A Garden of Little Labor and Much Delight 



-By Aldred Scott Warthin, In- 

 stating THE CASE ON BEHALF OF THE AVERAGE BUSY MAN WHO CULTIVATES A "YARD" 

 WITHOUT TRAINED HELP — THE KIND OF GARDENING THAT IS RECREATION FOR THE MILLION 



SOME years ago I visited a professional 

 friend living in a suburb of one of 

 our large cities, and found him in the most 

 advanced stage of garden mania. Seeds- 

 man's and nurseryman's catalogues of every 

 description littered his study, and on his 

 living room table were all of the garden 

 magazines and journals published in this 

 country and elsewhere. The talk of gar- 

 dens occupied the dinner hour, and imme- 

 diately after that ceremony, which was 

 rushed to save a remaining hour of day- 

 light, the guests were led out, and down 

 a steep descent of over fifty feet to the 

 garden below, to view the results of our 

 hosts's labors with flowers and vegetables. 

 And it was really worth while. 



Last Spring I met my friend again, and 

 being still a garden enthusiast myself 

 expected at once an immediate interchange 

 of garden experiences. Not a word about 

 that wonderful terrace that was to have 

 been developed — not a hint of the rock- 

 garden on the hill side, or of the water- 

 garden at its foot! At last unable to 

 restrain myself I asked "What about the 

 garden?" 



My friend hesitated, while his wife cut 

 in with a laugh "For two years we had 

 a garden, and, as you remember, every 

 friend visiting the house had to walk down 

 that hill — and up again — to see it. The 

 third year they were only led to the top 

 of the terrace and merely asked to look 

 down upon it, while the next year they 

 were not even taken out of the house, 

 but were simply told that there was a 

 garden at the foot of the hill — and this 

 year there isn't even that — all has reverted 

 to grass and bushes — and weeds. And 

 the garden literature has become automo- 

 bile literature." 



Now this is unfortunately, I think, 

 not an uncommon story. I have known 

 others — not several, but a goodly number 

 of professional men — teachers, physicians 

 and lawyers, who, when the first wave of 

 the revival of interest in gardens passed 

 over the country a few years ago, became 

 tremendously enthusiastic gardeners — 

 for a year or two. But their vegetable 

 and flower gardens are now covered with 

 trim sod, or something worse; garden lit- 

 erature has disappeared from their tables. 

 Working in the yard has given way to 

 golf or automobile riding; and all of these 

 men are growing older — and a little 

 stouter or flabbier each year — and needing 

 the very exercise they have so readily given 

 up. I have been at some pains to ascer- 

 tain the real cause of these sudden slumps 

 in garden enthusiasm, and the answer 

 in every case is the same *'It takes too 

 much time and too hard work." 



Now my purpose is to show that this is 

 a mistake and that a garden of great plea- 

 sure can be had for relatively little time 

 and labor, and will yield an abundance of 

 flowers and vegetables at an expense of 

 just as much hard exercise as a professional 

 man of middle life ought to have for his 

 health's sake. For the mistaken idea 

 as to the amount of time and labor neces- 

 sary to have a garden that pays in pleasure 

 and in vegetable and flower returns, I 

 believe our gardening magazines themselves 

 are somewhat to blame. The constant 

 talk about "cultivate, cultivate" — the 

 articles that speak of "drifts" of harmon- 

 ious color, of planting "by the thousand," 

 of borders "hundreds of feet long," etc. 

 perplex and weary the average American 

 house-holder of small income and possess- 

 ing but a small portion of the surface of 

 Mother Earth, who cannot do these things 

 — but who, because of this constant 

 reiteration and their continual staring 

 in his face, comes to believe that they are 

 absolutely necessary if one is to have a 

 garden at all. If he, as is the case with 

 the majority of us, cannot have a real gar- 

 dener or at least a man to help about the 

 yard, he gives the matter up as impossible. 



The trouble is that the greater part of 

 the current garden literature is written for 

 the owner of a large place and not for the 

 small householder who needs the garden 

 more than any one else. I must confess 

 that personally I have derived but little 

 real help from the "garden literature" I 

 have devoured during the past five years 

 or so. It has been intensely interesting 

 and enjoyable. Miss Jekyll's books and 

 others, a great pile of gardening magazines 

 and catalogues, I keep on a little table by 

 my bedside and the last five minutes of 

 busy days are given to a peep into some 

 of these, and thereby a rest is secured by 

 the arousing of a hopeful plan of my own 

 for my own garden. But very few of the 

 plans and suggestions given in the litera- 

 ture have been adaptable to my own needs, 

 because most of them are beyond my 

 resources. 



Miss Jekyll had fifteen acres, I believe, 

 and was not content with those; but with 

 so much ground her ideas of planting for 

 harmony of color can be carried into effect. 

 But with all due respect to her and to Mrs. 

 Francis King, such garden ideals are out 

 of the question for the very great majority 

 of Americans who really care for gardens, 

 for as a rule the real garden lovers in this 

 country are not people of great means or 

 of large landholdings, but nearly all of 

 those that I know are professional or bus- 

 iness men with tastes much superior to 

 their incomes. Most of us live in "yards" 



58 



and it is in the development of the yard 

 that American gardening will find its 

 greatest rewards and its greatest influence 

 upon the development of national life and 

 character. The American garden will be 

 an idealized, an improved or an evolved 

 English cottage garden developed in accor- 

 dance with the exigencies of our climate, 

 flora, and national temperament. 



Now it is self-manifest that picture- 

 gardening in Miss Jekyll's sense cannot 

 be applied to a small space. To derive 

 two or perhaps three good impressionistic 

 garden effects in color during the year is 

 a result that cannot be secured without 

 too great sacrifices for the portion of the 

 season when these effects have faded. 

 Moreover, while appreciating fully myself 

 the beauty of such masses and contrasts 

 and refined harmonies of color as are 

 possible in picture-gardening, I cannot 

 believe that the realization of such effects 

 is the highest garden-ideal or yields the 

 greatest garden pleasure. Without taking 

 up that side of the argument, except as 

 it is illuminated by the general trend of 

 this article it is sufficient to make my 

 point at once, that impressionistic color 

 gardening is not applicable to and is not 

 desirable for the yard garden, which is 

 the garden that the great majority of 

 flower-lovers in this country have to be 

 content with — if the greatest flower 

 yield and the greatest amount of pleasure 

 are considered. 



What are the chief considerations of 

 the yard garden. The first is that it shall 

 give its owner the greatest possible amount 

 of pleasure for the greatest length of time with 

 the 'least possible expenditure in time and 

 money. In the climate of Southern Michi- 

 gan it is possible to have flowers in one's 

 garden during eight months of the year 

 — indeed, in one favorable year I have 

 had flowers bloom outside during every 

 month of the year but January. Now 

 some people may be so constituted that 

 they care only for tulips — pink tulips, 

 or for peonies alone — mauve peonies 

 we will say, and plant but these and have 

 once or twice a year a glorious burst of 

 bloom to enrapture their senses. Such 

 tastes, to me, are not evidences of true 

 flower, or true garden love, they are fads, 

 vagaries born of the neurotic or the "artis- 

 tic" temperament, and not that whole- 

 some, healthy love for the poppies, corn- 

 flower, gilliflowers and stocks of the mixed 

 flower garden that has been the saving 

 grace and the inspiration of the Anglo- 

 Saxon race for centuries. The real garden 

 ought to be a constant reminder of all the 

 many wondrously beautiful allusions to 

 flowers scattered through English poetry 



