THE GARDENS OF CALIFORNIA 



JOHANNEiS REIMERS 



WHEN winter storms come sweeping down from the arctic regions, 

 spreading death before them over the wide prairies, over the 

 mountains and valleys of the lands north and east of us, we here 

 in California pick the fairest roses in our gardens. In fact, there 

 is not a month in the year when flowers are not a-bloom, though 

 it happens of a morning during the rainy season that there is a film of 

 ice on still water and that the ground is a-glitter with hoar frost, which 

 melts as soon as the sun rises. For this reason we have our winter gar- 

 dens and our summer gardens. The former are a-bloom with all the posies 

 of the north, and also with numberless flowers of the transequatorial coun- 

 tries, that have brought their blooming habits with them from the summer- 

 time of their homelands. 



Our summer gardens are a blending of the vegetation of the north, 

 the semi-tropics, and the tropics — a wonderful conglomerate of form, 

 character, and color, which the gardener must handle thoughtfully, lest 

 he create an incongruous effect, as, for example, by planting the cool pine 

 of the far north in consociation with the palm of the countries bordering 

 on the hot desert. 



So California gardens have roses at Christmas-time, and during winter 

 months bloom the pansies, the violets, the mignonettes, the wallflowers, 

 the gillyflowers, and all the Dutch bulbs and the daffodils, and numberless 

 beautiful shrubs from Japan and the transequatorial countries. Then also 

 the calla is in full bloom along hedges and borders and where it has run 

 wild into the adjacent fields, and the Acacia mollisima, bending under 

 its load of pale yellow bloom, breathes fragrance far beyond the inclosure of 

 the garden. The Japan camellia, seeking shady places, has then unfolded its 

 rosette flowers, delighting in cool dewy nights, and the Australian euca- 

 lypti stand in dark masses — great majestic trees of splendid color con- 

 trasts, strong and upright, yet withal tender, with bending branches decor- 

 ated with masses of myrtaceous flowers visited by the wild bee. 



Then, when spring comes the northland flowers pale before the inten- 

 sity of the southern sun, and our summer garden opens its portal to us 

 magnificently aglow with the voluptuous florescence of the warm lands. 

 The stately palms unfurl new leaves; the pelargoniums and geraniums 

 make new growth, peeping with their brilliant heads of flowers in through 

 the windows of the first story; the orange has dropped its deliciously frag- 

 rant flowers and is fast forming fruit; the oleander bedecks itself with bril- 

 liant clusters of bloom, filling the garden with the warm fragrance of 

 vanilla; the wide fields and hills, which during the winter were great won- 

 derful gardens of wild flowers, have taken on their golden summer dress 

 for the carnival of the sun. The migratory singers are leaving us after 

 their winter visit; but the orioles have built their baggy nests and sing for 

 us on early mornings — mornings so fragrant with the heavy aromas of the 

 southlands that strange dreams fall upon one of a fair paradise. In these 

 summer gardens grow the tender children of Eastern and Northern green- 

 houses and hothouses. All the semi-tropics have contributed to them. 

 Plant emigrants have come from summer islands of the Indies and the 

 Pacific. Australian woodlands have sprung up In our gardens full of their 

 strange unique charm. Japan has sent us her palms and numberless 

 shrubs, her magnificent cryptomerias, her delicate, feathery bamboos, her 

 anemones, chrysanthemums, and wistarias, her irises and peonies, ferns 

 and creepers. Also South American countries have sent large contributions 

 to California gardens — palms from great river-banks, cacti and yuccas 

 from the burning deserts, magnificent semi-tropical conifers, glorious climb- 

 ers, and shrubs from semi-tropical and tropical woodlands. 



It is not rare to see, incongruous and indicative of bad taste as it is, 

 the white birch of the Far North side by side with the date-palm of the 



