CHAPTER VII 



WATER GARDENS AND AQUATICS 



In a country like ours where there is a scarcity 

 of rivers, lakes, ponds, etc., yet where ice seldom 

 forms, artificial bodies of water, however small, are 

 much appreciated. Here we may have some sort 

 of a water garden throughout the year. Many peo- 

 ple hesitate to incorporate a lily pond in plans for 

 the home grounds because of the general, but erron- 

 eous, impression that such features are quite costly. 

 The expense of water gardening is almost entirely 

 that of first cost, the subsequent expense as com- 

 pared with any other like garden area being small 

 indeed. 



No garden, however large or small, is complete 

 without an aquatic department. Water, with its 

 attendant vegetable and animal life, lends a more 

 varied and varying charm to the landscape, near or 

 distant, than any other garden accessory. The great 

 range in form of aquatic plants and flowers simply 

 baffles description or intelligent comparison, and in 

 the long list of possibilities are plants adapted to or- 

 dinary damp soil and on down the line to those which 

 will grow only when wholly beneath the water at all 

 times, like the wonderful water fern and several 

 other denizens of the cerulean depths. 



Add to all this the animal life, from the sluggish 

 water snail to the never-resting paradise fish, the 

 graceful sweep and beauteous colors of the f antailed 

 goldfish, and one has a world in miniature though 

 his garden contain but a small pond for aquatics 



