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ILLUSTRATED
ILLUSTRATED
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK: MCMXIV Copyright, 1914, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published October, 1914...
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" ... that suddenly falling wooded and broken ground where Mill River loiters through Paradise." A strong wire fence (invisible in the picture) here divides the grove from the old river road.
" ... that suddenly falling wooded and broken ground where Mill River loiters through Paradise." A strong wire fence (invisible in the picture) here divides the grove from the old river road.
On this green of the dryads, where it intercepts the "avenue" that slips over from the Elm Street trolley-cars, lies, such as it is, my own acre; house, lawn, shrubberies and, at the rear, in the edge of the pines, the study. Back there by the study—which sometimes in irony we call the power-house—the lawn merges into my seven other acres, in Paradise. Really the whole possession is a much humbler one than I find myself able to make it appear in the flattering terms of land measure. Those seven
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"On this green of the dryads ... lies My Own Acre." The two young oaks in the picture are part of the row which gives the street its name.
"On this green of the dryads ... lies My Own Acre." The two young oaks in the picture are part of the row which gives the street its name.
"Contour paths" was the word he gave me; paths starting from the top of the steep broken ground and bending in and out across and around its ridges and ravines at a uniform decline of, say, six inches to every ten feet, until the desired terminus is reached below; much as, in its larger way, a railway or aqueduct might, or as cattle do when they roam in the hills. Thus, by the slightest possible interference with natural conditions, these paths were given a winding course every step of which was
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"The beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the river full back to the rapids just above My Own Acre." This is the "Hoe Shop." The tower was ruined by fire many years ago, and because of its unsafety is being taken down at the present writing.
"The beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the river full back to the rapids just above My Own Acre." This is the "Hoe Shop." The tower was ruined by fire many years ago, and because of its unsafety is being taken down at the present writing.
This ravine, the middle one of the grove's three, is about a hundred feet wide. When I first began to venture the human touch in it, it afforded no open spot level enough to hold a camp-stool. From the lawn above to the river road below, the distance is three hundred and thirty feet, and the fall, of fifty-five feet, is mostly at the upper end, which is therefore too steep, as well as too full of varied undergrowth, for any going but climbing. In the next ravine on its left there was a clear, co
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"A fountain ... where one,—or two,—can sit and hear it whisper." The ravine of the three fish pools. There is a drop of thirty feet between the upper and the lowermost pool.
"A fountain ... where one,—or two,—can sit and hear it whisper." The ravine of the three fish pools. There is a drop of thirty feet between the upper and the lowermost pool.
The bringing of the grove out on the lawn and the pushing of the lawn in under the grove was one of the early tasks of my own acre. When the house was built its lot and others backed up to a hard, straight rear line where the old field had halted at its fence and where the woods began on ground that fell to the river at an angle of from forty to fifty degrees. Here my gifted friend and adviser gave me a precept got from his earlier gifted friend and adviser, Frederick Law Olmsted: that passing f
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"The bringing of the grove out on the lawn and the pushing of the lawn in under the grove was one of the early tasks of My Own Acre." At the point where the party is drinking tea (the site of the Indian mound) the overlap of grove and lawn is eighty-five feet across the old fence line that once sharply divided them.
"The bringing of the grove out on the lawn and the pushing of the lawn in under the grove was one of the early tasks of My Own Acre." At the point where the party is drinking tea (the site of the Indian mound) the overlap of grove and lawn is eighty-five feet across the old fence line that once sharply divided them.
Young senators among their seniors, they still have much growth to make before they can enter into their full forest dignity, yet Henry Ward Beecher's elm is nearly two feet through and has a spread of fifty; Max O'Rell's white-ash is a foot in diameter and fifty feet high; Edward Atkinson's is something more, and Felix Adler's hemlock-spruce, the maple of Anthony Hope Hawkins, L. Clark Seelye's English ash, Henry van Dyke's white-ash, Sol Smith Russell's linden, and Hamilton Wright Mabie's hors
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"Souvenir trees had from time to time been planted on the lawn by visiting friends." The Beecher elm, first of the souvenir trees.
"Souvenir trees had from time to time been planted on the lawn by visiting friends." The Beecher elm, first of the souvenir trees.
