Border And All-over: THE BEST WAY of planning a border and all-over is to work with small groups of plants so you can concentrate on the relationship between the subjects, and so gradually build up the groups into a whole border and all-over planting. Choose plants with shapes that complement each other and which make an interesting and varied effect.
You will notice that different plants create a variety of effects. Spiky plants, for example, are active and lead the eye upward and onward to neighboring plants, while gentle hummock-forming plants are calming and bland, and lead the eye horizontally along the border and all-over.
At the same time think of height. Either use a tier system with tall plants at the back and shorter ones at the front, or use tall plants in the middle of the group to create peaks of interest, with shorter-growing plants leading the eye upward toward them. This will divert the eye and prevent it from traveling straight down the border and all-over, taking it all in at a glance. However, if tall plants are used toward the front of a border and all-over, they should be wispy enough to allow the eye to pass through them, yet substantial enough to break the line.
A border and all-over needs a certain amount of space to be effective. The minimum requirements are 4 x 12ft. If the border and all-over is any smaller than this you should restrict the number of plants used to six or seven different types, ensuring that they provide a good mix of flowers and foliage over a long period of the year.See Also Shade Tree:Among good shade trees are:—sugar maple; red maple, Pin oak, moraine locust, sweetgum, ginkgo, green ash, Chinese scholar tree, yellowood, black tupelo (sourgum), willow oak, laurel oak, south¬ern magnolia, camphor tree, and Amur cork tree. Kinds to avoid, although special circumstances may make planting any of them desirable, are poplars, willows, tree of heaven, box elder and Siberian elm.
Choose a shade tree with thought toward ultimate size. Giant types such as American Elm, European Beech and White Oak, are likely to become too large for modern, low-built homes, especially those on small lots. Before you buy, familiarize yourself with the kind of tree you have in mind in its middle-aged or mature condition. Usually you may inspect examples in botanic gar¬dens, parks, old private estates, cemetries and suchlike places and at some nurseries. In any case don't buy only on the basis of what the young tree looks like. You might just as well select a puppy as a pet with¬out any idea of its ultimate size or habits.
On The Other Hand See Living Tree Sloths:The ground sloths were once classified as a separate group from the two living tree sloths, but it is now thought that each of the tree sloths represents a line of previously ground-dwelling sloths. The complex adaptive characteristics of the feet have led to a theory that sloths were tree-dwellers in their very early history in South America, later be¬came ground-dwelling forms, and then returned to the trees. It is also possible that there have always been tree-dwelling forms.
GROUND SLOTH, an extinct ground-dwelling predecessor of the living tree sloths of South America. Ground sloths originated in South America in the early Eocene (about 60 million years ago); by the late Pleistocene, they were round from South America to Alaska.
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