WOOD AND SHRUBBERY EDGES
Opportunities for good gardening are so often overlooked that it may
be well to draw attention to some of those that are most commonly
neglected.
When woodland joins garden ground there is too often a sudden jolt;
the wood ends with a hard line, sometimes with a path along it,
accentuating the defect. When the wood is of Scotch Fir of some age
there is a monotonous emptiness of naked trunk and bare ground. In
wild moorland this is characteristic and has its own beauty; it may
even pleasantly accompany the garden when there is only a view into it
here and there; but when the path passes along, furlong after furlong,
with no attempt to bring the wood into harmony with the garden, then
the monotony becomes oppressive and the sudden jolt is unpleasantly
perceived. There is the well-stocked garden and there is the hollow
wood with no cohesion between the two--no sort of effort to make them
join hands.
It would have been better if from the first the garden had not been
brought quite so close to the wood, then the space between, anything
from twenty-five to forty feet, might have been planted so as to bring
them into unison. In such a case the path would go, not next the trees
but along the middle of the neutral ground and would be so planted as
to belong equally to garden and wood. The trees would then take their
place as the bounding and sheltering feature. It is better to plan it
like this at first than to gain the space by felling the outer trees,
because the trees at the natural wood edge are better furnished with
side branches. Such ground on the shady side of the Scotch Firs would
be the best possible site for a Rhododendron walk, and for Azaleas and
Kalmias, kept distinct from the Rhododendrons. Then the Scotch Fir
indicates the presence of a light peaty soil; the very thing for that
excellent but much-neglected undershrub _Gaultheria Shallon_. This
is one of the few things that will grow actually under the Firs, not
perhaps in the densest part of an old wood, but anywhere about its
edges, or where any light comes in at a clearing or along a cart-way.
When once established it spreads with a steady abundance of increase,
creeping underground and gradually clothing more and more of the floor
of the wood. The flower and fruit have already been shown at pp. 18-19.
[Illustration: _GARLAND ROSE, WHERE GARDEN JOINS WOOD._]
[Illustration: _POLYGONUM COMPACTUM AND MEGASEA AT A WOOD EDGE._]
[Illustration: _LILIES AND FUNKIAS AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
[Illustration: _OLEARIA GUNNI, FERN AND FUNKIA AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
Rhododendrons are usually planted much too close together. This is
a great mistake; they should not be nearer than eight to ten feet,
or even further, apart, especially in the case of _ponticum_ and
some of the larger growing kinds. It is a common practice to fill
up the edges of their prepared places with a collection of Heaths.
The soil will no doubt suit Heaths, but I never do it or recommend
it because I feel that the right place for Heaths is quite open
ground, and there are other plants that I think look better with the
young Rhododendrons. For my own liking the best of these are hardy
Ferns--Male Fern, Lady Fern and Dilated Shield Fern, with groups of
Lilies: _L. longiflorum_ and the lovely rosy _L. rubellum_ towards
the front, and _L. auratum_ further back. Some of the Andromedas,
especially _Catesbæi_ and _axillaris_ of the _Leucothoë_[ section are
capital plants for this use. Besides Lilies, a few other flowering
plants suitable for the Rhododendron walk are: white Foxgloves, white
Columbine, white _Epilobium angustifolium_, _Trillium_, _Epimedium
pinnatum_, _Uvularia grandiflora_, _Dentaria diphylla_ and _Gentiana
asclepiadea_. In the same region, and also partly as edgings to
the Rhododendron clumps, suitable small bushes are _Rhododendron
myrtifolium_, the Alpenrose (_R. ferruginium_) and the sweet-leaved
_Ledum palustre_.
* * * * *
When the garden comes on the sunny side of the wood the planting would
be quite different. Here is the place for Cistuses; for the bolder
groups the best are _C. laurifolius_ and _C. cyprius_, backed by
plantings of Tamarisk, Arbutus and White Broom, with here and there a
free-growing Rose of the wilder sort, such as the type _polyantha_ and
_Brunonis_. If the fir-boughs come down within reach, the wild Clematis
(_C. Vitalba_) can be led into them; it will soon ramble up the tree,
filling it with its pretty foliage and abundance of August bloom.
