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Privacy is a desideratum of modern living not craved by all people. The last thing in the world that some ex-urbanites want is to be shut away from their neighbors. They want to see and be seen by their fellow beings. Togetherness is denied by hedges or bowers, they feel, and people who put up fences are egocentrics. Still, the desire for some privacy in at least part of the grounds is justifiable, and can be achieved without ostentation. Low-growing evergreens, again, are an easy solution around a cook-out fireplace or— be it ever so humble—to screen a pool. If you decide on some hedging, make it hemlock or Taxus, which respond well to feeding and clipping, rather than juniper or arbor-vitae, which may go out of hand. Barberry is a durable alternative, and in winter its merry berries make up for its fallen leaves. Spirea gives a lacy display in its spring season and can be grown densely without much trouble. Collecting and planting one's own shrubs and trees are found by real converts to countrified life to be much more fun than calling up a nursery and ordering the whole job done at one masterful stroke, out of a catalog. Most fun of all is collecting over the years, like stamps or butterflies, either exotics from the nurseries or native wildlings scouted out afield. For wildlings you must first find good hunting grounds, then beg or buy permission, spot and prepare your prizes, and finally fetch them home. The process takes anywhere from a day to two years per specimen, but to the thrill of discovery is added a tang of the unpredictable, and often of instructive failure. It is better not tried by beginners before they have bought a few standard, cultivated trees at a commercial establishment and watched the whole transplanting process done by the book. |
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