Some Notable New Jersey Gardens 



By The Onlooker. 



Perhaps at no time this year will the country look 

 finer than it did on Sunday, May 9, which was Moth- 

 ers' Day in the social calendar. The open, sunny 

 weather of April gave vegetation an excellent start 

 and the proverbial showers of that month were not 

 wanting, so that at the beginning of May all nature 

 was arrayed in her freshest and greenest mantle. 



It was then time to move about and see the gardens 

 — see their Daffodils and Tulips and beds and green- 

 sward : see their shrubberies bearing clouds of pink 

 and white from Dogwood and Crab-apple, view the 

 spring flower gardening and take an early look over 

 the first crops in the kitchen garden. One might have 

 gone to that land or region of fine gardens, the Berk- 

 shires, around Stockbridge and Lenox, or the north 

 shore of Massachusetts: or to the north shore gardens 

 of Long Island, or to Westchester county or any one 

 of a dozen famous gardening districts. One may be 

 sure it would have been the same in any or all cases, 

 for the humblest garden looks charming at the end of 

 April and in the first weeks of the month of nests, 

 the merry month, the children's month of outdoor 

 parties and processions. 



It was my good fortune to see notable estates at 

 Madison, N.'j., owned by enlightened patrons of gar- 

 dening, and supervised by men highly skilled in their 

 profession. ^Madison is in the center of a delightful, 

 semi-rural district, 27 miles west of New York. 



Mrs. Willis James" extensive place, which was first 

 visited, contains many acres of beautiful lawns, trimly 

 kept, with sheltering'belts of shrubbery and tall trees, 

 the choicer trees and shrubs being well placed for gen- 

 eral effect over the lawns, and most of them having 

 been planted by William Duckham during the twenty- 

 one years in which he has had control. Those planted 

 back twenty years ago are 30 feet or more high in 

 many cases, and if our friend lives for another twenty 

 year's, as we hope he will and much longer, by that 

 time he will be able to ]5oint with satisfaction and 

 pride to the noble result of his labors of the long ago. 

 This fact is one that owners of new or undeveloped 

 property would do well to remember — they need not 

 and ought not expect finished results the first year, 

 nor the first ten years, but after twenty, twenty-five 

 or thirty years there will be a growing feeling of satis- 

 faction that here is something that is the direct out- 

 come of my labor, something I projected, and such 

 owner will' have the pleasurable feeling of having 

 reallv made the world a better place to live in than he 

 found it, and have materially assisted in developing his 

 own particular corner. 



Planting trees is a very excellent form of recreation 

 or emplovment. Who of us have not known several 

 men who, at the end of a long life, have pointed to tall 

 Elm trees, perhaps Oak trees, or Lindens or Horse 

 Chestnuts, or Evergreens, and said: "I planted that 

 when I came to this place." The writer has been 

 struck with this fact on several occasions, and were 

 this an essa}' on tree planting would doubtless cite 

 chapter and verse, including his own part in assisting 

 to plant a young forest on hill lands in Scotland about 

 twenty-eight years ago. Back about a dozen years 

 ago the first thinnings of that plantation had already 

 been made and the young timber used as fencing posts. 

 The trees were mainly .'Spruce and European Larch. 

 Yes, it is reallv wonderful what growth a plantation 



will make in fifteen to twenty years even. So with 

 specimen trees when properly taken care of. 



Among the grouplets of ornamental flowering trees 

 at Mr>. Willis James" was one of Pyrus-Scheideckeri, 

 one of the prettiest of the Apple famil}-, which seems 

 to become literally wreathed in silvery pink blossoms 

 wherever grown. It never grows into more than a 

 small bushy tree 10 feet or 12 feet high, and is there- 

 fore much prized for ornamental grounds. Pyrus 

 Parkeri is equally attractive, although it is not so bril- 

 liant, and a fine grouplet was here. A mass of the al- 

 most scarlet leaved Platanus Schwedleri, or red- 

 leaved Plane, at the front edge of a shelter belt, was 

 conspicuous. It could not be otherwise ; but later on 

 it loses its ruddy hues and goes deep green. The Mag- 

 nolias were also fine, and, of course, Cornus florida 

 in red and white, and the Judas tree, which forms a 

 sort of avenue just inside the eastern boundar}' of the 

 kept grounds. But the most remarkable special fea- 

 ture here was an irregular belt of Wistaria chinensis 

 — trees, not vines — planted twenty years ago. They 

 were left alone for a time, and then it was seen that 

 the stems were inclined to rise and support themselves. 

 By judicious pruning back Mr. Duckham maintained 

 and developed this character, and now that a broad, 

 irregular, open hedge or belt-like feature has resulted, 

 with the branches averaging 8 feet to 9 feet high, he 

 spurs back the young growth annually, at the end of 

 the growing season, to two eyes from the previous 

 year's wood. In this way he has built up a very beau- 

 tiful scenic feature and one that is surely unique. 



\\"e have seen huge cupolas made of a big iron frame, 

 entirely covered with this \\'istaria. and the effect was 

 wonderful when the long lavender racemes hung down 

 on every side and from the roof, and there is a huge 

 Spanish Chestnut not a mile from wdiere we write 

 which is wreathed, roped and garlanded to the tips and 

 extremities of its branches with the blue Wistaria, but 

 (if all the ways and means of growing this exquisite 

 climbing shrub, the hedge of it at Mrs. Willis James' is 

 the most striking. Even our friends the Japs might 

 envy this. 



A little walled-in garden near the house had to be 

 passed all too rapidly, but not before one had noted the 

 rich variety of harmonious colors in the Pansy and 

 Viola beds of the parterre. The beds were strictly 

 geometrical, upon grass, and charmingh' filled. For- 

 get-me-not furnished a sea of blue here, too, but as my 

 impressions are just mental ones, I cannot recall if 

 Tulips were or had been used. .\t any rate. Daffodils 

 were in bloom on the place, naturalized in the glass, 

 but in a week or a fortnight it was evident they would 

 have run their course for another year. 



The vegetable garden, and the reserve flower gar- 

 den for the supply of cut bloom, lies a little to the west, 

 and contiguous to the ranges of glasshouses. Mr. 

 Duckham is unexcelled as a cultivator of high-class 

 vegetables. The records of the exhibiti«"ins bear the 

 proof. 



The earliest culinary Peas were half a foot through 

 the soil from a sowing made about the third week in 

 March, while the early Potatoes were also nicely ad- 

 vanced, and numerous other crops were in evidence in 

 the seedling stage, in long rows. 



In the houses the chief subjects that come to mind 

 were Canterbury Bills, tall-stemmed Godebias. grown 



