Again and again I find the Arizona cypress and 'Juniperis communis' (the upright one) an excellent foil for some flowering bush. 'Viburnum burkwoodii' with its large heads of white flowers softly tinged with pink is much lovelier against such a background, and this rather thinly growing shrub seems to need the 'body' that a good sturdy conifer supplies. How dull a treeless garden can be. I shall never forget the demand of one client: "I want you to get me half-a-dozen choice shrubs", he said magnificently. "Whatever for?" I said, chafing at the confusion of my profession with that of a nurseryman. Not that I wouldn't as soon be a nurseryman - both have equal advantages and disadvantages, I should think.

"To plant in my garden, of course", he said snappily.

"What without some trees to go with them?"

"Trees grow too big", he said.

"They don't take up as much room as shrubs", said I, and once again I had to explain this little thing, and before I'd finished, being a man of action, he had decided to have all trees and no shrubs.

"What no shrubs?" I said, and then I had to explain that I needed some shrubs to make a picture. His energy was fading.

"Oh, do as you like", he said, throwing up his hands.

I made a few rough notes and hurried off to get a ... I've forgotten what it is now, but it was a deserving case.

Yours,

Edna Walling.