340 



GARDENING. 



Aug /, 



color elegantly in the fall. Coming to- 

 wards us on the right is the Colorado 

 blue spnce [Picea pungens glauca), then 

 a large rhododendron "The Queen" that 

 has to be wintered in a cellar. Next is a 

 clump of the variegated £u/a/;a/apon/ca, 

 then a tree paeony that has a box placed 

 over it in winter. 



This brings us to the first large bed 

 shown at the right. I mentioned before 

 that each bed was so planted that the 

 bloom and foliage were attractive the 

 season through. In this bed is used Pru- 

 nus Pissardii, the purple plum, Cornus 

 Mas— the variegated dogwood— that 

 needs some protecti<,n in winter, and the 

 golden tlder. These g.ve color eftVct all 

 along. Although this coloring is not 

 sanctioned by extremists, it is approved 

 by many. For flowers among theshrubs 

 used, commencing early we have Azalea 

 mollis, the purple plum, bush honey- 

 suckles, Spinea van Houttei, European 

 thorn and cornus. and soon will bloom 

 the Cletbra ainifolia. Robinia hispida is 

 long past and Hypericum aureum and H. 

 Kalmianum, with the Potentilla Iruti- 

 cosa are now in full glory. A group of 

 columbines among the perennials opens 

 the season, followed by the foxgloves, 

 whose season is long, then the Canter- 

 bury bells enliven the scene until thtir 

 place is occupied by pot plants ot the 

 giant tobacco and castor bean, plants 

 which do well in this sheltered spot. In 

 the meantime Lychnis Hos-cucvli and Py- 

 rethrum roseum have had their say and 

 European daisies (Bellis perennis) car- 

 peted the grc und under a canopy of Lil- 

 ium candidum blooms, some of which 

 came up through the foliage of Prunus 

 maritima, which was a sheet of white in 

 May. The purple barberry has bloomed 

 as well as the Kalmia lati folia and some 

 dwarfed catalpas bring us to the sea- 

 son of perennial phloxes whose early 

 bloomeis are on the wane, but many of 

 the rearguard are still to come. Opening 

 with them is a group of Pe/Jtsfemon^/o-v- 

 inioides and later on the tall chimney 

 campanulas (C. pyramidalis) which have 

 been retarded s mewhat by their shaded 

 position will carry the season of blooms 

 until frost. A pleasing border is necessary 

 in many cases, and the perennial phlox 

 needs one on account of its habit of some- 

 times losing its lower leaves. In this 

 case I use Seduin spectabile, which in 

 the picture looks like a low hedge. Us 

 glaucous loliage blends quietly with the 

 color of the grass, and its neat compact 

 habit harmonizes with the close shaven 

 lawn. It will bloom later on and present 

 a sheet of pink from the grass up. In no 

 part of mv grounds do 1 repeat the same 

 flower, an 1 the list to choose from is so 

 large that each bed can carry as extended 

 a floral calendar as the one just men- 

 tioned. 



The lawn is largely white clover, which 

 on our clay soil succeeds well. It is cut 

 once a week, the knives set so as to just 

 miss the clover leaves, which act like di- 

 minutive umbrellas to protect their roots. 

 On each cutting day the sprinkler follows 

 the mower and a good soaking given. 

 Any spot showing the eflects of drouth at 

 any time is given a good wetting down. 

 W. C. Egan. 



Highland Park, near Chicago. July 21, 



wrong in art, therefore why have all our 

 grass so clean shaven, and the home sur- 

 roundings so painfully prim and flower- 

 less? At least one instance is forthcom- 

 ing ot the existence of a garden of a con- 

 trary character. A correspondent writ- 

 ing to the London Garden from Bar 

 Harbor, Maine, tells of the floral riches of 

 his place; of the longsuc«s.-.ion of season- 

 able flowers from the time the dwarf 

 cornel spreads out its white carpet in 

 spring till the golden rod in all its autumn 

 glory heralds the approach of winter, and 

 concludes by saying "Flower garden we 

 have none, but our flowers are scattered 

 about wherever the soil is deep enough 

 and the spot sheltered from high winds." 



I lately made my first acquaintance 

 with lilies truly wild. Can you conceive 

 or create a lovelier garden picture than a 

 meadow full of Lilium canadense, its tall 

 slender stems th ust boldly up above the 

 long grass and the nodding flowers com- 

 mingled with the feathery plumes of the 

 tall meadow rue (thalictrum). On July 4 

 I saw acres of such a combination. No 

 word description could do justice to such 

 a delightful flower displaj', but just con- 

 trast it with some of our so-called flower 

 gardening and see where true beauty lies, 

 tine plant to one place is too much the 

 rule in gardens, with many suitable places 

 minus plants or flowers at all. Again in 

 quite a number of places recently I have 

 seen one of the day lilies (Hemerocallis 

 fulva) growing as though wild by the 

 roadside, some masses covering twelve to 

 twenty s-quare yards and rtsplendent 

 with a thousand blossoms Here is 

 another fine object lesson, lor this plant 

 is not a true native but an escape from 

 gardens, though never under cultivation 

 with its limiting restrictions have I seen 

 this flower so beautiful as it has been in a 

 dozen or more wild weedy places about 

 Madison and the adjoining district, a 

 striking instance of the "survival of 

 the fittest" and the fittest in this case the 

 most beautiful. I might continue to 

 enumerate other instances where beauty 

 has originated by accident, or suggest 

 possibilities in the way of naturalizing 

 flowers to an indefinite extent, but enough 

 has I think been said in this and the pre- 

 ceding articles to prove that the wild 

 garden is not a weedy wilderness, but 

 may be a thing of beauty and a joj' 

