Yew

Yew (Taxus) - This, one of the most beautiful of evergreen trees, has long been used in our flower gardens, clipped and distorted in what is called "topiary" work.

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Yew Origins and Uses

Evelyn is said to have introduced the practice with the Yew, but probably it originated with very old gardens, in which the Yew tree stood by the door. In such a case clipping was necessary, but in modern gardens clipping of a less profitable kind is often resorted to, so that the Yew is seldom seen in its stately grace. Its misuse is evident in many of the great gardens of the world, such as Versailles, where nothing is more ugly than the Yews cut hard against the skyline, many of them distorted, diseased, and ugly from constant clipping for years.

The best reason for Yew in gardens is its sheltering value. To put this vigorous forest tree into beds in a flower garden, and then clip it into various shapes, all ugly, is folly as to design and bad gardening, too. But with our modern stores of evergreens from many lands, the Yew is not our only garden shelter, and when we use it, let it be as far from our flowers as may be, for it is a voracious feeder, and a never-ending struggle with the roots has to go on. The effect of a background counts with some, and rightly; but in our days other fine evergreens give us good backgrounds, if we use them well—the Laurel, bet of evergreens (miscalled in our land the Bay), the finest hardy Rhododenrons on their own roots (i.e., from layers always), the graceful American trees like the Monterey and other Cypresses that require no clipping, and are far more lovely without the garden barbers attentions, and, best of all, our native Holly, the queen of evergreens. In previous editions of this book I included a number of varieties of the common Yew—a large number in some nurseries—which I have left out of the present edition, having never in my life seen any among those varieties at all comparable, for vigour, or grace, or any good quality, with our native Cedar.

The Golden and variegated Yews form striking groups of color, but are better held together in bold picturesque groups than dotted at regular intervals—a practice fatal to artistic effect. The Irish Yew, a plant of striking form, has been over-used by those who do not consider the effect of things on the landscape. I have seen houses with Irish Yews in all directions destroying the good effect of other and far more beautiful trees, and the variety that should exist in every English garden.

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