142 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1815 



their settings and forgive their youthful 

 sins. There may be dust instead of grass, 

 the opalescent mountains are treeless but 

 there is almost wantonness in the bold 

 beauty of great distances and magic chang- 

 ing colors; you are in a lavish, sensuous land 

 where nature has not learned the artistic 

 restrictions. Especially the rivers are im- 

 patient of restraint and will not be taught 

 moderation and frugality. An Eastern 

 river goes about its business in quiet ordered 

 fashion, but not so a California river. It 

 elbows the landscape out of the way with a 

 raging torrent, hurling down great boulders 

 and trees; then having made room for itself 

 comfortably, it settles down to an ambling 

 stream or changes its mind and disappears 

 under ground for the summer. 



Everybody in California has a gar- 

 den. It is a bond of sympathy that 

 establishes friendly relations between 

 capitalists and socialists, meat packer? 

 and vegetarians. 



But the California gardens demand 

 no adjustment of ideas. They wel- 

 come the stranger impulsively. Only 

 the super-sensitive who shiver at the 

 barbaric color schemes are disap- 

 pointed. The plebeian Geranium does 

 not always "know his place" but there 

 is comfort in his presence in a strange 

 land. The sad old California lie that 

 "all you have to do is to stick a thing in 

 the ground and it grows" has a shred of 

 truth in the fact that our gardens are 

 successful in spite of 

 the small amount of 

 trouble they require 

 compared to those of 

 cold climates. The 

 fault of this virtue 

 is that Californians 

 do not exert them- 

 selves sufficiently to 

 realize their possibil- 

 ities. 



The gardens can 

 generally be grouped 

 under one of three 

 heads: the formal, the 

 old maidish, and the 

 inconsequential o 1 d 

 fashioned garden. 



The formal garden 

 is much the same 

 everywhere, delightful 

 architecturally when 

 the garden is not left 

 out. It has a classic 

 cultured personality 

 that one has to live 

 up to and admire. 

 Being much too con- 

 sciously superior to 

 take liberties with, I 

 could never imagine 

 "blue jeans" to work 

 intimate terms with it. There are beau- 

 tiful formal gardens in California but they 

 always seem to be sternly reproving the 

 riotous landscape and holding themselves 

 aloof from association with uncouth wes- 

 ternism. 



This is a shamefully bigoted point of 

 view on my part and due to a detestation 

 of the exact science of reasonable squares 

 and circles. It is rather terrifying to find 

 plants being taught mathematics. 



The old maidish garden is always equally 

 uninteresting at any time of year. In this 

 type seasons do not exist and one would 

 find it difficult to tell winter from summer. 

 Its hair is always neatly parted, brushed, 

 and plastered into place. In the conscien- 

 tious effort to compromise with nature and 

 choose plants which will "look well all the 

 year round" it is often carried to a point of 

 deadly monotony. The garden becomes 

 old maidish; extremes of temperment are 

 frowned upon; a plant which gives of itself 

 lavishly and then rests is banished in dis- 



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The barbaric Geranium may not always know its place, but there is 

 comfort in its appearance 



California is in a semi-arid belt and the beauty must be of a grander, sterner type than the tourist recognizes at home. 

 Spreading shade trees are supplanted by Palms, etc." 



myself putting 

 in one or being 



on 

 on 



grace. Nothing deciduous is tolerated, 

 there must be no fallen leaves or unsightly 

 flower seed stalks. These ladylike self- 

 sufficient gardens are fairly satisfactory 

 settings to a house. One sees a great many 

 of them in California but one does not give 

 one's heart to them. They are generally 

 gardeners' gardens worked in by men whose 



only communication with their employers 

 is the monthly check. 



It is in the old fashioned, inconsequential 

 type, with winding paths and many sur- 

 prises that one sees the typical California 

 garden. Here are old eastern favorites like 

 Rubber Trees, Lemon Verbena and Helio- 

 trope grown to astonishing proportions, as 

 if watered with an elixir of life; exotic 

 tropical looking strangers, Orange blossoms, 

 Rose, and Geranium hedges, flowering vines 

 clambering into the tops of oak trees, the 

 things one has come to California to see. 



An inconsequential garden may be ever 

 so carefully planned, it must be in order to 

 fit into the landscape and appear artless, 

 but it is never stiff and self-conscious. 

 There is greater chance for individuality 

 than in any other type. 



A garden is a home chapel. To walk 

 in it at sunset after the rush of a busy 

 day brings the same replenishment to a 

 tired spirit as stepping from the noon 

 time glare and bustle of a modern con- 

 tinental city into one of the dusky, old, 

 dreaming churches. 



So sweet sounds and odors are essen- 

 tial to an ideal garden if you would 

 complete the lure of the senses. Steven- 

 son says, "Cultivate the garden for 

 the nose, and the eyes will take care of 

 themselves." 



There is nothing adds more to this joy 

 of the senses than a feathered choir, an 

 aviary. Here a canary comes into his 

 own. His upper re- 

 gister was never in- 

 tended for a small 

 room where the human 

 speaking voice has to 

 compete with him. A 

 few romantic and 

 mournful doves in the 

 aviary balance the 

 canary's professional 

 cheerfulness. Build 

 your bird concert gar- 

 den of generous size 

 in a sunny sheltered 

 place against a back- 

 ground of trees or 

 shrubs. Be sure to 

 supply a refuge for 

 wet, cold and windy 

 nights, and plant a few 

 shrubs inside the en- 

 closures to give joy to 

 the birds. A gold-fish 

 pond instead of the 

 ordinary drinking 

 place adds much to the 

 charm of an aviary. 

 Let the birds have 

 both sun arid shade 

 and let your Orange 

 Trees, Roses, and early flowers gather 

 around the songsters and there will always 

 be spring even in your winter garden. 



No southland garden can be pictured 

 without Orange Trees. Even the ubiquitous 

 color-blind picture postals can hardly ex- 

 aggerate the vividness of a well kept and 

 ripened orange grove. The most decora- 