 throughout the year if planted with 

 spring, summer and autumn flowers. The 

 garnered plant riches of the world at our 

 hands to-day make up an enormous 

 amount of material for beautifying the 

 garden, and some perforce we must 

 neglect for want of scope, but there is 

 room for more detail in the garden 

 picture of a more or less permanent 

 character and an opportunity to realize 

 much in the wild garden. Nature has 

 favored localized spots andsprtadout her 

 floral gems in lavish profusion. We in the 

 garden have a localized area in hand and 

 given the knowledge of available things 

 should easily create pictures of loveliness 

 surpassing by far the chance result of 

 nature's work. It can be done by work- 

 ing along the lines laid down before us, 

 reading from the book of nature always 

 open and before our eyes. 



Madison, N.J. A. Herkinoton. 



fort. The grounds are not elaborate at 

 all, in fact they are quite plain, at the 

 same time they display a sense of quiet, • 

 refined taste many of his neighbors might 

 study with profit. Neither roads nor 

 walks cut up the spread of grass between 

 the house and the street, and there is no 

 dotting about of flower beds or trees in 

 the middle of the lawn. The trees are 

 thrown to the sides, and the roads are 

 there too. A hedge has been planted 

 along the street line inside the fence row 

 to give further privacy to the home. 

 Roses and other flowers are grown at the 

 flanks and toward the back of the house. 



Admitting all of these good points we 

 cannot help noting that if we owned that 

 place the first thing we would do would 

 be to cut down that big old spruce tree 

 that stands in front of the house, and 

 also another old evergreen a little to the 

 right. And probably we would introduce 

 a lew new fangled notion • in the Woy of 

 a greater variety of showy hardy shrubs 

 to the right and left, likewise some yuccas 

 and perennials, but we would not in any 

 way disturb the general openness and 

 contour of the groimds. We passed by 

 there the other day and stopped to have 

 a good look at the place and enjoy it. 



There is a fine specimen of purple beech 

 at the right hand corner, and an unusu- 

 ally fine plant of box, it is the large 

 almost spherical shrub at the right up 

 near the house, and is pretty good testi- 

 mony that the box is one of the best ever- 

 greens for our smoky city. 



TAB WILD GARDEN. 



One has only to leave the highways and 

 traverse the byways of this and doubtless 

 other states "to see some of the most 

 exquisite wild gardening, and what is 

 beautiful and right in nature cannot be 



JUDGE MELLON'S RESIDENCE, PITTSBURG. 



Our illustration, engraved from a pho- 

 tograph, gives a front or street view of 

 one of the cosiest and prettiest of I'itts- 

 burg's suburban residences; it is the 

 home of Judge Mi Hon. The house is a 

 quiet, roomy, substantial, old-fashioned 

 structure, whose very look means com- 



BooK CM Landscape Garde.ning — E 

 H. W. Portland, Conn., asks: "What 

 would be a good book for me to get in 

 order to study tlementary landscape gar- 

 dening? I haven't ihe time to go into it 

 elaborately, so want something concise, 

 and not too much advanced." Ans. 

 There is no such a book so far as we 

 know; good books on landscape garden- 

 ing go into the subject deeply, and really 

 they are the safest to study. You know 

 we have a vast amount of rubbish in 

 garden literature, and it isn't what to 

 recommend to you so much as what to 

 keep out of your reach that would con- 

 cern us. Get Long's "Land.scape Garden- 

 ing," 50 cents, or Parsons' "Landscape 

 Gardening," $3.50; both are of recent 

 date and by practical, tasteful men, and 

 can be had from our Chicago office. 



Trees and Shrubs. 



TREES AND SHRUBS IN BLOOM AND FRUIT. 



We have lately had heavy and copious 

 rains, so that our local drouth has be;n 

 broken, and parched grass and wilting 

 shrubs are now relieved. 



The chaste shrub {Vitex agnus-castus) 

 is in full bloom; it has large terminal pan- 

 icles of flowers varying from blue to 

 white, and it is about the showiest shrub 

 in bloom with us at present. It is a na- 

 tive of the south of Europe and the north 

 of Africa, and is consequently not hardy 

 here. We mulch it heavily with leaves 

 throughout the winter, and grow it in 

 tolerably dry soil. It always kills back 

 severely, but starts vigorously into 

 growth again, and as it flowers on the 

 wood of the current year, it always pro- 

 duces a crop of flowers. Vitex incisa, a 

 native of China, has larger panicles of 

 bluish purple flowersthan thelast named, 

 and is now coming into bloom. The 

 lower leaves of this species are incised or 

 cut. This plant appears to be hardier 

 than the other species. 



