The Spireas are excellent shrubs for grouping, especially when the white and pink varieties are used together. This shrub is very hardy, and of the easiest culture, and I can recommend it to the amateur, feeling confident that it will never fail to please.

Quite as popular as the Spirea is the Deutzia, throughout the middle section of the northern states. Farther north it is likely to winter-kill badly. That is, many of its branches will be injured to such an extent that they will have to be cut away to within a foot or two of the ground, thus interfering with a free production of flowers. The blossoms of this shrub are of a tasselly bell-shape, produced thickly all along the slender branches, in June. Candidissima is a double white, very striking and desirable. Gracilis is the most daintily beautiful member of the family, all things considered. Discolor grandiflora is a variety with large double blossoms, tinted with pink on the reverse of the petals.

The Weigelia is a lovely shrub. There are white, pink, and carmine varieties. The flowers, which are trumpet-shaped, are borne in spikes in which bloom and foliage are so delightfully mixed that the result is a spray of great beauty. A strong plant will be a solid mass of color for weeks.

An excellent, low-growing, early flowering shrub is Pyrus Japonica, better known as Japan Quince. It is one of our earliest bloomers. Its flowers are of the most intense, fiery scarlet. This is one of our best plants for front rows in the shrubbery, and is often used as a low hedge.

AMERICAN IVY AND GERANIUMS

One of our loveliest little shrubs is Daphne Cneorum, oftener known as the "Garland Flower." Its blossoms are borne in small clusters at the extremity of the stalks. They are a soft pink, and very sweet. The habit of the plant is low and spreading. While this is not as showy as many of our shrubs, it is one that will win your friendship, because of its modest beauty, and will keep a place in your garden indefinitely after it has once been given a place there.

Berberis - the "Barberry" of "Grandmother's garden" - is a most satisfactory shrub, for several reasons: It is hardy everywhere. The white, yellow, and orange flowers of the different varieties are showy in spring; in fall the foliage colors finely; and through the greater part of winter the scarlet, blue and black berries are extremely pleasing. Thunbergii is a dwarf variety, with yellow flowers, followed by vivid scarlet fruit. In autumn, the foliage changes to scarlet and gold, and makes the bush as attractive as if covered with flowers. This is an excellent variety for a low hedge.

Exochorda grandiflora, better known as "Pearl Bush," is one of the most distinctively ornamental shrubs in cultivation. It grows to a height of seven to ten feet, and can be pruned to almost any desirable shape. The buds, which come early in the season, look like pearls strung on fine green threads - hence the popular name of the plant - and these open into flowers of the purest white. A fine shrub for the background of a border.

Forsythia is a splendid old shrub growing to a height of eight to ten feet. Its flowers appear before its leaves are out, and are of such a rich, shining yellow that they light up the garden like a bonfire. The flowers are bell-shaped, hence the popular name of the plant, "Golden Bell."

Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora is a very general favorite because of its great hardiness, profusion of flowers, ease of cultivation, and habit of late blooming. It is too well known to need description.

Robinia hispida, sometimes called Rose Acacia, is a native species of the Locust. It has long, drooping, very lovely clusters of pea-shaped flowers of a soft pink color. It will grow in the poorest soil and stand more neglect than any other shrub I have knowledge of. But because it can do this is no reason why it should be asked to do it. Give it good treatment and it will do so much better for you than it possibly can under neglect, that it will seem like a new variety of an old plant.

The Flowering Currant is a delightful shrub, and one that anyone can grow, and one that will flourish anywhere. It is very pleasing in habit, without any attention in the way of training. Its branches spread gracefully in all directions from the centre of the bush, and grow to a length of six or seven feet. Early in the season they are covered with bright yellow flowers of a spicy and delicious fragrance. In fall the bush takes on a rich coloring of crimson and gold, and is really much showier then than when in bloom, in spring.

Sambucus aurea - the Golden Elder - is one of the showiest shrubs in cultivation, and its showy feature is its foliage. Let alone, it grows to be a very large bush, but judicious pruning keeps it within bounds, for small grounds. It makes an excellent background for such brilliantly colored flowers as the Dahlia, Salvia splendens, or scarlet Geraniums. It deserves a place in all collections. Our native Cut-Leaved Elder is one of the most beautiful ornaments any place can have. It bears enormous cymes of delicate, lace-like, fragrant flowers in June and July. These are followed by purple berries, which make the bush as attractive as when in bloom.

The Syringa, or Mock Orange, is one of our favorites. It grows to a height of eight and ten feet and is therefore well adapted to places in the back row, or in the rear of the garden. Its flowers, which are borne in great profusion, are a creamy white, and very sweet-scented.

The double-flowered Plum is a most lovely shrub. It blooms early in spring, before its leaves are out. Its flowers are very double, and of a delicate pink, and are produced in such profusion that the entire plant seems under a pink cloud.