Landscape Lines 
When and if your appendix has to be 
removed and you require a little internal 
remodeling; you do not consult your vet- 
erinarian. Yet figuratively speaking many 
people do just that, when it becomes ne- 
cessary to do some remodeling in the 
garden. 
Today is definitely the age of speciali- 
zation. Your ailing dog goes to the veter- 
inarian; you go to your specialist. And 
so should the symptoms of an ailing gar- 
den be taken to a specialist; in this case, 
a landscape architect or a skilled horti- 
culturist. 
Residents of southern California have 
been critized on occasion, for a tendency 
towards regimentation in their gardens; 
a tendency towards a monotonous use of 
certain standardized evergreen shrubs. Too 
many people have fallen into the habit 
of landscaping their homes by ordering a 
“job lot" of fast-growing plants, without 
regard for their merits, their habits, or 
their desires. As a result, there are a lot 
of ailing gardens! Gardens that are actu- 
ally a heterogeneous jumble of odds and 
ends, planted without rhyme or reason, 
and with a total disregard for the natural 
characteristics of the plants. 
Fortunately, situations like these are not 
hopeless. Seemingly impossible gardens 
can be, and are being, streamlined every 
day. The valiant gardener is taking stock 
of his premises, casting a critical eye over 
his outdated, overgrown, badly chosen 
plants; and taking a cue from the college 
cheer leader, he is ‘giving 'em the axe, 
the axe, the axe.'' Then before spending 
a dollar, he consults a specialist (and with 
all due deference, most gardeners are not 
specialists). 
So much do the problems of scale and 
appropriateness enter into the making of 
a perfect garden, that the advice of a 
specialist is almost mandatory. The ama- 
teur, lacking this skill, is apt to end up 
with a garden of unrelated dibs and dabs 
that will cost him more in maintenance 
than he has bargained for. There are hun- 
dreds of choice plants in the nurseries to- 
day—the important thing is how and 
where they should be used. That is the 
concern of the specialist; and here at 
Evans and Reeves we are modestly proud 
of our- specialists; the trained landscape 
architects and skilled horticulturists in our 
organization. eb 
IT’S TIME FOR... 
(Continued from front page) 
Azaleas, from $1.85. The toughest and 
least-problematical of all Azaleas is the 
great rose-purple Southern Indica, Phoe- 
nicia. Equally good in shade or consider- 
able sun and almost any well-drained soil, 
it is also the longest blooming. 
Try Azalea Phoenicia with the even 
taller-growing Tibouchina semidecandra 
(Princess Flower) (95 cents and $4), with 
the lower, purplish - rose Heterocentron 
elegans ($1.25), and a ground cover of 
Schizocentron. There you have a symphony 
of brilliant rose to purple flowers blooming 
simultaneously with foliage AND form har- 
monious. An ideal spot for this grouping 
will be where the taller plants can have 
shaded feet and heads in sun at least 
part of day; and an ideal food for this 
quartet will be ammonium phosphate and 
lrontone, two pounds to 100 square feet 
of former. and two teaspoons per plant of 
latter, two or three times a year. 
Weigelia rosea is a large-growing, fast, 
deciduous shrub famous for its spring and 
early summer rose-pink masses of flower, 
best placed in high shade or half-day sun 
with ample water; fine plants, five gallon, 
$3.75. A natural companion is the Crab- 
apple tree — rose-pink to almost white— 
Malus eleyi, $4.50, Malus ioensis variety 
Bechtel, $4, or Transcendent, $4. You 
might also try a Flowering Ash, Fraxinus 
ornus, $4.50, new and untried with us. And 
of course you know the various Flowering 
Peach varieties; Helen Borchers (seven 
foot, $7.50) is late, extra-large pink flower- 
ing, yet to come into bloom. 
Well-known evergreen shrubbery for var- 
ious uses include the Brooms, 85 cents up 
(yellow, white, maroon); Chamaelaucium 
(Geralton Wax Flower), $4; and the end- 
less Hibiscus, $1.50 and $4. And among 
the evergreen trees yet to blossom we 
call your attention especially to Hymen- 
osporum (The Sweet Shade), fragrant yel- 
low; and Calodendrum capense (Cape 
Chestnut), orchid pink; each $4.50. 
A permanent red-flowering bulb for sun, 
new with us in established large clumps, 
is Sprekelia formosissima, the Jacobean 
Lily. Bloom is controlled by watering — 
alternate wet and dry. At $2.50 per clump 
of some five bulbs (75 cents each at bulb- 
planting time) these are a bargain in gar- 
den brilliance. ; PEG: 
