the men who have the making of
gardens--with, of course, notable exceptions--do not seem to know the
rich storehouse to draw from." Very true is this. We see evidence of it
every day. The mixed shrubbery is fondly clung to as a place for all
shrubs, whether flowering or otherwise, and the result is a thicket of
growths, a case indeed of a survival of the fittest. There are other
shrubs than Privet in this fair world of ours, and as for providing
shelter, the wind whistles through its bare stems and creates a draught
good for neither man, beast, nor plant. Of the cherry laurel again there
is far too much in gardens. Few other plants can stand against its
greedy, searching roots, and its vigorous branches and big leaves kill
other leaf-growth near them. Grown in the proper way, that is, as an
isolated shrub, with abundance of space to develop its graceful branches
and brilliant green leaves, the Cherry Laurel is a beautiful evergreen;
it is quite happy in shady, half-wooded places. But grown, as it is so
often, jammed up and smothering other things, or held in bounds by a
merciless and beauty-destroying knife, its presence has not been to the
advantage of English gardening.

When the planting season comes round, think of some of the good shrubs
not yet in the garden, and forget pontic Rhododendron, Laurel, Aucuba,
and Privet. By this is not meant rare shrubs, such as may only be had
from the few nurseries of the very highest rank or from those that make
rare shrubs a speciality, but good things that may be grown in any
garden and that appear in all good shrub catalogues.

[Illustration: _CHINESE GUELDER ROSE._]

Perhaps no beautiful and now well-known shrub is more neglected than
beautiful _Exochorda grandiflora_ (the Pearl Bush). Its near relatives,
the Spiraeas, are in every shrubbery, but one may go through twenty and
not see Exochorda. Even of the Spiraeas one does not half often see
enough of _S. Thunbergi_, a perfect milky way of little starry bloom in
April and a most shapely little bush, or the double-flowered _S.
prunifolia_, with its long wreaths of flower-like double thorn or minute
white roses and its autumn bravery of scarlet foliage. The hardy
Magnolias are not given the opportunity they deserve of making our
gardens lovely in earliest summer. Who that has seen _Magnolia stellata_
in its April dress of profuse white bloom and its summer and autumn
dignity of handsome though not large foliage, would endure