
get some of their best effects by copying 
directly from nature and frequently use ex¬ 
clusively native flowers and shrubs. These 
very plants are growing wild and free in 
our woods and along our country roads. 
Almost everyone is somehow or other with¬ 
in reach of the country, especially by motor, 
and the art of landscape gardening need 
not be given over entirely to the profes¬ 
sional if we once begin to appreciate the 
possibilities of our woodland plants. 
One of the greatest joys in native garden¬ 
ing the amateur finds in gathering his own 
material and working out his own design. 
If he wishes to develop it without profes¬ 
sional aid, he will take pleasure in the de¬ 
signing of open spaces and banks of green¬ 
ery. And the procuring of the desired 
plants and vines year by year may lead—- 
particularly if he has a useful automobile 
and some boys and girls to assist in the 
search ■— to woodland expeditions of long 
remembered benefit and delight. 
Wiiat Native Gardening Means 
The new native planting does not consist 
in placing specimen plants of one’s favor¬ 
ite flowers in uncongenial proximity in 
hard formal beds, to be laboriously shel¬ 
tered through the winter in hothouses or 
renewed every year with labor and expense. 
Once planted it requires little care beyond 
occasional pruning. The plants, growing 
in their native habitat, withstand undaunted 
the summer’s heat and winter's cold. More¬ 
over, whereas the cultivated garden is a 
mudbank, as someone says, for half the 
year, this with its varied foliage and its 
winter color in stems and berries has a new 
beauty with every season. It has perma¬ 
nence, it has virility, it is in harmony with 
the spirit of the locality. 
“The lawn is the canvas on which the 
home picture is painted.” If the house and 
GARDENING WITH 
THE CAR 
Wherein the Lover of Native Shrubs 
and Plants Finds Endless Pleasure 
CAROLINE M. RICE 
Shad-bush is one of our best and earliest 
flowering wild ' shrubs. Its white blos¬ 
soms open almost before the leaves 
trees give the picture its main accent, it is 
the lawn spaces and the massing of shrub¬ 
bery that give the final effect of symmetry 
and of light and shade. Nature’s methods 
are followed as closely as possible. Harsh, 
ugly foundation lines disappear behind 
heavy plantings of shrubbery. Bed lines 
are never straight nor geometrical, but curve 
irregularly with careless grace. Flowers in 
masses give high lights of colors. 
The size and situation of the grounds will 
determine whether one should leave open 
vistas, as is possible with plenty of space 
or on a hillside, or enclose a small yard with 
privacy to shut out the sight of ugly walls 
and surroundings. With small grounds the 
gardener should not attempt to get in minia¬ 
ture all the effects of a park, but should 
select one or two simpler ideas and carry 
them out. In the end, whether the place 
be large or small, if he follows the correct 
general principles, he will give his grounds 
a distinction that was lacking under the old 
treatment of formality and restraint. 
Collecting the Plants 
When the amateur native gardener has 
worked out a design suitable to the ground 
he is to develop, he next considers what 
vines, shrubs, flowers and trees can be found 
in his locality suitable to his purpose. If 
he thinks there will be little material at 
hand, let him try what can be done within 
ten miles of his home, and he will be pleas¬ 
antly surprised. If he is possessed of the 
true nature lover’s spirit, he may develop 
the enthusiasm of a collector. 
Yet it is well to remember to have a con¬ 
science as to where the plants are obtained. 
The immediate roadside should never be 
despoiled, nor any woodland nook shorn of 
Among the dogivoods, considerable variety 
is available for the maker of native gar¬ 
dens. This is the alternate-leaved form 
its beauty. Sometimes permission should 
be obtained from the owner of the property. 
As the fall is generally the best time for 
transplanting, one possible method of se¬ 
lecting is to go through the woods or 
meadows when the plants are in their prime, 
marking choice specimens with bits of tape 
or colored wool. These can be noted and 
procured later at the proper season. One 
advantage of seeking one’s own plants is 
that it takes one to see the woods under the 
changing lights of the varying seasons of 
the year. Even trees do not present too 
difficult a problem for the amateur land¬ 
scape lover; he is planting for the future. 
The shrub planting is a very interesting 
part of landscape work. The shrub border 
serves with softening effect as a back¬ 
ground, as a boundary, or for foundation 
planting as against the house, and if prop¬ 
erly selected is attractive on its own account 
at all seasons of the year. In spring the 
blossoms begin, to be followed by a variety 
of shades of massed foliage and late sum¬ 
mer flowers; then its scarlet, gold and pur¬ 
ple leaves give an autumn tone, while bright 
berries and even stems of striking colorings 
give pleasure in a dreary winter landscape. 
Wild Shrubs and Vines 
Our countryside affords a great variety 
of shrubs excellent for these purposes. 
Counted as small trees or tall shrubs for the 
background in the taller border are the 
larger varieties of sumac, handsome with 
their plume-like red fruit panicles; the 
sheep or nanny-berry; black haw holding 
aloft its white summer flower tufts and con¬ 
spicuous fruiting, and the sassafras, which 
turns to soft orange and red in autumn. 
The elderberry is beautiful with its fra¬ 
grant white flowers and purple berry clus¬ 
ters. The hazelnut droops its long catkins in 
early spring and later bears its nuts in oddly- 
ruffled fruit husks. The bright yellow blos¬ 
soms of the witch hazel come very late in 
the fall. The dogwood, especially desirable, 
has white flowers, but berries and twigs of 
various colorings according to the variety. 
The stems of the willows, too, add to the 
winter garden. The viburnums — arrow 