The Cistuses delight in a groundwork of Heath; the wild Calluna looks
as well as any, but if cultivated kinds are used they should be in good
quantities of one sort at a time, and never as hard edgings, but as
free carpeting masses.
For the edges of other kinds of woodland the free Roses are always
beautiful; where a Holly comes to the front, a Rose such as Dundee
Rambler or the Garland will grow up it, supported by its outer branches
in the most delightful way. The wild Clematis is in place here too,
also the shade-loving plants already named. In deciduous woodland
there is probably some undergrowth of Hazel, or of Bramble and wild
Honeysuckle. White Foxgloves should be planted at the edge and a little
way back, Daffodils for the time when the leaves are not yet there, and
Lily of the Valley, whose charming bloom and brilliant foliage come
with the young leaves of May.
Where the wood comes nearest the house with only lawn between, it is
well to have a grouping of hardy Ferns and Lilies; where it is giving
place to garden ground and there is a shrubby background, the smaller
Polygonums, such as _P. compactum_, are in place.
[Illustration: _FERNS AND LILIES AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE NEXT THE WOOD._]
[Illustration: _GYPSOPHILA AND MEGASEA AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
The spaces more or less wide between large shrubs and turf are full
of opportunities for ingenious treatment; they are just the places
most often neglected, or at any rate not well enough considered. I
have always taken delight in working out satisfactory ways of treating
them. It seems desirable to have, next the grass, some foliage of
rather distinct and important size or form. For this use the Megaseas
are invaluable; the one most generally useful being the large variety
of _M. cordifolia_. Funkias are also beautiful, but as their leaves
come late and go with the first frosts or even earlier, whereas
the Megaseas persist the whole year round, the latter are the most
generally desirable. These shrub-edge spaces occur for the most part in
bays, giving an inducement to invent a separate treatment for each bay.
The two illustrations with the front planting of _Funkia Sieboldi_ are
two adjoining bays; one showing the charming shrubby Aster _Olearia
Gunni_ in the middle of June, the other some groups of _Lilium
longiflorum_, planted in November of the year before, and in bloom in
early August.
Sometimes a single plant of _Gypsophila paniculata_ will fill the whole
of one of the recesses or bays between the larger shrubs; _Hydrangea
paniculata_ is another good filling plant, and the hardy Fuchsias; both
of these, though really woody shrubs, being cut down every winter and
treated as herbaceous plants.
There is a small growing perennial Aster--I will not venture on its
specific name, but have seen it figured in an American book of wild
flowers as _divaricata_, and provisionally know it by that name. I
find it, in conjunction with Megasea, one of the most useful of these
filling plants for edge spaces that just want some pretty trimming
but are not wide enough for anything larger. The same group was
photographed two years running. The first year the bloom was a little
thicker below, but the second I thought it still better when it had
partly rambled up into the lower branches of the Weigela that stood
behind it. The little thin starry flower is white and is borne in
branching heads; the leaves are lance-shaped and sharply pointed; but
when the plant is examined in the hand its most distinct character is
the small fine wire-like stem, smooth and nearly black, that branches
about in an angular way of its own.
These are only a very few examples of what may also be done in a number
of other ways, but if they serve to draw attention to those generally
neglected shrub edges, it may be to the benefit of many gardens. Where
there is room for a good group of plants they should be of some size
or solidity of character such as Tree Lupine, Peony, Acanthus, _Spiræa
Aruncus_, the larger hardy Ferns, _Rubus nutkanus_ or plants of some
such size and character. The low-growing _Bambusa tessellata_ is a
capital shrub-edge plant.
[Illustration: _LILIES AND FERNS AT THE WOOD EDGE NEAR THE LAWN._]
[Illustration: _SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER AT SHRUB EDGE. SECOND YEAR
AFTER PLANTING._]
[Illustration: _SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER AT SHRUB EDGE. THIRD YEAR
AFTER PLANTING._]
[Illustration: _STOBÆA PURPUREA, A GREY GARDEN WALL PLANT FOR A SUNNY
PLACE._]