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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



April, 1912 



Making the new house feel at home 



fancy in a garden, which however well 

 beshrubbed, lies bare to the public gaze? 

 Would the lovely quietness of Andrew 

 Marvell's "green thought in a green shade " 

 have sprung there? Nay verily. And 

 green thoughts are pleasant company. 



Though they may not realize it, it is 

 nothing but this lack of privacy that 

 makes so many Americans hesitate to go 

 a-gardening. It explains also why we 

 have so few pretty little gardens in city 

 and suburb. In a secluded garden a man 

 is more apt to have the courage of his 

 convictions and plant what he likes, not 

 what he thinks he ought to like. Hence 

 his gardening has a chance of individuality. 



Beside this psychological reason, a tall 

 hedge or a green clad wall makes a frame 

 against which even a slight growth is 

 charming . Moreover an enclosed garden 

 can be made safe for birds, secure against 

 cats and dogs or the hen who, for the flow- 

 ers, is worse than the fabled dragon for 

 distressed damsels. 



Aside from the semi-public nature of our 

 gardens, the excessive lawn space is another 

 habit of ours which hinders the proper 



enjoyment of a garden. Many a worthy 

 commuter has his interest in horticulture 

 slowly and surely killed by the weekly 

 task at the lawn-mower. He may gain 

 thereby, it is true, a useful appreciation 

 of the weariful monotony of woman's work, 

 but enthusiasm for horticulture — never! 

 The joy of creation is not in it, nor the joy 

 of achievement. The tyranny of the lawn- 

 mower explains why so few men wish to go 

 a-gardening; no man who so employs his 

 scant leisure has a chance to see any but 

 the seamy side of the craft. 



Now when Israel contemplated this 

 prospect — that of sitting, every man 

 under his vine and under his fig-tree, no 

 small degree of common comfort was 

 presupposed. To sit under a vine, implies 

 an arbor; to sit under a fig-tree, presumes 

 a seat. It would be seen then, that in the 

 Prophet's gardening, primitive and utili- 

 tarian as it was, comfort was one of the 

 first considerations. Herein, one thinks, 

 lay wisdom. Whoever makes for himself 

 a comfortable place to sit out-of-doors, is 

 very sure to do a bit of gardening — 

 simply to delight his eyes, and by degrees, 

 without any great effort, the place grows 

 to be altogether pleasant and lovable. 

 Just as one takes up his abode in a house 

 (or if a New Yorker — in an apartment). 

 He doesn't buy every detail outright from 

 a department store at one fell swoop. 

 Instead he (or she) encamps in a place 

 makes himself comfortable at first, and by 

 degrees makes the rooms livable, harmoni- 

 ous, and, if he have the gift, even artistic. 



Not only may the garden afford a pleas- 

 ant place in which to sit and lounge with 

 a pipe and a book, if one is a man, or with 

 tea and a friend, if one is a woman, but it 

 may even be comfortable to care for. 



We have a tiresome habit of dividing 



That it is the owner's work lends a personal charm to this type of garden. There's real enjoyment in it 



the fruit and vegetable garden from the 

 flowers as if we were separating the sheep 

 from the goats. Yet if the vegetable 

 rows are finished off with a row of flowers, 

 the garden peas with a row of sweet peas, 

 the plot well spaced and balanced (which 

 is a matter of no expense) the kitchen 

 garden can be very goodly to look upon 

 and the wheel hoe cares impartially for 

 both Ceres' interests and those of Flora. 

 There is an abundance of flowers for the 

 house, and the kitchen garden becomes 

 delightful with the buxom, homely pretti- 

 ness of the country-maid (of romance). 

 Unpretentious as it is, it is very gay, and 

 the gardener is not worried in the least 

 for fear his show beds are not looking their 

 best. He can plant tulips in his straw- 

 berry beds, German iris by his grape- 

 vines, and, when he brings in a basket of 

 vegetables, he will bring flowers in with 

 them. 



If he has a lawn, then early flowering 

 trees will make a delightful boundary and 

 afford seclusion as well. If naturalistically 

 inclined, in front of these he will plant 

 perennials in groups and tuck in bulbs 

 to heart's content. This is a far happier 

 arrangement than the more usual one of 

 packing tightly with shrubs the space 

 beneath the trees. It is better for the 

 eyes; the outline of the young trees is 

 graceful and should not be obliterated; 

 the perennials are barely in evidence when 

 the trees are abloom, while later, when 

 their own season has come, the trees serve 

 as background. It has also a material 

 benefit; the roots of neither bulbs nor 

 perennials go as deeply as those of shrubs, 

 therefore they are not likely to quar- 

 rel with their neighbors over the food 

 supply. In -winter, the trees afford pro- 

 tection and the mulch given to bulbs and 

 perennials benefits all. Which excellent 

 instance of all tilings working together is 

 a source of satisfaction to the gardener. 



In fact the flowering trees and natural- 

 ized bulbs make the easiest possible gar- 

 den to care for. The lilacs still bloom and 

 the daffodils come up when those that 

 planted them have been dead for fifty 

 years. It is a pity they are so little 

 planted for they would make a suburb a 

 flowery Paradise in April and early May. 



We Americans (except for the South) 

 have been a nation of sojourners. We 

 live in apartments and hotels and boarding 

 houses; we spend our summers in hotels 

 also. The only element of stability among 

 our possessions is in the furniture which 

 year after year remains in storage. But 

 now, either drawn by the siren inducements 

 of garden magazines, or impelled by 

 Colonel Roosevelt's exhortations, or driven 

 by the terrors of cold-storage, the altitude 

 of the price of eggs to flee the city as Lot 

 fled from Sodom — folk are going country- 

 ward as never before. After long centuries 

 the ideal of peace and security is coming 

 again to be that of the captive Israelites, 

 that every man " shall sit under his vine and 

 under his fig-tree and drink water from his 

 cistern ; and none shall make him afraid." 



