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$a Gardening styles may come and gardening styles may go, but ornamental trees and shrubs go on for ever. The only living thing which was common to the naturalistic British style of Capability Brown and the formal French style of Le Notre was the use of trees and large shrubs. But this is not a book about the grand gardens of yesterday. It is about the ordinary home gardens of today, ranging in size from tiny plots outside terraced houses to multi-acred estates sur- rounding stately homes. In both of these there is a place for shrubs, conifers and climbers, and the popularity of these plants has greatly increased in recent years.
There are several reasons for this growth of interest in woody plants. The advent of the gar- den centre is, of course, a major factor. Once we had to order our shrubs from a nursery-now we can see conifers, trees, climbers and so on all neatly displayed, in full leaf and perhaps in flow- er, and ready to take home for planting. Planting is no longer a task which must be completed in the cold months of the year container-grown shrubs can be planted all year round.
Above all, perhaps, is a much wider under- standing of the unique role of trees and shrubs in the garden. The lawns, paths and low-growing flowers form the ground-level pattern. Above them rise the woody plants, the trees, shrubs, conifers and climbers the upright living framework of the garden. In summer they pro- vide height, colour and fragrance-they give the garden its shape. In winter their role is equally or even more important. When the flower gar- den has died down, the bare branches of de- ciduous shrubs and the leaf-bedecked stems of the evergreens ensure that we are looking at a garden border and not a bare plot of ground.
Trees and shrubs have an additional virtue - they are much less trouble than annuals, veget ables, lawns and the herbaceous border. Once fully established there is little to be done - no tant feeding or spraying, no regular dead- heading and staking, no annual planting ritual and no rushing out with the watering can every time the weather turns dry.
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