Would it were practicable to transmit to those who may know these trees in later days the scenes of their setting out and to tell just how the words were said which some of the planters spoke. Mr. Beecher, lover of young trees and young children, straightened up after pressing the soil about the roots with hands as well as feet and said: "I cannot wish you to live as long as this tree, but may your children's children and their children sit under its shade." Said Felix Adler to his hemlock-spruc
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"How the words were said which some of the planters spoke." President Seelye of Smith College planting a tree.—A majority of the company present were Smith College students and others engaged in the work of the People's Institute. The tree on the left is Barrie's elm. The tree directly behind the small sapling which is being planted, and on a line with it, is Max O'Rell's. The hemlock-spruce between them is Felix Adler's.
"How the words were said which some of the planters spoke." President Seelye of Smith College planting a tree.—A majority of the company present were Smith College students and others engaged in the work of the People's Institute. The tree on the left is Barrie's elm. The tree directly behind the small sapling which is being planted, and on a line with it, is Max O'Rell's. The hemlock-spruce between them is Felix Adler's.
And now as to the single acre by measure, of lawn, shrubs, and plants, close around my house; for the reason that it was and is my school of gardening. There was no garden here—I write this in the midst of it—when I began. Ten steps from where I sit there had been a small Indian mound which some one had carefully excavated. I found stone arrow chips on the spot, and one whole arrow-head. So here no one else's earlier skill was in evidence to point my course or impede it. This was my clean new sl
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"'Where are you going?' says the eye. 'Come and see,' says the roaming line." This planting conceals one of the alleys described on page 34. In the alley a concrete bench built into a concrete wall looks across the entire breadth of the garden and into the sunset.
"'Where are you going?' says the eye. 'Come and see,' says the roaming line." This planting conceals one of the alleys described on page 34. In the alley a concrete bench built into a concrete wall looks across the entire breadth of the garden and into the sunset.
But a cure was easy. I had to straighten but one side of each alley to restore the eye's freedom of perspective, and nothing more was wanting. The American eye's freedom of perspective is one of our great liberties. Oh, say, can you see —? I made this change, of course, on the side nearest the straight, property-division bound, where ran an invisible wire fence. Thus the bed on that side was set between two straight parallels, while the bed on the lawn side remained between waving parallels. Thi
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"The lane is open to view from end to end. It has two deep bays on the side nearest the lawn." The straight line of high growth conceals in the midst of its foliage a wire division fence, and makes a perfect background for blooming herbaceous perennials.
"The lane is open to view from end to end. It has two deep bays on the side nearest the lawn." The straight line of high growth conceals in the midst of its foliage a wire division fence, and makes a perfect background for blooming herbaceous perennials.
"Don't" ever, if you can help it, says another of my old mistakes to me, let your acre lead your guest to any point which can be departed from only by retracing one's steps. Such necessities involve a lapse—not to say collapse—of interest, which makes for dulness and loss of dignity. Lack what my own acre may, I have it now so that by its alleys, lawns and contour paths in garden and grove we can walk and walk through every part of it without once meeting our own tracks, and that is not all beca
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" ... until the house itself seems as naturally ... to grow up out of the garden as the high keynote rises at the end of a lady's song." On the right of this picture you may see the piers of one of the front gates of My Own Acre standing under Henry Ward Beecher's elm. The urn forms surmounting them are of concrete, and the urns are cast from earlier forms in wood, which were a gift from Henry van Dyke. On the left the tops of the arbor vitæ and a magnolia are bending in the wind.
" ... until the house itself seems as naturally ... to grow up out of the garden as the high keynote rises at the end of a lady's song." On the right of this picture you may see the piers of one of the front gates of My Own Acre standing under Henry Ward Beecher's elm. The urn forms surmounting them are of concrete, and the urns are cast from earlier forms in wood, which were a gift from Henry van Dyke. On the left the tops of the arbor vitæ and a magnolia are bending in the wind.
Our ordinary American life is also too near nature for the formal garden to come in between. Unless our formal gardening is of some inexpensive sort our modest dwelling-houses give us an anticlimax, and there is no inexpensive sort of formal gardening. Except in the far south our American climate expatriates it. A very good practical rule would be for none of us to venture upon such gardening until he is well able to keep up an adequate greenhouse. A formal garden without a greenhouse or two—or
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"Muffle your architectural angles in foliage and bloom." An invisible fault of this planting is that it was set too close to the building and tended to give an impression, probably groundless, of promoting dampness. Also it was an inconvenience to mechanics in painting or repairing.
