A CONTINUOUS SUCCESSION OF BLOOM IN
THE SHRUBBERY

HOW TO SECURE IT

The planting of shrubbery about the home is so important that it may well take precedence of the flower garden proper or even the grading of the lawn itself. Indeed, if one owns the site of a home and the building is yet in the future, no better expenditure of one's spare time and dollars can be inaugurated than such initial planting as shall insure the presence of blooming shrubs about the home at the time of its completion so that all may be beautiful and perfect together, rather than that two or three years must elapse before one can begin to enjoy the results.

Hardy shrubs vary very greatly in the precociousness of their bloom, certain forms giving298 quite noticeable results the second season, while others need two or three years' growth even to indicate what their ultimate beauty will be.

The location, too, will have much to do with results. For a low planting about the foundation of the house, in front of porches or to top low terraces many plants may be employed which would be unsatisfactory in places at a distance where a general effect is desired more than an intimate relation. For masking a building, hiding an undesirable view and the like, tall-growing shrubs and flowering trees are usually preferred and these being of more or less slow growth require time to develop.

In all shrubbery planting it will be found that a number of plants of one sort is far more effective than one or two plants each of many distinct kinds. The mistake is often made of planting only shrubs which bloom together, producing a medley of more or less inharmonious colors and form for a few weeks in spring leaving the shrubbery bare and uninteresting for the remainder of the year. This is a mistake I have often made299 in my own garden, but one which I usually rectify by planting in other shrubs which will come forward when the first have ceased to bloom.

For a number of years a very beautiful hedge of Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora has separated the lawn from the flower garden; only one objection could be urged against it—its flowerless condition throughout most of the summer. To overcome this objection, scarlet salvias were alternated between the plants and an edging of scarlet and white phlox made a mass of color from mid-June until well into October. This, of course, was not legitimate shrubbery planting, so recourse was made to alternating Hydrangea arborescens with the paniculata. These coming into bloom late in June gave a very satisfactory arrangement, but this year Deutzia-Pride of Rochester, which also blooms in June, was introduced and I am anticipating much pleasure from the addition.

A hedge of Spir?a Van Hutti extending from the house to the road is very beautiful in early May, but inconspicuous and uninteresting the300 remainder of the summer. If it had been in a situation demanding a heavier planting I should have alternated the plants, setting them behind the spir?as, with forsythias—whose golden yellow blooms make bright the garden in earliest spring—and between the forsythias introduced the deutzias.

There are few more satisfactory and graceful plants for use in front of a porch than this Spir?a Van Hutti; its gracefully curved branches, though growing to a good length, curve away gracefully from the building, bending with their weight of snowy bloom almost to the ground and the growth is very strong and rapid, but never coarse. It is the very best early blooming shrub to date.

Very lovely effects may be secured by alternating the spir?a with the Weigela Eve Rathke, and keeping this down to a somewhat prostrate habit; this will give a perfect sheet of bloom from early May until the last of June and a less-pronounced show of flowers throughout the remainder of summer from the weigela.

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There is a strong tendency when purchasing shrubbery to select a little of everything—one plant of each, perhaps. I do this myself—not without excuse perhaps on my part, for we people who write for the benefit of others have to get our knowledge by, often costly, experience, and not by the mere reading of nursery catalogues. It is sometimes a most excellent thing to gratify this inclination providing one has a piece of land which can be devoted to experimental purposes and where one can shift things about until one has gained just the right combination and exposure for each plant. A strip of ground twelve or fifteen feet wide and as long as available will give room for a very successful planting of small trees and shrubs and hardy perennials may be introduced to fill in until the shrubs have reached an effective size. Ulmarias, hardy phlox, oriental poppies, rudbeckias and the like will be found very useful and tall clumps of lilies should always be interspersed in all permanent plantings.

It will often be found that some shrub which one has admired at close range is entirely ineffective302 in the shrubbery border; take, for instance, the Tartarian honeysuckle—a pretty enough thing close at hand but ineffectual and insignificant at any distance.

For a long shrubbery border of twelve or fifteen feet wide no better selection of shrubs can be made than these seven perfectly reliable and hardy shrubs—Forsythia, April; Spir?a Van Hutti, May; Deutzia Pride of Rochester, June; Hydrangea arborescens, July, August; Hydrangea paniculata, September; Althea, October and November. These are—with perhaps the exception of the althea, which is sometimes uncertain—absolutely hardy and reliable plants which increase in ............