Preface 



THIS handbook is respectfully submitted to gardeners in Cali- 

 fornia, amateur and professional, as supplementary to, and a 

 modification of those excellent treatises and encyclopedias on 

 Landscape and Flower Gardening which have become the authorities 

 and text-books on the subject, but which were written for the condi- 

 tions of climate and season in European countries and the Eastern 

 States of our own land. 



In California these conditions are so different, and the possibilities 

 of the culture and development of trees, shrubs and flowers are so 

 much greater than in Europe or any other of the United States of 

 America, that our gardeners have had to do a great deal of original 

 investigation and experimental work. The results of such investigation 

 and work by the writer are recorded in these pages. 



The difference referred to is well illustrated by the universally 

 loved Pansy which, in the Eastern States, is sown in February, flower- 

 ing in May or June, while in California it is sown in July and flowers 

 from November to May, and also by the Acacia which, in the East, 

 is grown in pot in the conservatory, protected by glass and heated by 

 artificial heat, whereas, in our State, it grows, a handsome tree, in any 

 soil in the open air and flowers in midwinter. 



Although it has been found necessary to treat of the conservatory 

 to a certain extent, yet this has been done only as subsidiary to the 

 main purpose of the book, the treatment, in the conservatory, of plants 

 which are not hardy in the open air locally, being the same here as 

 in any other part of the country. It should, however, be kept in view 

 that hundreds of trees, shrubs and flowers, which cannot possibly 

 exist, in the open air, in those parts of the United States and Europe 

 where the climatic conditions are more harsh than here, flourish and 

 give grand effects out of doors in California. 



During his gardening experience of thirty-five years in various 

 parts of California, but particularly during the past twenty years of 

 his superintendency of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, the author 

 has had, from all over the State, a great number of inquiries and 

 requests for advice and suggestions. 



These inquiries have become so numerous that it has been prac- 

 tically impossible for him to answer them all, and such replies as he 



[v] 



