August, 1913 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
99 
There are seven or eight varieties of evergreens in this small boundary planting. It fills up 
the space all right, but is about as artistic as the mixed crowds in a packed train. Try 
to decide on a single evergreen for such combinations 
or the hemlock, for example, certainly do de¬ 
mand a setting that has in it some of the ele¬ 
ments of the picturesque. Unless such a setting 
is available, choose another kind of conifer. 
Evergreens as shelters, evergreens as screens 
and evergreens as “general effect" material are 
all subject to the same generalizations, and 
many of these are the generalizations which 
apply to deciduous material as well. A screen 
must never be obviously just a screen, but 
always a natural group of spruce or hr, or 
arborvitae perhaps, if done in miniature. Sim¬ 
ilarly, a shelter belt should never be literally 
just that and nothing more; but, rather, the 
individuals which compose it should be naturally 
grouped into a little grove that, standing with 
every appearance of accident on the spot it occu¬ 
pies, protects seemingly by a happy chance the 
area or spot requiring protection. 
Sometimes, however, natural groupings are 
precluded by the limitations of the situation, and 
only a straight row is possible. Where this is 
the case, plant frankly in just a straight row, 
but be sure that that row runs definitely be¬ 
tween two points and does not start and end aimlessly. For ex¬ 
ample, it may quite possibly require only half a dozen arborvitaes 
to hide a neighboring building some distance away; but six of 
these little trees, set down along the boundary of a plot, just in 
the range necessary, would be absurd in effect and actually call 
attention to what they were intended to hide, by emphasizing its 
presence. Plant the entire boundary, or else plant them between 
two very positive limits, such as may be set by a tea-house or 
summer house at one extreme, and an arbor or perhaps the corner 
of a garage or stable at the other. This makes their beginning 
and ending reasonable instead of arbitrary, and furnishes an 
excuse for both. 
Considered in the light of their very positive individuality, ever¬ 
greens are manifestly the last material in the world which could 
be expected to unite a building with the ground, softening its 
architectural rigidity and making it a part of the landscape. Yet 
the smaller kinds are more often used—or misused — for just this 
purpose than for almost any other. 
This is a handling of both building and plants that is to be 
utterly condemned as false. In the first place, it interferes, even¬ 
tually if not immediately, with the function of the windows, which 
is to admit light and air and permit the building’s tenants to see 
abroad. Then it introduces still more angular and severe lines, 
of a new and aggressive sort, to the building’s exterior; and it 
forces the plants into a position that is unnatural to them — hence 
dishonest. 
Do not be persuaded, under any circumstances, to group ever¬ 
greens, either broad-leaved or coniferous, around and against a 
building’s foundations. Forget that it has been, or is being, done; 
or that, in certain instances, the effect seems to be good. Such 
effect is only seeming—for evergreens do not belong in such a 
location, therefore they cannot produce anything actually good 
and artistically worthy when so located. 
Novelty, remember, is not beauty. “Beauty is truth, . . . ” 
That is all we know on earth and all we need to know, literally. 
For this sums up in a single phrase all the formulas for accom¬ 
plishing whatever we may wish to accomplish, in whatever field 
(Continued on page in) 
Thuya occidenialis, arborvitae, may be used as a hedge or planted in 
groups for landscape effect. This is the case of a screen that is 
interesting in itself 
The peculiarity of the Colorado blue spruce is only emphasized when 
thrust among other evergreens. The group planting of this tree is 
beautiful rather than startling 
