For June. 1022 



171 



What is a Garden? Some Random Thoughts 



HENRY J. ECKSTEIN 



TWE various liuuks on gardeniiifj of the last decade 

 largely conctrn themselves with the revolutionary 

 trend that has so completely reversed the landscape 

 and gardening practice of this century. From the regu- 

 larity and severe rigidity that typified the entire spirit uf 

 the \'ictorian era, to the semi-wildness, towards which 

 the tendency of our time so often leans, is indeed a long 

 step. Xaturally there is much controversy as to the ex- 

 tent that a garden shall be formal or naturalistic. What 

 shall determine the extent to which the«e contrasting ele- 

 ments shall enter into the planning of the garden? It 

 would seem that this would be a matter to be determined 

 only by the individual who is trying to make a garden as 

 an expression of himself. But before these questions are 

 at all to be considered might it not be well to attempt to 

 say. what, after all. is a garden? 



This, too, it might be said, must of necessity be deter- 

 mined by each one, individually and for himself, and in 

 expressing an opinion as to what a garden is, this is not 

 only conceded but accepted as a premise to the answer 

 suggested. For if we say that the garden must be the 

 e.xpression of the person making it are we not obviously 

 concluding that only when a personal note enters into the 

 garden form is there a garden at all? 



Whosoever loves flowers and devotes care and time to 

 their cultivation, placing them and growing them, in such 

 places and ways as are at his dispo.sal, creates thereby a 

 garden. It matters not where the garden is, or what is its 

 nature or form, or size. Can we feel, if we consider the 

 spirit and not the technique of the matter, that we can 

 use the magical word, garden, with all that it implies, of 

 loveliness and fragrance and sentiment, unless it conveys 

 something of the interest that causes it to be at all ? 



We have all passed by a simple cottage or isolated 

 farmhouse and seen beside it a few scattered plants ir- 

 regularly placed, perhaps even self-perpetuated, and felt 

 the hand of the gardener, despite their straggly and un- 

 related appearance. We know that the farmer who is 

 trying to make a living out of the land has no time for 

 any such luxury as flowers. Usually it is the farmer's 

 wife who attends to the few plants there are and makes 

 for them the home they have even though she as well has 

 but little time for them. Often their location is unsuited 

 and their number few, their whctle appearance inharmoni- 

 ous, but despite this, in .fact often even just because of it, 

 we somehow are impressed with the feeling that someone 

 is making a garden. 



Even in our large cities, in the most congested and bar- 

 ren districts, we see an occasional window-sill with one 

 or two pitiful looking plants, or a rudely made box, in 

 which someone is struggling to coax a little growth, in 

 face of every adverse condition. Who will refuse to 

 grant that these also are gardens, not because of their 

 beauty, for often they lack it completely, but because of 

 the love that lies behind their existence? 



We also see in large cities on palatial homes or lux- 

 urious hotels sumptuously planted w^indow boxes that 

 show every care of the florist and much expenditure. At 

 least to me there is no feeling of a garden there and no 

 thought of the spirit however much they may ornament 

 or decorate the building. 



So that in every circumstance, wherever flowers are 

 planted with feeling and cared for to the utmost extent 

 that the surrounding conditions permit, we have the spir- 

 it, at least, of the garden. And wherever the personal 

 note of the grower is missing, and the result, however. 



elaborate and eft'ective, is but the outcome of an order 

 given to have so and so done, there is no true garden. 

 From the humblest city window to the largest country 

 estate this seems equally true. 



Some years ago I visited one Summer day two gardens 

 of note in an American resort, famed possibly above all 

 others for the extent and glory of its gardens. One be- 

 longed to rather a simple, unpretentious place, particu- 

 larly for its environment. But immediately there came 

 that feeling of the individual direction that made its gar- 

 den successful. In fact there was a series of gardens, 

 each perfect in itself and leading one to the other in so 

 skillful a way that one was never aware that another lay 

 just the other side of the encircling shrubbery. 



The other was a great estate with elaborate floral dis- 

 plays, arranged in regular, disconnected beds. Its chief 

 gardener was proud of his display in two huge, round 

 beds of contrasting red salvias and yellow coxcombs, 

 which fortunately for me, were not yet in bloom. He 

 enjoyed the opportunity of conducting us through the 

 great greenhouses and of telling how many roses he cut 

 and shipped each Winter. I think it was some twenty 

 thousand. He rejoiced in describing the rarity of his 

 orchids and the extraordinary size of his "mums." He 

 told of his appreciation of the opportunity of showing 

 all this, because his employer was rarely there, and even 

 then never visited the "gardens." 



I will admit that this owner and his superintendent 

 have every technical right to the use of the word 

 "garden," but will always feel that to any true garden- 

 lover they maintained a great and elaborate flower fac- 

 tory, that efficiency supplied the large demand for cut 

 flowers made upon it, but in no sense and at no time can 

 we feel that all this elaboration and work made a garden. 



Of course, on the other hand, we cannot urge that 

 merely the love of flowers makes a garden and these are 

 extreme cases cited to convey the underlying thought 

 that the true garden spirit is felt wherever the effort is 

 made to cultivate flowers because they are fully appre- 

 ciated. But one also demands that all possible efforts 

 and provisions are made to ensure the success of the plant 

 and its most advantageous display. There are many who 

 prepare regularly laid out beds or straight, perfect rows, 

 growing in them and carefully cultivating giant cannas, 

 perfect dahlias or even rarer flowers. These people may 

 indeed truly cherish these; in fact they usually do, but 

 they have failed to provide for their best effect, in their 

 lack of taste and liarmony. 



A garden requires the judicious use of material and 

 background, the employment of a sense of fitness and 

 beauty and the true appreciation of the full value and 

 habit of the particular specimens selected. .\11 this 

 should always be taken into consideration not only by the 

 maker of the garden but by its critic as well. 



Formal shrubberies, well clipped hedges and even 

 walks or beds of flowers cannot look well in a rural or 

 semi-wild district, surroutided by rough fields and em- 

 bracing woodland. No more is a wild naturalistic effect 

 in keeping with the suburban cottage that fronts a paved 

 sidewalk and is flanked almost contiguously with neigh- 

 boring houses. These are facts admitted by all writers 

 on the subject. But just how far formal design can enter 

 into an isolated country place or naturalistic tendencies 

 can be admitted in the suburbs is always a question which 

 the creator must determine. The secret of success or 

 faiyjre lies in the taste and discretion that determines the 



