Plant native vines on the walls and fences that line the roadside everywhere 
This shows the Japanese clematis 
in the country. 
72S 
resi eaters 
Native asters fringing a driveway; a great improvement of roadsides that can 
be made by planting one large colony of a hardy perennial herb 
Join the “Roadside Gardening Club’? Now — By Thomas McAdam, ., 
= 
A NEW FRATERNITY THAT HAS NEITHER DUES NOR OFFICERS AND ONLY ONE AIM, VIZ., TO MAKE 
EVERY FOOT OF YOUR DAILY WALK OR DRIVE DELIGHTFUL THE YEAR ROUND WITHOUT EXPENSE 
[* YOU are a country or suburban 
dweller, let me introduce ‘you to a 
new kind of gardening which will cost 
nothing, which you can begin right now, 
and which, I guarantee, will yield you more 
pleasure, for the time and effort expended, 
than anything you have ever done before. 
The name of this new type of floriculture is 
“roadside wild gardening.” It requires 
no state or county aid. There will be no 
balky committees or exasperating red tape. 
Tansy, example of perennials which multiply 
rapidly, escape from gardens and are suitable for 
roadsides 
The sole object is to make every foot of your 
daily walk or drive a joy the year round 
without expense, without violating nature 
and without infringing on anyone’s rights. 
But first let me tell you how I got fighting 
mad one morning about the’ middle of June. 
It was a long half mile I had to walk daily 
from home to station, but every step of the 
way was interesting. The charm of that 
walk was one reason why I moved to that 
suburb. Never before had I experienced 
that feeling of the growth of the year which 
you can enjoy to the full only when you 
stay at one place and have a perfect proces- 
sion of wild flowers to watch. My first year 
at E I shall always remember as 
the year when nature seemed to grow 
eighteen crops of flowers on the same ground. 
For that was the first time I noticed that 
one kind of flower seemed to dominate the 
whole roadside for about ten days, then 
another, and so on—say three flowers a 
month for six months. I shall never forget 
how these woods appeared when spring 
beauties carpeted the ground with myriads 
of starry white blossoms; or the thousands 
of wild geraniums with their crude crimson 
pink transmuted by the long afternoon 
shadows; or the daisies which we started 
early to pick for the city children at the 
suggestion of Jacob Riis; or the exquisite 
queen’s lace handkerchief, prosaically 
known as wild carrot; or the brown-eyed 
Susan, divinely appointed to mark the flood- 
tide of the year. Their order I cannot 
remember, but each of the following reigned 
supreme for its brief period along that high- 
way: orchard grass, sumach, tansy, milk- 
weed, yarrow, Joe Pyeweed, goldenrod, 
sunflower, ironweed and asters; while after 
322 
the flowers and foliage were gone bayberry 
leaves furnished warm bronzes and purples 
through November and the bitter-sweet’s 
red berries were a comfort all winter. 
Alas, the second year something happened. 
That fatal morning in June I saw all this 
beauty killed. A man was mowing every- 
thing down with a brush scythe. I 
questioned him. He wasa laborer employed 
by some township officer whose only idea 
Goldenrod gets nearly all the blame for hay 
fever, but is innocent. The real villain is ragweed 
(Ambrosia artemisicfolia) 
