THE GARDEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 30

THE GARDEN

By L

LEONARD A. GRIFFITHS F.R.H.S.,

The cultivation of flowers is one of the few pleasures that improves alike the mind and the heart — VICK.

PLANT SHRUBS NOW

A planting of shrubs massed around the boundaries of a garden forms a perfect setting for the garden picture, *i harmonious background against which bright-coloured annuals and perennials appear to their greatest advantage.

Shrubs constitute the permanent feature to the garden, and their selection warrants not only care but good judgment. Should the home gardener not be conversant with th-j many varieties available, all of which possess their individual characteristics in applying themselves to garden work, he would be well advised to consult a qualified assistant at the garden stores. An imperfect planting is not only unsatisfactory, but if remedied, means years of wasted effort and time. Nature in her inimitable exactness, has planned and formed some beautiful landscapes in our very midst. A lour through the outlying bushlands gives us a very fair conception as to how we should endeavour to blend our own colours and schemes. The open glade or meadow, where the broad carpet of veli’ety greensward is

framed in by a background of woodland —first a fringe of low bushes, with a mass of foliage reaching the ground, against which are happily portrayed bright hosts of nodding carefree blooms.

Nature’s idea of lanscape can be carried out in every garden, drawn to scale in the outlying suburbs, where there is room to spare, and to a smaller scale in a large garden, where the lawn is simply framed in by more refined or taller shrubs, with their border of perennials in front, in every case forming a screen that gives a privacy to the home grounds, shielding the world within from the world without

When space affords, plant shrubs in masses of several of each variety; remember they are to form the framework of your garden landscape, and do not spoil the picture by dotting them all over the lawn and garden. Allow them to develop so that each will show its distinct character. Above all things, beware of the man with the shears, who has a mania for cutting them all to one model. In pruning, remember that all earlyflowering shrubs bloom on last year’s wood, and should not be pruned until after they have bloomed, otherwise the bloom will be destroyed for that season, at which time the old, wornout wood should be cut away entirely, allowing the vigorous younger shoots to remain, shortening or cutting away

entirely all weak growths. All late flowering shrubs bloom on wood of this season’s growth, and should be pruned in early spring, cutting back severely to induce a vigorous new growth.