CHAPTER XIX. HOW I BUILT MY COUNTRY HOME 



A Concrete Example of Landscape Gardening 



By W. C. Egan 



AM garden-bred, for in the early fifties my father's garden 

 was one of the show -places in Chicago ; but I have no recol- 

 lection of a fondness for gardening during my youth. A 

 strenuous business life of more than thirty-five years in that 

 bustling city so impaired my health that my physician 

 prescribed a retirement and enjoined a life in the open air. Being 

 happily anchored by a growing family, a roving, open-air life was out of the 

 question. How was I to occupy my mind, hitherto in constant activity, and 

 still remain in one place ? I did not have to consider long. The subtle 

 influence of the garden of my youth — so long dormant — asserted itself, 

 and an ever-increasing love for shrub and flower and arboreal life seemed 

 to say to me: "Why not build and maintain a country home — one of your 

 own creation — exhibiting your own individuality? Why not make it yoitr 

 garden, not a gardener's garden?" 



The die was cast and a hunt for the site began. The towering bluffs and 

 wooded ravines bordering Lake Michigan north of Chicago afforded abundant 

 opportunities for selection, and a view of the lake over the wavering foliage 

 of the ravine tree-tops caused the selection of a site for the future " Egandale." 

 The natural beauties of the site were further enhanced by a wooded ravine 

 constituting two-thirds of the boundary lines, whose trees afford a massive 

 bank of foliage which is ever refreshing to the eye. 



All this happened fifteen years ago. I had the place, but no knowledge 

 of how to develop it. Flowers, shrubs and trees did not grow among my 

 business affairs. Nevertheless, I was determined that the place should be of 

 my own creation, and so I resolved to go ahead and make my own mistakes 

 in my own way. And I made three important ones. 



A dense undergrowth confronted me. The woodman had discovered 

 my prize years prior and had appropriated every tree on the main land 

 large enough to convert into cord -wood. Of ancestral trees there were 



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