"Muffle your architectural angles in foliage and bloom." An invisible fault of this planting is that it was set too close to the building and tended to give an impression, probably groundless, of promoting dampness. Also it was an inconvenience to mechanics in painting or repairing.
The competing gardens being kept wholly without hired labor, of course our constant advice to all contestants is to shun formal gardening. It is a pity that in nearly all our cities and towns the most notable examples of gardening are found in the parks, boulevards, and cemeteries. By these flaring displays thousands of modest cottagers who might easily provide, on their small scale, lovely gardens about their dwellings at virtually no cost and with no burdensome care, get a notion that this, an
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Fences masked by shrubbery. One straight line of Williston Seminary campus, the effect of whose iron fence before it was planted out with barberry may be seen in the two panels of it still bare on the extreme right.
Fences masked by shrubbery. One straight line of Williston Seminary campus, the effect of whose iron fence before it was planted out with barberry may be seen in the two panels of it still bare on the extreme right.
Here there is a word to be added in the interest of home-lovers, whose tastes we properly expect to find more highly trained than those of the average tenant cottager. Our American love of spaciousness leads us to fancy that—not to-day or to-morrow, but somewhere in a near future—we are going to unite our unfenced lawns in a concerted park treatment: a sort of wee horticultural United States comprised within a few city squares; but ever our American individualism stands broadly in the way, and o
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Shrubbery versus annuals. The contrast in these two pictures is between two small street plantings standing in sight of each other, one of annuals with a decorative effect and lasting three months, the other with shrubberies and lasting nine months.
Shrubbery versus annuals. The contrast in these two pictures is between two small street plantings standing in sight of each other, one of annuals with a decorative effect and lasting three months, the other with shrubberies and lasting nine months.
"Flowering shrubs of well-chosen kinds are in leaf two-thirds of the year, and their leafless branches and twigs are a pleasing relief to the structure's cold nakedness even through the winter. I have seen a house, whose mistress was too exclusively fond of annuals, stand wait ing for its shoes and stockings from October clear round to August, and then barefooted again in October. In such gardening there is too much of love's labor lost. If one's grounds are so small that there is no better plac
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" ... a line of shrubbery swinging in and out in strong, graceful undulations." The straight planting on this picture's left masks the back yards of three neighbors, and gives them a privacy as well as My Own Acre. The curved planting shows but one of three bends. It was here that I first made the mistake of planting a sinuous alley. (See "My Own Acre," p. 34.)
" ... a line of shrubbery swinging in and out in strong, graceful undulations." The straight planting on this picture's left masks the back yards of three neighbors, and gives them a privacy as well as My Own Acre. The curved planting shows but one of three bends. It was here that I first made the mistake of planting a sinuous alley. (See "My Own Acre," p. 34.)
For this he has no occasion to make himself responsible but there are certain empty lots not far from him for whose aspect he is answerable, having graded them himself (before he knew how). He has repeatedly heard their depth estimated at ninety feet, never at more. In fact it is one hundred and thirty-nine. However, he has somewhat to do also with a garden whose grading was quite as bad—identical, indeed—whose fault has been covered up and its depth made to seem actually greater than it is, ent
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"However enraptured of wild nature you may be, you do and must require of her some subserviency about your own dwelling." A front view of the three older buildings of Williston Seminary.
"However enraptured of wild nature you may be, you do and must require of her some subserviency about your own dwelling." A front view of the three older buildings of Williston Seminary.
So, then, our problem, Where to Plant What, may become for a moment, Where to Plant Shrubbery; and the response of the free-line garden will be, of course, "Remember, concerning each separate shrub, that he or she—or it, if you really prefer the neuter—is your guest, and plant him or her or it where it will best enjoy itself, while promoting the whole company's joy." Before it has arrived in the garden, therefore, learn—and carefully consider—its likes and dislikes, habits, manners and accomplis
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"Plant it where it will best enjoy itself." These wild roses are in two clumps with a six-foot open way between them. They are a wild rose (Rosa Arkansana) not much in use but worthy of more attention, as indeed all the wild roses are. The sunlit tree farthest on the right is Sol Smith Russell's linden.
