62 
House & Garden 
In Sutton’s Catalog Are 
Choice Flowers and Vegetables 
Found Nowhere Else 
Y ou who have favored us by coming 
to our beautiful, garden graced Eng¬ 
land ; know fully well the surpassing beauty 
and charm of its flowers. 
You Americans, so we understand, sometimes 
think of us as being a bit stolid, and lacking in 
enthusiasm. But surely no nation, so enthusi¬ 
astically fosters, or more genuinely loves flowers. 
Every little town has its liberally patronized 
flower shows. 
In this exceptional environment, the Sutton 
family .have, been growing, developing and per¬ 
fecting seeds for generations. 
Very naturally, it has resulted in being more 
than a business with us. It is a life work of 
genuine pleasure. 
This pleasure, we would .share with you in 
the wonderful charm of our flowers and the 
surpassing varieties of our vegetables. 
Let us send some Sutton Seeds to you this 
year. 
Send 35c for Garden Guide. When yoUr or¬ 
ders for seeds amount to $5, the 35c will be 
promptly refunded. 
This Famous Hotel is Stained with Cabot’s Creosote Stains 
and the bungalows, camps and other buildings have also been stained—shingles, 
siding, boards and trimmings—with the soft, rich colors that harmonize so perfectly 
with nature s tintings. The colors are never shiny, and they grow softer and nicer 
on weathering, with no cracking or blistering. They cost less than paint, and any¬ 
one can put them on at half the cost for labor. The Creosote penetrates the wood 
and preserves it against decay and insects. 
Voii can get Cabot's Stains all over the connfrv. Send 
for stained wood samples and name of nearest agent. 
SAMUEL CABOT, Inc., Mfg. Chemists, 11 Oliver St., Boston, Mass. 
24 W. Kinzie St., Chicago 523 Market St., San Francisco j 
As to Flowering Evergreens 
{Continued from page 60) 
such men as have suitable places to 
grow them. Here is the kernel of 
the situation! There is no getting 
around it. You may have rhododen¬ 
dron flowers in almost any door- 
yard, just as you may have water- 
lilies in a tub; but to know how beau¬ 
tiful water-lilies are, you must have 
them growing in a pond, in a state of 
nature. And so to use these mem¬ 
bers of the heath family, you should 
have woods and dells and wilder¬ 
ness conditions generally; and a pool 
or water tumbling down rocks if 
possible; for it is above such cas¬ 
cades that some of them bend, in 
their mountain homes. 
There is probably no material 
available that is as fine for use in 
groves, or where great trees grow, 
as the rhododendron and the laurel. 
But great care must be exercised in 
grouping and selecting the clumps 
for every spot, lest unsightly, leggy 
specimens crowd to the front and 
obtrude their angles. The same rule 
prevails in planting evergreen shrubs 
that guides in the grouping of de¬ 
ciduous masses: that is, the fore¬ 
ground of the mass should come 
down to the ground, and leave 
no bare openings through which 
branches may be seen. This is a 
point so often overlooked that I speak 
of it particularly; for with ever¬ 
green material, the oversight is not 
as well remedied by the plant’s 
growth as it is in the case of the 
deciduous things. 
The so-called “broad leaved ever¬ 
greens” generally are used to a very 
great degree just because they are 
evergreen, and therefore assumed to 
be cheerful notes in the landscape 
in winter. To a certain extent this 
cheerfulness is true of laurel and of 
the others; but rhododendrons are 
about the most pinched and unhappy 
looking things on a biting cold day 
than can be found, kloreover, they 
are “pinched,” for they have a very 
interesting way of curling their 
leaves to avoid exposure to the cold, 
somewhat as people draw themselves 
in and shrink as much as possible 
when chilled. Shrinking thus from 
winter’s severity, a rhododendron is 
a pathetic looking shrub, around 
which I always feel I should like to 
put a shawl. 
Like evergreens of larger growth, 
evergreen shrubs do not combine 
well with other vegetation, nor does 
one kind combine well with another. 
