12 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



May 30, 1912. 



THE HUNTINGTON ESTATE. 



A California Show Place. 



Quick changes from almost desert 

 conditions to beautiful gardens and or- 

 chards are not uncommon in California, 

 but one of the most wonderful is the 

 change made in the H. E. Huntington 

 estate at San Marino. Here William 

 Hertrich, superintendent for Mr. Hunt- 

 ington, has raised a monument to his 

 own skill and energy in the formation 

 of a magnificent place in a little over 



Nature and Art at Their Best. 



The quiet, cool beauty of some of the 

 woodland walks, where, under a can- 

 opy of live oaks and other native tim- 

 ber, tree ferns from Australia grow 

 with a vigor unsurpassed anywhere, 

 must be seen and felt to be properly 

 appreciated, for here, as elsewhere on 

 the place, Mr. Hertrich has retained 

 all that was best of the native vege- 

 tation and so blended it with his own 

 plantings of exotics that it forms a 

 perfectly harmonious whole, with abso- 

 lutely no jarring feature. 



Cocos Plumoia on the Huntington Lawn, 



two years. It is hard to believe that 

 the broad stretches of beautiful grass 

 lawns, already smooth and velvety; the 

 grand palms, the lakes covered with 

 water fowl and planted to choice 

 aquatics, and other features, are really 

 new. One seems to have been suddenly 

 transported to one of those "stately 

 homes of England," with their two-or- 

 three-century-old gardens, yet with all 

 the luxuriant, semi-tropical growth for 

 which California is famous, thrown in. 



Near the house is a magnificent live 

 oak which has a spread, in its lower 

 branches, of over 100 feet, rendering 

 necessary many props to hold them up. 

 Mr. Hertrich has got over this by using 

 concrete in the form of rustic tree 

 stems, artificially colored so that it is 

 quite impossible — so well is the work 

 done — to recognize them as artificial. 

 And this same thoroughness is appar- 

 ent throughout the whole of this great 

 place. 



Splendid Outdoor Specimens. 



It would be impossible to mention 

 one-half of the fine specimen plants 

 here, but a few of the more striking 

 may perhaps be of interest. There is 

 a fine Cocus plumosa, thirty-five feet 

 high, that was brought with an im- 

 mense ball of earth, weighing fourteen 

 tons, from San Diego, a pretty ;big 

 undertaking. But this is only one of 

 hundreds of big specimens that have 

 been purchased all over the state, wher- 

 ever they could be found, and brought 

 to enrich this marvelous garden. 



There is a beautiful specimen of 

 Tupidanthus calyptratus, which flo\y^er» 

 and fruits freely here. This plant must 

 be twelve or fourteen feet high and as 

 much through, while smaller plants of 

 it are used freely all over the place. 

 Cycas circinalis does finely here, and 

 a beautiful specimen,' with leaves six 

 or eight feet long, grows with only ^the 

 protection afforded by •Other vegetation. 

 A plant that Mr. Hertrich is naturally 

 proud of is Philodendron speciosum, 

 a fine specimen with immense leaves, 

 while there is quite' a number of Ij^rge 

 plants of encephalartos in considerable 

 variety. 

 Between Rows of Palms and Heaths. 



What will eventually be a novel fea- 

 ture and is already showy is a walk 

 bordered on each side with alternate 

 plants of Erica melanthera and Sea- 

 forthia elegans. Both are making fine 

 growth and it is thought that the shade 

 from the palm will just about be enough 

 to maintain the heath in good condition. 

 While only three years old from the cut- 

 tings, E. melanthera is five feet high 

 and good, bushy plants at that. 

 A Giant Aralia and Kentia. 



Those who only know Aralia ele^an- 

 tissima in the greenhouse would prob- 

 ably enjoy a sight of a specimen four- 

 teen feet high, growing outside, while 

 Kentia Forsteriana with an immense 

 head, thirty-four feet in the air, is an- 

 other of the giants. Both the white 

 and blue durantas not only flower, but 

 berry freely here, and there are large 

 masses both of these and the pretty 

 Leptospermum lajvigatum, two of the 

 best shrubs for California. The Mon- 

 tezuma cypress, or Taxodium mucrona- 

 tum, is represented by a single speci- 

 men only, but it is a good one and 



The Gictus Garden on the Huntington Estate, at San Marino, CaL 



