for July, 1922 



205 



thusiasts, and it affords greater space for greater variety. 



This movement has during the past few years been 

 greatly accelerated by the formation of Women's Garden 

 Club!-, and there is every rer^son for believing that owners 

 of gardens, large and small, are gradually becoming better 

 educated in garden matters — which is what Garden Clubs 

 presumably are for — and the more a person's education is 

 extended along this line the more artistic and interesting 

 will gardening with hardy plants appear. 



The production of natural effects, refined by Art, 

 should always be striven for in planning home surround- 

 mgs. The characters of hardy perennials causes them to 

 be the only plants suited to the natural style of flower 

 gardening", however small or large a garden may be. 



Species can be found adapted to every situation in 

 which a plant of any kind will grow at all. Bare ground 

 under trees where grass fails ; a dry sunny bank ; a swamp 

 or bog ; woodland walks ; in fact any situation may be 

 made permanently beautiful by tliem. The situation from 

 which these plants are barred — and anv others — is in beds 

 cut in the lawn. 



There is always a trevhness in connection with peren- 

 nials. A walk about a garden in which, they have been 

 planted invariably reveals something new. some flower 

 which was not there a few days before; the monotonous 

 feeling inseparable from bedding plants is out of the 

 question, and durmg the whole year there is a never end- 

 ing interest which lends to invigorate the brain and drive 

 away ennui. 



The charm of association can exist in a garden of 

 hardy flowers, and one can there form lasting friendships 

 such as never can exist in a garden devoted to ephemeral 

 bedding plants. If a hardy garden is given intelligent ap- 

 preciation it will soon grow to have almost a human 

 atmosphere. We meet old friends each year with added 

 interest. How we watch for the blooming of some favor- 

 ite ! If it is late in appearing, how frequently we visit the 

 spot day after day. until at last it arrives in all its fresh 

 new-born beauty, but still the same old friend ; not like 

 the human friendships made upon a vacation tour to be 

 forgotten before we reach home, but one which we can 

 depend upon to visit and to cheer us with periodical 

 faithfulness, and a-^ "vear after year the same dear things 

 lift up the same fair faces," we would like to become 

 perennial ourselves in order to the longer enjoy our hardy 

 flower friends. 



It must not be forgotten that all the charm and beauty 

 of perennials, as well as with other permanent features 

 of a g"arden. can not be obtained the first season after 

 planting : patience must be exercised. The lack of 

 patience may answer the question as to why the best fea- 

 tures of the old-time gardens have been so lacking in 

 America where there are so many homes without gardens 

 in the real sense of the word. Lawns with a number of 

 round, square, or other shaped beds dotted about them 

 bedded out each Summer and open to the world in all 

 their ugliness, are not gardens. As previously stated, the 

 word garden meaiT^ enclosed space, and it is the feeling 

 of being shut in with Xature in all its beauty — grass, 

 trees, flowers and sky — that causes the old-time garden 

 to have its perennial charm. A garden should be 

 nothing more — a real garden cannot be less — than an 

 outdoor room of the house, sweet with memories, and 

 associated with the hopes, fears and secrets of our lives. 



Many of the old gardens were walled in, and the same 

 idea is used in connection with the sunken garden, and 

 provided it can be properly carried out is a garden feature 

 worthy of more extended use. 



A garden of this character can sometimes be made to 

 form a special feature of country home surroundings. 



It is not of course always the case that the existing con- 

 ditions will permit this to be accomplished. Where it 

 can be the following points — frequently ignored — are im- 

 perative. It should be so placed that one can step from 

 the house or porch directly into it. It should be rectangu- 

 lar in outline and being walled in, it is practically part of 

 the building. It must on no account form part of the 

 general landscape, that is, the sunken garden must not 

 De seen from any part of the place excepting from the 

 side of the house on which it abuts. The excavated earth 

 should be spread to a natural contour on the three sides 

 and planted with shrubs and evergreens in harmony with, 

 and in connection with, the general lay-out of the 

 grounds. This planting will not only mask any portion 

 of the wall appearing above the surface but will also act 

 as a background to the inside picture. The beds inside 

 should be rectangular, not, as is sometimes seen, radi- 

 ating to a common center. Where the climate is suitable, 

 the Ijeds may be edged with dv.'arf Box, this should be 

 kept to a height of about five inches. It goes without 

 saying that hardy perennials are the only things admis- 

 sable for planting the beds, as old-fashioned flowers are 

 the only plants suitable for an old-fashioned garden. 



In some cases where the outlines of these old-fashioned 

 gardens have been reproduced, the gardens have been 

 spoiled by being devoted to carpet bedding and to other 

 such like ephemeral features. But where those enclosed 

 flower gardens have been laid out upon a generous scale, 

 properly set out with hardy plants, the effect is such that 

 no one with the smallest amount of artistic perception 

 would ever wish for the other method. 



These walled-in gardens, being laid out upon rectangu- 

 lar lines, are by some termed formal; but the planting is 

 absolutely informal, and it is only where the plants are 

 rigidly arranged in formal designs that the term formal 

 is strictly applicable. The straight lines of this garden 

 are, however, so far unnatural, and it is this fact which 

 renders it absolutely necessar}- that these special gardens 

 should not form part of the landscape. 



It is astonishing how many calling themselves land- 

 scape architects appear to be incapable of grasping this 

 fundamental principle. Not long ago I saw two plans for 

 new estates made by a landscape firm of some repute, in 

 wdiich what they termed formal gardens had been de- 

 signed. In each case the garden was planned to be placed 

 at some distnce from the house, and was entirely open to 

 the landscape. It is impossible to imagine anything more 

 incongruous and wanting in good taste. Fortunately 

 neither of the owners carried the plans out. 



In connection with a garden of this kind a word about 

 its walks appears necessary, because in such, one should 

 be able to walk around it in the thinnest of shoes imme- 

 diately after rain. In any case providing perfect drainage 

 goes without saying, and from all points of view the hard 

 red brick which is made for the purpose is the most satis- 

 factory material to pave them wath. Cement should never 

 be considered for use in any garden walks. Xo doubt 

 the most artistic walk is that paved with irregular shaped 

 pieces of flag-stone with the interstices planted with dwarf 

 subjects such as Thyme which emits its pleasant perfume ' 

 when walked over. Oralis cornicitlata. Seditui acre, and 

 such like. Care must be taken to keep grass and other 

 weeds from these walks,, but if they entail somewhat more 

 annual labor than those of brick, the additional old-world 

 charm given to the garden will repay for the trouble. 



The above old-fashioned garden has been alluded to 

 because of late there has grown up a desire, on the part 

 of those having room enough in their grounds, to possess 

 one, and also because hardy perennials are the onlv plants 

 suitable to use in it. But it must not be understood that 



