GROUPING OF TREES AND SHRUBS
If this subject were considered with only a reasonable amount of
thought, and the practice of it controlled by good taste, there is
nothing that would do more for the beauty of our gardens or grounds.
Nothing can so effectually destroy good effect as the usual senseless
mixture of deciduous and evergreen shrubs that, alas! is so commonly
seen in gardens--a mixture of one each of a quantity of perhaps
excellent things planted about three feet apart. There would be nothing
to be said against this if it were the deliberate intention of any
individual, for, as a garden is for the owner's happiness, it is
indisputably his right to take his pleasure in it as he will, and if he
says, "I have only space for a hundred plants, and I wish them to be all
different," that is for him to decide. But when the mixture is made from
pure ignorance or helplessness it is then that advice may be of use, and
that the assurance may be given that there are better ways that are just
as easy at the beginning, and that with every year will be growing on
towards some definite scheme of beauty, instead of merely growing up
into a foolish tangle of horticultural imbecility.
If the intending planter has no knowledge it is well worth his while to
take advice at the beginning, not to plant at random and to feel, a few
years later, first doubt, and then regret, and then, as knowledge grows,
to have to face the fact that it is all wrong and that much precious
time has been lost.
How to group is a large question, depending on all the conditions of the
place under consideration. Whether a group is to be of tall or short
growing shrubs or trees, whether it is to be of three or three hundred,
and so on. The knowledge that can answer is the knowledge of gardening
of the better kind. The whole thing should be done carefully on paper
beforehand, or there will again be repented the error of huddled single
plants. The groups will have to be well shaped and well sized and well
related to each other and all that is near, or they may be merely a
series of senseless blocks, not intelligently formed groups at all.
Then, in proper relation to the groups, single plants can be used with
the best possible effect, as, for instance, a snowy Mespilus or a Cherry
or a _Pyrus floribunda_ against a dark massing of Yew or Holly; or a
_Forsythia suspensa_ casting out its long flowering branches from among
bushes of _Berberis_. Then the fewer individuals will have their full
value, while the larger masses will have dignity even when in leaf only,
and their own special beauty at the time when they are in flower or
fruit. For some flowering and fruiting bushes are best grouped, while a
few are best seen standing alone, and it is only knowledge of good
gardening that can guide the designer in his decisions on these points.
Still it does not follow that a shrub or flowering tree cannot be used
both for groups and single use, for such an one as the Forsythia just
mentioned is also of charming effect in its own groups, with the
red-tinted _Berberis_ or the quiet-coloured Savins, or whatever be the
lower growing bushy mass that is chosen to accompany it. Every one can
see the great gain of such arrangements when they are made, but to learn
to make them, and even to perceive what are the plants to group
together, and why, that is the outcome of the education of the garden
artist.
In the Royal Gardens, Kew, the best of plants may be seen and, to a
considerable degree, the best ways of using them in gardens.
[Illustration: _GROUPING OF SHRUB AND DAFFODIL._]
The one-thing-at-a-time planting is always a safe guide, but as the
planter gains a firmer grasp of his subject, so he may exercise more
freedom in its application. Nearly every garden, shrubbery, and
ornamental tree plantation is spoilt or greatly marred by too great a
mixture of incongruous growths. Nothing wants more careful
consideration. On the ground in the open air, and sitting at home
quietly thinking, the question should be carefully thought out. The very
worst thing to do is to take a nursery catalogue and make out from it a
list of supposed wants. The right thing is to make a plan of the ground,
to scale, if possible, though a rougher one may serve, and mark it all
down in good time beforehand, not to wait until the last moment and then
mark it; and not to send the list to the nursery till the ground is
well forward for planting, so that the moment the plants come they may
go to their places.
[Illustration: _NATURAL GROUPING OF SHRUB IN ROUGH GROUND._]
All this planning and thinking should be done in the summer, so that the
list may go to the nursery in September, which will enable the
nurseryman to supply the trees in the earliest and best of the planting
season.
How good it would be to plant a whole hill-side on chalky soil with
grand groupings of Yew or Box, or with these intergrouped, and how easy
afterwards to run among these groupings of lesser shrubs; or to plant
light land with Scotch Fir and Holly, Thorn and Juniper (just these few
things grouped and intergrouped); or wastes of sandhills near the sea
within our milder shores with Sea Buckthorn and Tamarisk, and Monterey
Cypress (_Cupressus macrocarpa_), and long drifts of the handsome Blue
Lyme Grass.
A mile of sandy littoral might be transformed with these few things, and
no others than its own wild growths, into a region of delight, where
noble tree form of rapid growth, tender colour of plume-like branch and
bloom and brilliant berry, and waving blue grassy ribbons, equalling in
value any of the lesser Bamboos, would show a lesson of simple planting
such as is most to be desired but is rarely to be seen.
The other and commoner way is nothing but a muddle from beginning to
end. A van-load of shrubs arrives from the nursery--one of each or
perhaps not more than six of any kind. No plan is prepared, and the
trees and shrubs are planted in the usual weary mixture, without thought
or design. Generally there are three times too many for the space. It is
a cruel waste and misuse of good things.