Amateur Gardencraft: A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover

by Eben E. Rexford

In planting shrubs, the rule given for trees applies quite fully. Have the hole for them large enough to admit of spreading out their roots naturally. You can tell about this by setting the shrub down upon the ground after unwrapping it, and watching the way in which it disposes of its roots. They will spread out on all sides as they did before the plant was taken from the ground. This is what they should be allowed to do in their new quarters. Many persons dig what resembles a post-hole more than anything else, and crowd the roots of the shrub into it, without making any effort to loosen or straighten them out, dump in some lumpy soil, trample it down roughly, and call the work done. Done it is, after a fashion, but those who love the plants they set out—those who want fine shrubs and expect them to grow well from the beginning—never plant in that way. Spread the roots out on all sides, cover them with fine, mellow soil, settle this into compactness with a liberal application of water, then fill up the hole, and cover the surface with a mulch of some kind. Treated in this way not one shrub in a hundred will fail to grow, if it has good roots. What was said about cutting off the ends on injured roots, in the chapter on planting trees, applies with equal pertinence here. Also, about keeping the roots covered until you are ready to put the plant into the ground. A shrub is a tree on a small scale, and should receive the same kind of treatment so far as planting goes. These instructions may seem trifling, but they are really matters of great importance, as every amateur will find after a little experience. A large measure of one's success depends on how closely we follow out the little hints and suggestions along these lines in the cultivation of all kinds of plants.

Among our best large shrubs, suitable for planting at the rear of the lot, or in the back row of a group, is the Lilac. The leading varieties will grow to a height of ten or twelve feet, and can be made to take on bush form if desired, or can be trained as a small tree. If the bush form is preferred, cut off the top of the plant, when small, and allow several branches to start from its base. If you prefer a tree, keep the plant to one straight stem until it reaches the height where you want the head to form. Then cut off its top. Branches will start below. Leave only those near the top of the stem. These will develop and form the head you want. I consider the Lilac one of our very best shrubs, because of its entire hardiness, its rapid development, its early flowering habit, its beauty, its fragrance, and the little attention needed by it. Keep the soil about it rich, and mow off the suckers that will spring up about the parent plant in great numbers each season, and it will ask no more of you. The chief objection urged against it is its tendency to sucker so freely. If let alone, it will soon become a nuisance, but with a little attention this disagreeable habit can be overcome. I keep the ground about my plants free from suckers by the use of the lawn-mower. They can be cut as easily as grass when young and small.

SNOWBALL

If there is a more beautiful shrub than the white Lilac I do not know what it is. For cut-flower work it is as desirable as the Lily of the Valley, which is the only flower I can compare it with in delicate beauty, purity, and sweetness.

The Persian is very pleasing for front positions, because of its compact, spreading habit, and its slender, graceful manner of branching close to the ground. It is a very free bloomer, and a bush five or six feet high, and as many feet across, will often have hundreds of plume-like tufts of bloom, of a dark purple showing a decided violet tint.

The double varieties are lovely beyond description. At a little distance the difference between the doubles and singles will not be very noticeable, but at close range the beauty of the former will be apparent. Their extra petals give them an airy grace, a feathery lightness, which the shorter-spiked kinds do not have. By all means have a rosy-purple double variety, and a double white. No garden that lives up to its privileges will be without them. If I could have but one shrub, I think my choice would be a white Lilac.

Another shrub of tall and stately habit is the old Snowball. When well grown, few shrubs can surpass it in beauty. Its great balls of bloom are composed of scores of individually small flowers, and they are borne in such profusion that the branches often bend beneath their weight. Of late years there has been widespread complaint of failure with this plant, because of the attack of aphides. These little green plant-lice locate themselves on the underside of the tender foliage, before it is fully developed, and cause it to curl in an unsightly way. The harm is done by these pests sucking the juices from the leaf. I have had no difficulty in preventing them from injuring my bushes since I began the use of the insecticide sold by the florists under the name of Nicoticide. If this is applied as directed on the can in which it is put up, two or three applications will entirely rid the plant of the insects, and they will not return after being driven away by anything as disagreeable to them as a nicotine extract. Great care must be taken to see that the application gets to the underside of the foliage where the pests will establish themselves. This is a matter of the greatest importance, for, in order to rout them, it is absolutely necessary that you get the nicotine where they are. Simply sprinkling it over the bush will do very little good.

The Spirea is one of the loveliest of all shrubs. Its flowers are exquisite in their daintiness, and so freely produced that the bush is literally covered with them. And the habit of the bush is grace itself, and this without any attention whatever from you in the way of training. In fact, attempt to train a Spirea and the chances are that you will spoil it. Let it do its own training, and the result will be all that you or any one else could ask for. There are several varieties, as you will see when you consult the dealers' catalogues. Some are double, some single, some white, some pink. Among the most desirable for general culture I would name Van Houteii, a veritable fountain of pure white blossoms in May and June, Prunifolia, better known as "Bridal Wreath," with double white flowers, Billardi, pink, and Fortunei, delicate, bright rose-color.