ii4 The American Flower Garden 



supplied with a stream of water smaller than a lead pencil, from the 

 house main. The zealous amateur who a few years ago proudly 

 displayed in her oil barrels some of the choicest Marliac water 

 lilies, of as varied tints as a debutante s party dresses, her brilliant 

 water poppies and the feathery papyrus plant of the Egyptians, 

 now invites your admiration of her superb pink Indian lotuses that 

 thrive in six half-hogsheads. If she might sink the hull of the 

 Great Eastern in her little sunny lawn and grow the Victoria regia 

 therein perhaps her ambition would be still unsatisfied. 



Even where the smallest stream of running water cannot be 

 had and constantly running water is not desirable except in large 

 ponds there is no danger of mosquitoes breeding in tubs and 

 barrels if these are flushed out with a hose once a week. But, 

 of course, the ideal spot for a water garden is an otherwise worthless, 

 boggy piece of low land through which a sluggish stream finds 

 its way. Nothing remains but to clear the land of stumps, brush 

 and the rankest weeds, to dam the stream and plant your pond. 

 Nature has been working for you during the centuries. 



Your true landscape gardener will cherish the alder bushes, 

 osier willows, tulip trees, tamarack and swamp maples on the 

 banks, magnolia, wild azalea, meadow sweet, button-bushes, 

 superbum lilies, boneset, yes, and even the tall, stalwart &quot;cat tail&quot; 

 bulrushes. Like wild rice, arrow-head, pickerel weed, wild iris 

 and sedges, the rushes, that rise in phalanxes on the margins of 

 the pond, are content to stand either on the shore or with their 

 feet in water. Study the work of the best Japanese artists if you 

 would realise the decorative value of such plants. Politely but 

 firmly will the landscape gardener, who has not mistaken his calling, 

 overrule his patron s suggestion to have a shaven lawn come down 

 to the water s edge, knowing that it would strike as false a note of 