"Plant it where it will best enjoy itself." These wild roses are in two clumps with a six-foot open way between them. They are a wild rose (Rosa Arkansana) not much in use but worthy of more attention, as indeed all the wild roses are. The sunlit tree farthest on the right is Sol Smith Russell's linden.
As the present century was coming in, however, the opportunity, through private flower-gardening, to double or quadruple the town's beauty and to do it without great trouble or expense, yet with great individual delight and social pleasure, came to the lively notice of a number of us. It is, then, for the promotion of this object throughout all our bounds, and not for the perfection of the art for its own sake, that we maintain this competition and award these "Carnegie" prizes. Hence certain fe
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" ... climaxes to be got by superiority of stature, by darkness and breadth of foliage and by splendor of bloom belong at its far end." Everything in this photograph was planted by the amateur gardener except the pine-trees in perspective.
" ... climaxes to be got by superiority of stature, by darkness and breadth of foliage and by splendor of bloom belong at its far end." Everything in this photograph was planted by the amateur gardener except the pine-trees in perspective.
One point farther in this direction and we may give our hard-worked analogy a respite. It is this: as those who make and present a play take great pains that, by flashes of revelation to eye and to ear, the secrets most unguessed by the characters in the piece shall be early revealed to the audience and persistently pressed upon its attention, so should the planting of a garden be; that, as if quite without the gardener's or the garden's knowledge, always, to the eye, nostril or ear, some clear
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"Some clear disclosure of charm still remote may beckon and lure." From a photograph taken on My Own Acre, showing how I pulled the lawn in under the trees. The big chestnuts in the middle are on the old fence line that stood on the very edge of the precipitously falling ground. All the ground in sight in the picture is a fill.
"Some clear disclosure of charm still remote may beckon and lure." From a photograph taken on My Own Acre, showing how I pulled the lawn in under the trees. The big chestnuts in the middle are on the old fence line that stood on the very edge of the precipitously falling ground. All the ground in sight in the picture is a fill.
"Berberis. Berberis is the barberry, so well known by its beautiful pendent berries. It is one of the best shrubs to use where a thorny bush is wanted. B. vulgaris , the common sort, and one of the most beautiful, grows from four to eight feet high, with a breadth of from three to six feet. B. Thunbergii , or Thunberg's barberry, is the well-known Japanese variety, a dense, drooping bush from two to four feet high and somewhat greater breadth. Its pale-yellow blossoms come in April and May, and
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" ... tall, rectangular, three-story piles ... full of windows all of one size, pigeon-house style." Middle Hall, Williston Seminary, facing the main street of the town.
" ... tall, rectangular, three-story piles ... full of windows all of one size, pigeon-house style." Middle Hall, Williston Seminary, facing the main street of the town.
Among these buildings we began our planting. We had drawn, of course, a ground plan of the whole place, to scale, showing each ground-floor door and window, so that we might respect its customary or projected use. A great point, that, in Where to Plant What. I once heard of a school whose small boys were accused of wantonly trampling down some newly set shrubs on the playground. "Well," demanded one brave urchin, "what made 'em go and plant a lot of bushes right on first base?" And no one was re
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"You can make gardening a concerted public movement." A gathering on My Own Acre in the interest of the Flower Garden Competition.
"You can make gardening a concerted public movement." A gathering on My Own Acre in the interest of the Flower Garden Competition.
One evening in September a company of several hundred persons gathered in the main hall of the institute's "Carnegie House" to witness and receive the prize awards of their twelfth annual flower-garden competition. The place was filled. A strong majority of those present were men and women who earn their daily bread with their hands. The whole population of Northampton is but twenty thousand or so, and the entire number of its voters hardly exceeds four thousand, yet there were one thousand and
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"Not chiefly to reward the highest art in gardening, but to procure its widest and most general dissemination." A cheap apartment row whose landlord had its planting done by the People's Institute.
"Not chiefly to reward the highest art in gardening, but to procure its widest and most general dissemination." A cheap apartment row whose landlord had its planting done by the People's Institute.
