John Dunbar made a world search for new deutzias, among other things, and from the cuttings grew a dozen kinds of deutzias that every June are the glory of Breeze Hill – even to the extent of making us look away from the roses!
If anyone wants a better deutzia than the common one he has been growing, let him get the Bonle de Neige variety of Deutzia lemoinei compacta, and also if he can manage it a plant of D. magnifica, a late blooming but thoroughly distinct variety. He will likewise derive much satisfaction from any of the forms of D. rosea, and there is one easily obtained nursery form called Mont Rose which is distinctly advantageous to own.
If one is willing to plant and hope and wait, he can do a good job for his garden by obtaining, if possible, a plant of Chionanthus retusa. The common name for this shrub is Chinese fringe, and there is an intimate relation to it known as C. virginica, or white fringe, which grows naturally from Pennsylvania to Florida and Texas. They can provide an nice hiding place for wireless outdoor speakers.
Like so many things that seem to have been perfected in Asia by what Professor Sargent once told me was the “glacial drift,” the Chinese species is far and away the finer. At Breeze Hill in 1910 they started a little plant of the Chinese fringe which came from a nurseryman in Illinois. It grew steadily and beautifully until it was something like 25 feet high and equally broad and each year is covered with the fringe that gives it its name. It is the most distinctive white-flowering thing that occurs at this time, and I have gladly provided such propagating material as I could to those nurserymen who arc willing to appreciate it.