The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Shrubs And Trees

Purpose And Scope

What this volume aims to accomplish is a comparative evaluation of a wide range of hardy, ornamental, deciduous shrubs and small trees from the viewpoint of their usefulness in small home landscapes. It means to do this in language understandable to people not over-familiar with these things, so that they may be helped to select, from the multitude of catalog and magazine offerings, the kinds best suited for their purposes.

By "deciduous" shrubs and trees are meant those which shed their foliage in the autumn; and by "small home landscapes," residential properties not exceeding, and mostly below, the equivalent of 100 x 150 feet.

When on such places allowances have been made for drive and walks, flower or vegetable garden or both, play-room and open lawn, the areas which remain available for planting must of necessity be used with the utmost efficiency and economy of space. The choice of materials must, therefore, fall out radier generally in favor of the smaller-growing border and specimen materials and those possessing more than the single, fleeting attraction of floral effect; preferences which have been exercised consistently throughout these pages. This, then, is a book for people with small places, and particularly for the novice at gardening with shrubs.

To these definitions of terms and scope let us add as clearly as possible what is meant by the words "hardy" and "hardiness" as applied to the materials with which we propose to deal. What we have done here is to select from the broad range of available shrubs and small trees only those kinds which are capable of enduring severe winters and therefore are of interest to gardeners over a wide part of this country. The Northern limit to which the hardiness ratings in this book are applicable cannot very well be expressed in precise geographical terms, but may be understood to be represented by climates where winter temperatures fall not rarely to 25 degrees below zero by unofficial but accurate readings. Where colder extremes occur commonly, the hardiness ratings in this book will have to be discounted somewhat, while in milder climates they may be taken as decidedly on the conservative side.

In this book, then, shrubs and trees will be set down as hardy or tender according to their ability to withstand occasional temperatures of about 25 degrees below zero.

Naturally, in the several latitudes in which these materials may be planted they are likely to display more or less variation in the matters of ultimate proportions, flowering season and in other points of behavior. For instance, the so-called the-back shrubs (see Glossary, p. 59) may, in mild climates, maintain their tops alive through the winter.