2678 



PLANTING 



PLANTING 



the lily is of Easter, each exemplifying the dominant 

 color of the season. The popular demand in winter is 

 for signs of hope and courage hence the red berry, 

 flower, or ribbon. 



The phrase "winter-garden" has been used for a great 

 variety of projects, indoors and out, ranging from the 

 metropolitan restaurant with a few bay trees in tubs, 

 to a winter home in Florida where one may work out- 

 doors every day and all day. Notable progress has been 

 made along many lines since 1900 in the art of living the 

 year round amid beautiful vegetation. 



Indoor winter-gardens. 



Perhaps the oldest use of the phrase winter-garden 

 refers to a type of unheated or little-heated greenhouse 

 which was popular in England when plants from the 

 Cape and Australia were fashionable, but was generally 

 a museum of potted plants rather than a garden. A 

 new stage began in America about 1905, when Mrs. J. W. 

 Stewart, of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, made a real garden 

 under glass. (C. L. A. 13 : 168-70.) It has a broad lawn 

 to tread upon, instead of narrow concrete walks, and in 

 place of potted plants raised in tiers for show, there is a 

 continuous border 3 to 4 feet wide, with bulbs and other 

 flowers growing out of the earth at the familiar garden 

 level. The temperature is that of a living-room. An- 

 other new stage began in 1906 when the conservatories 

 in Garfield Park, Chicago, were completed. These were 

 not the first attempts at landscape gardening under 

 glass on a large scale, but they are believed to be the 

 most impressive series of indoor nature-pictures in the 

 world. Portable greenhouses and window-gardens now 

 make it possible even for renters to have something more 

 than a few potted plants on the window-sill. Those 

 who can afford no glass may at least force twigs in 

 water, preferring the early bloomers, like peach, plum, 

 and forsythia to the late bloomers, like lilac and dog- 

 wood. In this line, the most notable achievement, of 

 late, is the forcing of stems 6 to 8 feet high, by keeping 

 them in a slightly heated attic until wanted for the 

 living-room. 



Outdoor winter-gardens. 



The southern states have a winter climate that makes 

 outdoor work pleasant, and a landscape rich in types 

 of beauty, as evergreen magnolias, long-leaved pines, 

 and winter roses. Southern winter-gardens have their 

 problems, but they can receive less notice here than the 

 more acute problems of northern climates. A country 

 with an evergreen grass, like Ireland, has a great advan- 

 tage over America for winter beauty. English children 

 are well protected from bitter winds by the omni- 

 present walled-garden or high-hedged home grounds. 

 The formal winter-garden of England is often merely a 



3026. A good winter form. One 

 of the retinisporas. 



3025. A winter-garden, presenting evergreen forms in tree, 

 bush, and box borders. 



straight walk, between high walls of clipped yew. Words- 

 worth's winter-garden is an early example of the natur- 

 alistic winter-garden, i. e., a sheltered spot surrounded 

 by informal masses of trees and shrubs noted for their 

 winter attractions. ,. 



In the northern 

 states, however, it is 

 neither safe nor pleas- 

 ant to garden out-of- 

 doors every day, and 

 the winter landscape 

 is commonly bleak, 

 ugly, bare, or com- 

 monplace. Our most 

 pressing problem, usu- 

 ally, is shelter from 

 winds. On the plains 

 and prairies many 

 homes are surrounded 

 by shelter-belts, but 

 the landscape effect is 

 not the best, owing to 

 the artificial outlines 

 of the farmsteads, the 

 ill-concealed barn- 

 yards, and the inferior 

 species used soft 

 maple, box elder, Norway spruce. Windbreaks in 

 straight lines, protecting orchards or stock, sometimes 

 give a spirited army-like effect, but may become 

 monotonous in a country where everything seems to be 

 rectangular. In the East naturalistic shelter-belts are 

 commoner. The practice of moving large evergreens 

 with a half-frozen ball has developed notably since 

 1900, and full-grown evergreen hedges can be secured 

 to shelter winter playgrounds. 



Most persons see little beauty in the northern winter 

 landscape. It is true that the East has little brilliant 

 color or living green compared with England, China, or 

 Japan, while the prairies and great plains have still less. 

 Nature-study, however, opens the eyes of the people to 

 a new world of beauty in outline and structure of 

 trees, their trunks, and winter buds. The universal 

 instinct for bright color, however, ought also to be 

 gratified, and every family can receive and give satis- 

 faction by means of foundation planting. Unfortu- 

 nately, New York and Philadelphia may not have monu- 

 mental evergreens to the extent that every London 

 yard has box and holly, aucuba and veronica, yet many 

 eastern homes may have mountain laurel on the sunny 

 sides and rhododendron on the shady sides. Among the 

 conifers most persons prefer the brilliant quick-growing 

 but short-lived Japan cypresses, while lovers of perma- 

 nence are willing to wait for Canadian and Japanese yew, 

 Mugho pine, and Canadian juniper. Two superb 

 evergreen vines, European ivy and evergreen 

 bittersweet (Evonymusradicans var. vege to), enliven 

 house walls of brick and stone. On sunny days 

 the red branches of Siberian dogwood are a 

 cheery sight. Among the shrubs with brightly 

 colored berries, the favorite for foundation plant- 

 ing is the Japanese barberry, largely because its 

 red fruits are attractive all winter. 



Types of winter-gardens. 



Evergreen winter-gardens. Perhaps the -oldest 

 type of winter-garden is the pinetum, which is 

 primarily a collection of evergreens, but is also full 

 of beauty during the period when other trees are 

 leafless. One example is the Hunnewell collection 

 at Wellesley, Massachusetts, part of which is 

 doubled in beauty by reflection in a lake. Another 

 example is the conifer valley in the Arnold Arbor- 

 etum, which has a brook meandering through the 

 center, while the heights are crowned by trees, the 

 cultivated specimens on one side being balanced 



