VISION IN PLANTING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 27, 29 December 1932, Page 2

VISION IN PLANTING.

A PRECIOUS GIFT. A contributor to the London Times writes as follows : In one branch of gardening—that of planting—vision can hardly bo the inborn sense it is sometimes supposed to be. No one can make a successful planter, particularly of trees and shrubs, who cannot visualise the result of his or her planting in 20 years’ time. Y'ision of that kind is not to be had from books, but from experience, and that is probably the reason why few young people make successful landscape planters. Generally, tlreir work lacks restraint, and after a time their planting assumes the character of a jungle. It is true that the opening of gardens for the Queen's Fund gives the observant many chances of seeing the result of established plantings, and the botanic gardens are always available to those of inquiring mind, but experience provides the key to success. Y'ision, however, is evident enough in the design or some of the rock gardens that are set up annually at the Chelsea Show, and some fortunate folk have a natural sense of vision where floral colour is concerned. They can carry the colour of a plant home from a flower show or another garden and in their mind’s eye place it exactly where it should go in their own garden—a precious gift. In beginning to plant a new garden amateurs are seldom bold enough and plant tilings patchily in ones and twos where they should he in sixes and sevens. The actual quantity’, depends on the space available, and when a designer of herbaceous borders once said that, given room, he never used less than 12 of a plant together he was sure of his effect. This applies more to herbaceous and bulbous plants as well as to the smaller shrubs than to larger shrubs, though some of these, again, gain by association with others of their kind. Though this has no hearing on vision, too many beginners fail to realise the immense difference in the quality of plants. Catalogues are clogged with secondclass plants which are retained, probably’, lx?cause nurserymen are a conservative body. Many plants, however, have a form or variety which is superior to the rest,' and that should be the beginner’s choice. The list of June flowering bearded border irises, for instance, is packed with named varieties that have been superseded and are of interest only to the curious, and so is the list of varieties of delphinium. By trial of flowering plants and the publication of the results of the Royal Horticultural Society deserves well of amateurs, who could make more use of the prize lists, and the National Rose Societyhelps in the same way. In planting shrubberies it is just as easy and much less costly to he restrained in the use of shrubs than to crowd them in so that in 10 years’ time eaeli is lighting the other for light and air. The crowding is often excused on the score that jt helps to negative a feeling of emptiness induced by. more restrained planting on new ground; hut any vacant space between young shrubs that are a foot high when planted, and may’ be 10 times as high and larger round than a haycock in 10 years, can just as well he filled temporarily with herbaceous plants. No doubt beginners would find it useful if the ultimate size of shrubs and trees could bo included in catalogues, with some indication of tho average rate of growth in congenial soils and districts, for some trees and shrubs shoot up while others are leisurely in their growth. Yfision comes into play in the placing of trees and shrubs where the autumn colour of the leaf may bo seen to the best effect, and distance is of help here. In hilly gardens it is scarcely possible to make too much of distant views with the ever-chang-ing play of sun and cloud. Too careful thought can hardly !>e given to the placing of specimen trees like cedars, cypresses, firs, pines and the like. Gardens are peopled with fine trees that have grown and grown till they are out of the picture and have become an almost intolerable burden but are retained because of the inherent objection Englishmen have to cutting down a fine tree, tire common excuse for inaction being an inability to foresee the effect of the tree’s disappearance.