February, 1 9 1 ! 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



23 









"For all the thriftiness of the new gardening I doubt if there 

 will be any lessening in the planting of flowers' ' 



abate for many a year; and the children have done 

 it too! The skilful preserving of fruit has become 

 a matter of pride and keen interest. The house- 

 wife moreover is awake to its healthfulness and 

 high food value as never before. Especially 

 will she be interested in canning and preserving 

 her own produce. 



Now that the imperative necessity of the war 

 has passed, the urgent need of using space for 

 potatoes and the like, the housewife will wish 

 to see a permanently thrifty garden, well-stocked, 

 well-balanced, well-planned, so that, as the 

 prayerbook says every year will come "the fruit 

 in due season." We shall see strawberry beds 

 planted, raspberry bushes, gooseberry bushes 

 and blackberry vines set out; currant bushes 

 and the old-fashioned quince will again figure 

 prominently — the latter almost as lovely in flower 

 as the Japanese Quince. We shall perhaps see 

 a return to the charming practice of our grand- 

 mothers who were, most of them, clever and 

 thrifty gardeners as well as housewives, and see 

 currant bushes alternated with Iris and flowers 

 set in the vegetable rows, wherever space might 

 be found for them. 



The interest in fruit-planting will probably 

 result in a greatly increased planting of dwarf 

 fruit trees. There is so much about the dwarf 

 tree to recommend it to the home-gardener whose 

 planting space is small. The dwarf tree is so 

 overwhelmingly efficient! It can do so much 

 with so very little in the way of ground space 

 and fertilizer; it comes into bearing sc much more 

 quickly than the standard nor is its care of 

 especial difficulty; the necessary spraying is an 

 easy matter from the simple fact that the tree 

 is four or five feet high instead of four and twenty. 



The little trees afford such a fine exhibit 

 ground for one's gardening skill — and the home- 

 gardener will wish to develop and to show his 

 skill. Of what use is it to go a-gardening, unless 

 one may go from one branch to another of the 

 craft and attain high skill in some chosen 

 specialty? To the amateur gardener, this is 

 the fun of it — the poetry; the needful hoeing 

 and weeding are the prose. And if one has the 



one, why not the other? 



* * * 



t^OR ALL the thriftiness and frugality of the 

 " new gardening, I doubt if there will be any 

 lessening in the planting of flowers and the setting 

 out of flowering shrubs and trees which form 

 part of our usual spring-garden activity. Less 

 lawn space, undoubtedly there will be — many 

 have plowed up lawns to plant potatoes, but 

 of flowers we shall have a-plenty. As never 

 before we shall feel the need of their loveliness 

 and poetry. The returning soldiers will crave, 

 as never before, the healing loveliness and ex- 

 quisiteness of the flowers to help them forget 

 the horror and devastation of war, they will 

 long to find peace and beauty in the home gar- 

 den — and the home gardeners will see to it that 

 they find it there. We shall need the ministry 

 of the flowers as never before. 



So, as we fit the needs of all of us, our type of 





■A -• 

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AA-'4 



" We may see the return of the fence, where the whole ground 

 space is given to flowers and vegetables" 



gardening will change. Instead of the park- 

 like aspect which characterized most of our 

 suburbs we shall have numbers and numbers 

 of charming little individual gardens. Perhaps 

 we may split the difference between the two 

 schools of garden art, and let the street side be 



As never before we shall feel the lovelinees and poetry of the 

 flowing shrubs and trees that form part of our spring activity 



given to lawn and shrubbery, and the rear 

 of the house become the "garden side," barred 

 off by lattice or espalier fruit from ingress by 

 marauding cat or dog, guarded by a high. fence 

 or wall so that its precious citizenry may live 

 and flourish in safety. 



We may see a return of the fence, where the 

 whole ground space is given to flowers and 

 vegetables, as is the case now in many a Southern 

 city — and charming gardens, wholly delightful 

 as a setting for the stateliness of the old house, 

 are so made. Such a setting would be peculiarly 

 satisfying for the Colonial type of house, seen 

 frequently enough in the Northern suburbs and 

 for which the usual settingjof grass and shrubbery 

 seems inadequate and always makes one feel 

 that the house needs more room. 



Perhaps, with the return of the fence, not only 

 the straying dogs or cats but the passer-by may 

 catch through the palings mouth watering 

 glimpses of gardens with apricot and nectarine 

 trees in luscious fruit such as the English Cap- 

 tain gazed yearningly toward through the 

 palings of William Egan's Philadelphia garden 

 in the days before America was a Republic. 



A T ALL events the revival in gardening is here 

 ■^^ to stay. Our gardens will become more 

 individual, more varied, for as we love them and 

 work in them, we shall plant — not what some 

 one tells us we should plant, or what our neighbor 

 has planted, but what we ourselves wish to have. 

 If we have asparagus instead of Hydrangea 

 paniculata, it is because the former is of more 

 value to us. If we plant cherry trees and quince 

 bushes it is because we want them — and perhaps 

 because Madam housewife has her mind on 

 cherry pies or preserved quinces. 



"After last summer's experience of home grown produce no housewife will willingly go back 

 to abject dependence on the greengrocer" 



And we may learn the idea of making the garden a definitely useful and used part of the estab- 

 lishment, to get familiar with and live in 