That is all. When we have given two or three lesser items our story is told—for what it is worth. It is well to say we began small; in our first season, fifteen years ago, our whole roll of competitors numbered but sixty. It is the visiting that makes the difference; last season these visits, volunteer and official, were more than thirty-one hundred. Another source of our success we believe to be the fact that our prizes are many and the leading ones large—fifteen, twelve, nine dollars, and so o
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"One such competing garden was so beautiful last year that strangers driving by stopped and asked leave to dismount and enjoy a nearer view." A capital prize-winner's back yard which was a sand bank when he entered the competition. His front yard is still handsomer.
"One such competing garden was so beautiful last year that strangers driving by stopped and asked leave to dismount and enjoy a nearer view." A capital prize-winner's back yard which was a sand bank when he entered the competition. His front yard is still handsomer.
A certain garden to which we early awarded a high prize was, and yet remains, among the loveliest in Northampton. Its house stands perhaps seventy feet back from the public way and so nearly at one edge of its broad lot that all its exits and entrances are away from that side and toward the garden. A lawn and front bordered on side by loose hedges of Regel's privet and Thunberg's barberry and with only one or two slim trees of delicate foliage near its street line, rises slightly from the sidewa
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"Those who pay no one to dig, plant or prune for them." The aged owner of this place has hired no help for twenty years. Behind her honey-locust hedge a highly kept and handsome flower and shrubbery garden fills the whole house lot. She is a capital prize-winner.
"Those who pay no one to dig, plant or prune for them." The aged owner of this place has hired no help for twenty years. Behind her honey-locust hedge a highly kept and handsome flower and shrubbery garden fills the whole house lot. She is a capital prize-winner.
Out in the street, at the off side of the alley-gate, between a rude fence and an electric-railway siding, in about as much space as would give standing room to one horse and cart, bloomed—not by right of lease, but by permission of the railway company—a wealth of annual flowers, the lowest (pansies and such like) at the outer edge, the tallest against the unsightly fence. This was the prelude. In the alley the fence was clothed with vines; the windows—of which there were two—were decked with bo
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"The lawn ... lies clean-breasted, green-breasted, from one shrub-and-flower-planted side to the other, along and across." A common garden feature in New Orleans is the division fence with front half of wire, rear half of boards, both planted out with shrubs. The overhanging forest tree is the evergreen magnolia (M. grandiflora).
"The lawn ... lies clean-breasted, green-breasted, from one shrub-and-flower-planted side to the other, along and across." A common garden feature in New Orleans is the division fence with front half of wire, rear half of boards, both planted out with shrubs. The overhanging forest tree is the evergreen magnolia (M. grandiflora).
At the same time, let us note in passing, this enlargement is partly because the lawn—not always but very much oftener than where lawns go unenclosed—lies clean-breasted, green-breasted, from one shrub-and-flower-planted side to the other, along and across; free of bush, statue, urn, fountain, sun-dial or pattern-bed, an uninterrupted sward. Even where there are lapses from this delightful excellence they often do not spoil, but only discount, more or less, the beauty of the general scheme, as m
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"There eight distinct encumbrances narrow the sward.... In a half-day's work, the fair scene might be enhanced in lovely dignity by the elimination of these excesses." The sky-line of this beautiful garden becomes a part of the garden itself, a fact of frequent occurrence in New Orleans. The happy contrast of rearmost oak and palm is also worthy of notice.
"There eight distinct encumbrances narrow the sward.... In a half-day's work, the fair scene might be enhanced in lovely dignity by the elimination of these excesses." The sky-line of this beautiful garden becomes a part of the garden itself, a fact of frequent occurrence in New Orleans. The happy contrast of rearmost oak and palm is also worthy of notice.
But down there it shows this peculiarity, that it is altogether likely to be well bordered with blooming shrubs and plants along all that side of it next the lawn. Of course it is a fault that this shrubbery border—and all the more so because it is very apt to be, as in three of our illustrations [pages 174 , 178 , 180 ], a rose border—should, so often as it is, be pinched in between parallel edges. "No pinching" is as good a rule for the garden as for the kindergarten. Manifestly, on the side n
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"The rear walk ... follows the dwelling's ground contour with business precision—being a business path."
