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EVERGREENS: THEIR DECORATIVE VALUE
AND HOW TO PLANT THEM
             T IS to the evergreens that we look for the enlivening
             of the winter garden, and they can be depended
             upon to furnish most pleasing variety of form as well
             as color during the somber icy months when other
             members of the vegetable world are sleeping. The beauty
IVof the delicate tracery of deciduous trees that fringe
              so wonderfully the frozen earth is appreciated to the
fullest when complemented by dark masses of evergreens, for they
act as a foil in form and color to the silvery gray network of twigs
and branches. When evergreens, either the flowering shrubs or
the coniferous species, are planted around the base of a house they
seem to surround the home with a warm living green that valiantly
holds at bay the severities of winter.
   A group of small silver or golden blue, light green or purplish
dwarf evergreens against the background of a dark rich pine or
cedar hedge, makes a delightful note of color even in the summer,
but is especially brilliant when newly fallen snow powders lightly
the graceful plumes.
   These hardy, cheerful, stoical plants are growing rapidly into
Yublic favor because of their ornamental value as well as their use-
ulness. A judicious sprinkling of them among deciduous trees
adds greatly to a garden's variety at all seasons, and no formal grounds
are complete without them. A hedge of cypress, cedar, hemlock
or arbor-vitae around the space allotted to the vegetables affords
an excellent shelter from cold winds, and vegetables raised in such
an enclosure will be ready for the table several weeks in advance of
those raised in an open field. A group of them makes a decorative
screen that effectively shuts out a too intimate view of a neighbor's
back door or one's own stable or garage.
    The fine foliaged junipers, hemlocks, yews and retinosporas are
often used for formal hedges around drives and garden plots, and
when planted against a house unite it oesthetically with the ground.
The prostrate habit of the Mugho pine makes it of especial service
near a house or on a terrace. Several of the dwarf junipers are well
adapted for use on banks and terraces or as borders because of their
pendulous, trailing tendencies. Smaller species of all kinds are in
demand for formal or informal groups in joining the larger trees in
close association with the ground.
   Experienced horticulturists generally recommend evergreens that
are native of America. Next to these come the ones from Japan,
for because of the similarity of climate imported Japan stock thrives
well with us, while those from Europe seldom live longer than twenty-
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