This is because they have, in com¬ 
mon with all evergreens, marked in¬ 
dividuality; and each therefore seeks 
to dominate. Hence, they are an¬ 
tagonistic one to another. Ground 
cover beneath such a plant as the 
rhododendron should be an unob- 
strusive member of the family such 
as the Andromeda, or the leather 
leaf, in combination with still lower 
growth, like partridge berry or the 
always attractive wintergreen. 
Rhododendron Varieties 
Rhododendron maximum is the 
common American species, the great 
American rose bay, which grows wild 
as far north_ as New England and 
away south into the high parts of 
the southern Alleghany mountains. 
Naturally it grows in proximity to 
mountain streams and cascades, 
where all Nature is wildest and most 
exuberant. Its flowers are either 
white or pink, and there is no hybrid 
lovelier than the species. 
In company with it grows Rhodo¬ 
dendron Catawbiense, the rose bay 
which went to Ehrope over a hun¬ 
dred years ago, and became one of 
the parents of the great array of 
Catawbiense hybrids offered in such 
quantities today. It is the finest of 
all except in color, which is a bright 
reddish purple. It is not of such 
great size as Rhododendron maxi¬ 
mum, but its foliage is much better 
and not subject to the rust which 
often makes the latter unsightly. 
Under no circumstances should 
hybrids be used for naturalizing on 
a large scale; they belong to the 
realm of the exotic, and though they 
too should be planted in surround¬ 
ings which are so cleverly contrived 
as to seem natural, they cannot en¬ 
dure the vicissitudes of climate and 
weather well enough to make them 
trustworthy for large scale plantings. 
Choose one or the other of those 
just described and add the third 
highly desirable native. Rhododen¬ 
dron Carolinianum. This is smaller 
but a very beautiful, spreading, 
shrubby species, growing sometimes i 
to a height of 15'. Its blossoms are 
rose pink and produced in June. 
Rhododendron Catawbiense blooms^ 
also in June, while the pink or white 
of Rhododendron maximum covers 
the shrub in July. 
Preceding the rhododendron dis¬ 
play comes the mountain laurel, its 
exquisite pink blossoms lighting up 
the woods wdierein it dwells until 
they are a fairyland in May or June, 
according to the latitude. Nothing 
that grows is hardier than this; and 
it is safe to say nothing is lovelier. 
Its foliage is far more pleasing than 
the foliage of the stiffen rhododen¬ 
dron; and to my taste, its bloom is 
quite the equal of theirs. Kalmia 
latifolia is its official title. 
Hardy Azaleas 
Azaleas are the third in the list of 
lovely things in the heath famil}-—. 
the hardy native azaleas. These are 
not evergreen, hence do not perhaps 
rightly belong in this article- at all; 
but they belong in the family, so I 
shall not exclude them. They fit in a 
planting which has heath for its 
motif; moreover the lower ones 
form a very desirable complement to 
the laurel and rhododendron, being 
useful as a cover shrub. The swamp 
pink, in some places mistakenly 
called wild honeysuckle, averages 
about 4' high and makes a fairly 
complete cover. 
This swamp pink is Azalea viscosa, 
with white or pinkish, very fragrant 
flowmrs. Azalea arborescens is the 
tree azalea, sometimes 20' high, also 
with pink blossoms that are delicious¬ 
ly fragrant. The great flame azalea 
is a color that needs to be handled 
warily in connection wdth the other 
pinks in the family, for it is a vivid 
orange scarlet, truly like a flame. 
This is Azalea Intea in some catalogs, 
but really Azalea calendulacea, if 
one wishes to name it correctly. 
Azalea lutea is also supplied for Aza¬ 
lea nudiflora, which is not orange at 
all, but pink or nearly white. Thus 
does confusion prevail in nomencla¬ 
ture, and one can never be too care¬ 
ful in buying, particularly where 
such color differences exist. 
The Andromeda, or Pieris flori- 
bunda (sometimes Andromeda flori- 
bitnda) is low growdng, seldom reach¬ 
ing more than 4' in height. Being 
compact and shapely and well filled 
with foliage, with very abundant 
white flowers in upstanding little 
spikes or racemes, it makes a great 
showing in Alay. Then, too, its next 
{Continued on page 64) 
