JUNE, 1916 
SEE GAS Reese ne Nene pen Ce ANu 7, ota Nae} 
Sin Eee 
Sa 
ALDER- DID 
VIBUENUH, DENA TOME 
S s 
5 vance. Ys $23 
- POOL 
wr Kw 
EE a ») “ 
ay, 
os Ss GS 
Ni LLLS- 
Be eee _ 
os will OW 
pH Pe 
SA ae i 
: AR SAT 
287 
ZZ 
VUYSOTEGA- Se = 
oe 
(7? SELS- 
Suggested planting plan for a naturalistic water garden with appropriate plants surrounding. Note the restrained use of aquatics so as to have the water itself as 
Nothing will illustrate this 
more readily than the photo- 
graphs on the preceding page. 
The planting on the left is 
inclined to be spotty and gar- 
denesque and the stream in 
consequence seems a kind of 
make believe play stream, 
with no illusion of real wood- 
land to please the fancy. But 
the pool in Mr. Reuben’s gar- 
den (designed by Mr. Jens 
Jensen), shown alongside, 
has all the quality of a nat- 
ural pool, and the remoteness 
of .forest depths, although it 
is small in size and but a 
hundred or two hundred feet 
from the house. 
The first photograph illus- 
trates a mistake very often 
made; that of all wing Lily 
pads all the freedom they 
want, and are quick to take advantage 
of. Half the interest in a pool lies in 
the water surface itself, and if this is 
covered entirely by flat commonplace 
leaves there is no “gazing globe” left 
in which to see a “summer day’s reflec- 
tions.” A much happier arrangement 
of Lily pads, and one which the smaller 
pool would do well to copy, is where the 
Lily pads are massed in spots. 
To those who prefer a more open type 
of pool with the banks not so heavily 
planted as those of the Reuben’s pool, 
the picture on this page will offer sug- 
gestions. What planting there is along 
this water’s edge is of a kind to pre- 
serve the natural feeling, with no gar- 
den shrubs to introduce a nursery spirit. 
The grass instead of being cut directly 
to the water’s edge, a treatment which 
results in an artificial look, and should 
be reserved for pools of formal shape, 
grows rough along the border, with the 
clipped grass stopping a few feet back. 
Tall Eupatoriums, rose and white, with 
Goldenrod and grasses, fringe the banks 
a feature of the picture 
“An open water’s edge with a fringe of marsh plants to soften the border” 
between black Alder bushes and here 
and there a bigger shrub or tree breaks 
the even line of the water’s edge. 
However little planting there is about 
a naturalistic pool, it should be of a 
character to emphasize the water. Gar- 
den shrubs and flowers betray the fact 
that they have been planted by the hand 
of man, and give the pool away, so to 
speak. If it is to be convincingly nat- 
uralistic with all the charm of the “old 
swimming hole,” or a country mill pond, 
it must be planted with those things 
which will recall the spirit of the 
countryside. 
A Pink-Flowered May-Apple 
PAUL H. SMITH, IowA 
CCASIONALLY one finds a wild 
flower of such extraordinary beauty 
and charm that he is quite won away 
from his old garden favorites and 
wishes that they might all be replaced 
by the stranger from the woods. This 
was particularly true of the 
pink-flowered May-apple, or 
Mandrake, as it is sometimes 
called, for, when it made its 
first appearance in the Bot- 
any Laboratories of Grinnell 
College last spring every one 
confessed a case of love at 
first sight. : 
Some students on a sete 
found the flowers growing in 
a grove of natural timber 
cheek by jowl with their 
plainer relatives the ordinary 
May-apple (Podophyllum pel- 
tatum). The plants corre- 
spond to type in every respect 
except the color of the flow- 
ers. The stems and leaves 
were just as large and vigor- 
ous; the flowers just as big 
and waxy; it was the blossom 
that caught and held the at- 
tention. Every flower showed a decided 
tendency toward doubling, for in every 
case the usual single row of petals was 
replaced with a triple or quadruple 
row. The edges of the petals were 
crinkled and crimped like crepe paper 
or poppy petals. The dominant charac- 
teristic, however, was coloration. Each 
flower was a delicate pink, laced with 
veins of a darker hue, and each petal 
showed all the delicate gradation of 
color found in a peach blossom or on a 
Rose petal. Moreover the strangers ap- 
parently had lost nothing in fragrance, 
for they had the same heavy, almost 
sickening, perfume usually associated 
with thoughts of the May-apple. 
The May-apple is one of the few wild 
flowers that does not quickly wilt and 
droop when picked. The flowers can 
usually be depended upon to retain their 
beauty and fragrance as long as Roses 
under the same conditions. By snip- 
ping off the large peltate leaves close 
to the stem, the blossoms are shown that 
before were completely hidden in vases. 
