A Landscape Style for the United States? 



By a Landscape Architect. 



In the wooded hill slopes, the blue skies and the distant 

 sea and valley vistas, the Renaissance garden artist of 

 Italy found the material and the inspiration for the 

 Italian garden wonders. His efforts were directed tow- 

 ard the creating of an environment that tilled the neces- 

 sity of his time; his was a garden not to be looked at 

 alone, but to live in — an outdoor continuation of the resi- 

 dence. .\nd thus he created a boldly formal style of 

 gardening. 



His work was followed in other countries. French 

 and English garden designers felt the beauty and charm 

 of the Italian work, and tried to copy it for their coun- 

 try; but realizing that there was missing in their work 

 the element that Italy possessed — the setting of sky. 

 mountainside and brilliant sunshine — thev elaborated 

 their work with flower beds and other decorations. 



Then came the artists of the English style. They took 

 into consideration the moist and cloudy atmosphere of 

 their home country, its stretches of level plain and its 



gently rolling fields, and they created the garden style 

 typical of its name, "English.'" Irregularly outlined 

 lakes and pools replaced the geometrical water gardens, 

 while large fields of velvety grass, bordered by groups 

 of graceful shrubs and trees, brought back the harmon\' 

 with nature which imported art had destro3"ed. .\nd in 

 using the word "nature'" I do not mean to confine its 

 relation by picturing .some certain small valley scene and 

 to say that the English style was based on that alone, but 

 upon nature in its broader phases ; cloudy skies and 

 drearv davs, which made one appreciate the more the 

 contrast of sunny lawns; nature without the laughing 

 moimtain brooks, but with slowly winding, stately riv- 

 ers ; characterized bv moisture loving deciduous trees 

 rather than evergreens with the dry air in which they 

 are found. And last, but not least, nature reflected in 

 the character of man ; on the one hand slow and phleg- 

 matic, on the other fiery and passionate. 



In lime the English style, in its turn, found its way to 

 the continent, to France and Germany, and even mto 

 the heart of Italy itself. Here fine formality was de- 

 stroyed for large spaces of drouth burned grass ; exotic 

 trees crowded out the native trees, and we cannot blame 

 the Italian artist that he sees in the change only the de- 

 struction of the old with no compensation in the building 

 of the new. The English style, beautiful and fitting in 

 its own home, had come to a foreign country and failed 

 in its mission. Some authors, in their love of the old 

 Italian style, call the English style "sentimental."' and 

 sentimental and tame it certainly must have looked under 

 the bright blue Italian skies. 



The English style also came to the United States, and 

 some of its greatest followers were .\merican landscape 

 architects. They have designed great works in park 

 and garden art. But they worked in the English style, 

 with large areas of shorn bluegrass, which, although in 

 their home surroundings were full of endless perspec- 

 tives, partly lost, in the bright atmosphere of the Amer- 

 ican continent, their depth of vista, and in midsummer 

 the perspiring visitor to the scene, unconscious of style 

 or vista, curses the sunniness of these plains. 



,\nd yet without doubt our great men have felt the 

 lacking harmony and have sought to improve it ; prob- 

 ably also the\- have found localities where the English 

 style could be used fittingly, and in other places have at 

 least pointed the wax to better things. But many of their 

 followers, instead of going ahead in the way indicated, 

 have simply come to greater and greater artificiality. 



Perhaps where the original style might have been ap- 

 propriate in some New England state, the same ideas put 

 hito effect in the more Western states have produced an 

 eft'ect than which the Italian style of old days, as used 

 in England, could not have been more exotic, more ar- 

 tificial. It is abnormal almost to the point of being ri- 

 diculous. Here we plant Kentucky bluegrass seed by the 

 ton : irrigate it at an annual cost that I would not dare 

 to estimate, and on this, plant groups of trees and shrubs 

 of which we have forgotten the native habits if we ever 

 knew them. We plant Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, 

 English plants, anything that manages to pull through, 

 without knowing the conditions under which they grow 

 in their native state. Some of these plants are so for- 

 eign to us that we do not even know their native coun- 

 try. They are planted because the nurseries grow them, 

 not because we want them for any special character of 

 planting. We plant dry ground plants in bottoms, low 

 ground plants on hills, and wonder why they do not 

 thrive, and in our ignorance probably do not even notice 

 how badly they fit in our landscape scene. 



.■\nd we have educated the taste of the public to our 

 wrong standard. No beauty of landscape is acknowl- 

 edged any more unless it has a shorn lawn as foundation 

 We may have native grass, of intense, subtle beauty ; as 

 long as it is not clean cut and green as bluegrass is 

 green, we cannot use it. The public does not want it. 

 i If course not ; we have educated the public to our ex- 

 otic standard. We blame the public, but it is we who arc 

 to blame. 



.\ style of landscape architecture "for the United 

 -States'' is something that never can be. No more than 

 an English landscape would fit in Italy, would a New 

 \'ork bit of scenery fit in California. Each section of 

 the country will have to work out its own landscape 

 problems: for some the English effect may be quite ap- 

 jjrdpriate, though our clear sky, warm summers and cold 

 winters due to a continental climate, make it exotic in 

 most places here, h'or some of our states the solution 

 seems to lie more in the Italian idea of contrast than in 

 the English idea of complete harmony with natural scen- 

 ery. A close study of nature's characteristics, of the 

 vegetation, soil, climate and other governing conditions, 

 should be the basis of treatment of the landscape ques- 

 tion, wherever considered. As a matter of fact, our best 

 landscape architects have already been hammering away 

 on the subject of. native i)lanting. The true landscape 

 'netting for anv country will include and emphasize its 

 own vegetation, not an imported one. Countries with a 

 distinctly deciduous tree character should go slow in 

 evergreen planting, and should use it for variety only : 

 on the other hand a section with conspicuous tree growth 

 and much shrubberv should use that as the basis for 

 l)lantin.g. De B. 



MAKING A TREE COMFORTABLE. 



Ill plantiiifj a tree to make it grow — and there should he no 

 otlier aim — the tree should be made .just as comfortaMo in its 

 new environment as possible. If the land is wet it .should be 

 drained, for trees will never thrive with wet feet. The best 

 results are obtained by prejiarinfr the land the previous year 

 for the setting of tlie trees. Clover or cowpeas plowed under 

 in the fall will make humus the following year and keep the 

 soil about the roots. Trees will often do well in poor soils and 

 unfavorable conditions if good soil is placed about their roots, 

 so that they get a good start the first year or so. After they 

 once become established they can do considerable towards taking 

 rare of themselves. — E.r(Jifinf/r. 