"The rear walk ... follows the dwelling's ground contour with business precision—being a business path."
Not to have it so is an error, but the error is an inoffensive one easily corrected and the merit is that the dwelling's business path is greenly, bloomingly screened from its pleasure-ground by a lovely natural drapery which at the same time furnishes, as far as the path goes, the house's robes of modesty. Indeed they are furnished farther than the path goes; for no good work gathers momentum more readily than does good gardening, and the householder, having begun so rightly, has now nothing to
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"Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even ... where it does not conceal, the house's architectural faults."
"Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even ... where it does not conceal, the house's architectural faults."
A lovely stage scene, we say, without a hint of the stage's unreality; for the side and rear fences and walls, being frankly unornamental, call for more careful management than the front and are often charmingly treated. (Page 174 .) (See, for an example of a side fence with front half of wire and rear half of boards, page 174 , and for solid walls, pages 180 and 184 .) Where they separate neighbors' front lawns they may be low and open, but back of the building-line, being oftenest tight and ge
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" ... a lovely stage scene without a hint of the stage's unreality." The beauty of this spot could be enhanced in ten minutes by taking away the planted urns which stand like gazing children in the middle of the background.
" ... a lovely stage scene without a hint of the stage's unreality." The beauty of this spot could be enhanced in ten minutes by taking away the planted urns which stand like gazing children in the middle of the background.
In that first week of January already mentioned the present writer saw at every turn, in such borders and in leaf and blossom, the delicate blue-flowered plumbago; two or three kinds of white jasmine, also in bloom; and the broad bush-form of the yellow jasmine, beginning to flower. With them were blooming roses of a dozen kinds; the hibiscus (not althæa but the H. rosasinensis of our Northern greenhouses), slim and tall, flaring its mallow-flowers pink, orange, salmon and deep red; the trailing
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" ... from the autumn side of Christmas to the summer side of Easter." In any garden as fair as this there should be some place to sit down. This deficiency is one of the commonest faults in American gardening.
" ... from the autumn side of Christmas to the summer side of Easter." In any garden as fair as this there should be some place to sit down. This deficiency is one of the commonest faults in American gardening.
Now while the time of year in which these conditions are visible heightens their lovely wonder, their practical value to Northern home-lovers is not the marvel and delight of something inimitable but their inspiring suggestion of what may be done with ordinary Northern home grounds, to the end that the floral pageantry of the Southern January may be fully rivalled by the glory of the Northern June. For of course the Flora of the North, who in the winter of long white nights puts off all her jewe
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"The sleeping beauty of the garden's unlost configuration ... keeping a winter's share of its feminine grace and softness." This picture was taken in the first flush of spring. The trees in blossom are the wild Japanese cherry.
"The sleeping beauty of the garden's unlost configuration ... keeping a winter's share of its feminine grace and softness." This picture was taken in the first flush of spring. The trees in blossom are the wild Japanese cherry.
Eden! If I so recklessly ignore latitude as to borrow the name of the first gardener's garden for such a shivering garden as this it is because I see this one in a dream of hope—a diffident, interrogating hope—really to behold, some day, this dream-garden of Northern winters as I have never with actual open eyes found one kept by any merely well-to-do American citizen. If I describe it I must preface with all the disclaimers of a self-conscious amateur whose most venturesome argument goes no far
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"It is only there that I see anything so stalwart as a pine or so rigid as a spruce." The blossoming trees in this picture are a Chinese crab blooming ten days later than the Japanese wild cherry (see illustration facing p. 186), which is now in full leaf at their back.
"It is only there that I see anything so stalwart as a pine or so rigid as a spruce." The blossoming trees in this picture are a Chinese crab blooming ten days later than the Japanese wild cherry (see illustration facing p. 186), which is now in full leaf at their back.
Shall we summarize? Our gist is this: that those gardens of New Orleans are as they are, not by mere advantage of climate but for several other reasons. Their bounds of ownership and privacy are enclosed in hedges, tight or loose, or in vine-clad fences or walls. The lawn is regarded as a ruling feature of the home's visage, but not as its whole countenance—one flat feature never yet made a lovely face. This lawn feature is beautified and magnified by keeping it open from shrub border to shrub b
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