A more common, free, and abundant use of evergreen shrubs should be adopted, because of the cheerful, bright, verdurelike appearance produced in the landscape when their dark and light green foliage and blue or scarlet berries cover with harmonious life-like beauty what otherwise in the dreary winter scenes would be barren and unsightly. Their use among deciduous shrubs can be more general than that of evergreen trees, from the fact that they only rise a few feet, and therefore, unlike trees, can not exhibit shade and gloom to the scene. Many a place is made beautiful in summer from the foliage of shrubs and the bloom of flowers, that in winter presents a dreary barren aspect, which is easily changed and draped with foliage and beauty by the simple planting of evergreen shrubs. Were we to write an entire book in advocating their general use, it would not half express our feelings, or perhaps any more advance their frequent planting than our present few words. To the planter who seeks to create constant beauty, or who desires easy gradations and harmonious combinations in landscape; to him who has but small grounds in the suburbs of a city; to those who desire to clothe the last resting-place of earthly friends with emblems of eternity and lasting beauty, let me urge upon their attention the claims found in, and beauty derived from, the use of shrub evergreens.

Among the most hardy, and adapted to all sections and positions, the Juniper in its varieties is, perhaps, most worthy of frequent and universal planting. There is, as we have described, trees under this head that do not bear clipping; but all the dwarf or naturally small-sized trees of this class bear well a free use of the shears, and may be kept in any form or shape agreeable to the wants or taste of man.

The Swedish juniper - suecica - is of a pyramidal habit, with a bluish green foliage and quite rapid growth. It sometimes is liable to break down from our winter snows or severe storms, and should therefore have a wrapping of small wires to keep it in form. Its growth is from ten to twenty feet high, although it may be kept, by means of clipping, clown to a height of only five to eight feet. It is adapted to point groups on the corners of diverging roadways or paths, and with the Podocarpus and Irish juniper very effective little clusters may be formed.

The Irish juniper - Hibemica - forms one of the prettiest of little point trees; it is perfectly hardy, and always keeps a beautiful rich green color, rather darker than the Swedish. It can be kept at any height, from that of two feet upward to five or six. The common juniper - communis var. Canadensis - is well known, but too rarely planted because it is common. Singly, upon a lawn, it grows rapidly; and although rising but a few feet high, it spreads over a broad surface and forms a remarkable and effective object. Juniperus squamata is also a variety effective as a large spreading plant upon an extensive lawn. Juniperus nana and echiniformis are of a lighter, more yellow green and compact habit, and for positions where only a limited space can be given them, are very beautiful. They are nearer allied to the juniperus sabina, or common savin, a variety well known, and that forms one of the best masses of low growth among the whole collection.

Fig. 59. - Irish Juniper and Savin.

Fig. 60. - Common Juniper and Prostrate Juniper.

The juniperus prostrata is a very low creeping variety, of value in rock-work, and for massing and forming a low evergreen bed upon a lawn. It is admirable also for planting on small mounds and in cemeteries over the graves of the departed.

There are many more varieties, but as yet comparatively scarce; all, however, or nearly all, promise to prove hardy and of value in forming features of beauty in a landscape. We have seen a most beautiful mass made of junipers by taking the Swedish, as the center plants, then the canadensis circling it, and intermingling the squamata and sabina with here and there a hibernica, and toning down with nana, to an outside finish with prostrata.