The Garden Magazine, August, 1919 



29 



monly talked about, offers excellent opportunities for disabled, re- 

 habilitated soldiers. 



— Landscape 

 Gardeners, and 

 Others" 



IT IS of course a moot question as to what 

 exactly constitutes a legitimate practi- 

 tioner. .Manx a really beautiful garden 

 has been made by people who are not 

 graduates of schools — which is not saying, however, whether the 

 particular garden might have been even better had a landscape 

 "architect "been consulted. The real service that the trained 

 professional renders is largely in helping to determine the type of 

 design that best fits any given place, from the standpoint of both 

 utility and artistic harmony at one and the same time. Many peo- 

 ple prefer to make their own garden-*, to work out their own salva- 

 tion by the process of trial and elimination, arriving at last just 

 where they would have started bad the trained designer been called 

 in at the beginning. And there is much to be said from just that 

 kind of thing — it certainly makes for "personal" gardens, and every 

 once in a while leads to really startling vet most satisfactory re- 

 sults — to the owner at least. Therein lies one of the charms of the 

 garden to the creative mind, because changes can be made in rapid 

 successions; even an error is not so monumental as in the case 

 of such permanent things as a building of brick or stone — or even 

 wood for that matter! No, indeed. And the penalty on the de- 

 signer is not so great. For a fact the working with flexible plastic 

 material has even greater possibilities for both success and fashion 

 than the construction with dead materials that stav put. For a 

 garden is not onlv the expression of life, it is life itself, landscape 

 gardening is the most liberal of all the arts, for the practitioner must 

 alvvavssee far, very far, into the future, with a real knowledge of how 

 the living materials will unfold in the years to come. The landscape 

 gardener or architect is a dreamer, a poet, a seer. That the soul of 

 the artist is not alwavs to be expected in the bodv of a highly 

 specialized student, however, is a matter of history. The soul feeling 

 is the first essential. Out of this comes the desire for accurate or 

 scientific knowledge. The most lowly may in time arise on their own 



THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PEONY SOCIETY 

 Mr. L. R. Bonnewitz, elected president at the Detroit meeting in June, 

 has long been an enthusiastic Peony collector. He is here seen in his 

 gardens at Van Wert, Ohio, carefully selecting blooms for exhibition, with 

 the assistance of his daughter 



selves to the giddiest heights of artistic achievement, yet you see 

 that it would be well to have at least some guarantee of innate 

 ability before entrusting the embryo landscape pictures about the 

 home to one who may simply aspire and cannot reach. !t would 

 not be wisdom, probably, to expect fine results from one whose bud- 

 ding acquaintance with garden art is trailed along behind a sort of 

 general scavenger's calling as in this announcement from a news- 

 paper in the regenerate West : 



WINDOWS REMOVED, screens put on. yards 

 clcined and landscape gardening. Phone 3375-W 

 after 6 o'clock. H. A. Holte. 



Perhaps the facts are that our landscape gardener found himself 

 pioneering in so unresponsive a field that he turns his hand to the 

 nearest honest manual toil the while he lives on in the hope 

 that the times will catch up with him! For even in the old and 

 effete fast the landscape graduate is not honestly recognized as an 

 asset to the national development — which may be partly due to the 

 shrinking modesty with which he hides his light under the bushel of 

 "ethical" practice and considers it beneath his dignity to announce 

 himself to the public that may really need him if it knows where 

 to find him, or if it knew he even existed. All honor to this West- 

 ern pioneer! 



— The American 

 Peony Society 

 At Detroit" 



THE "most noteworthy gathering of 

 its seventeen years" was the general 

 verdict of those who attended the exhibi- 

 tion on June 17 and 18. Of course, a date 

 for Peony blooms that shall be satisfactory for all growers and all 

 seasons cannot be set in advance, and the date proved a little late 

 for local enthusiasts. 



"Speaking from an artist's standpoint," says one correspondent, 

 "my lirst selection would be Cherry Hill by F. C. Thurlow & Sons. 

 The name suggests the color, and conspicuous yellow stamens gave it 

 tone. .And the blooms are not so large as to seem monstrosities. But 

 Peony flowers to look well must be large and some varieties, notably 

 singles, appeared contrastingly small." 



Vvalanche vied with Mont Blanc as the best-appearing white. 

 Other conspicuous blooms were La Rosiere, Enchantment, M. 

 Barral, and Marie Deroux. Midnight was the darkest. A yellow 

 was conspicuously absent, although $100.00 will be given by the 

 Harrison Memorial prize for the best of that color. This prize will 

 be open for competition till 1924. The largest bloom shown (in the 

 collection of 1,200 from the gardens of L. R. Bonnewitz, Van Wert, 

 ().) was eighteen inches in diameter. "Victoire de La Marne" is the 

 name of this new bright red variety. Of the 80 prizes offered the 

 first prize was awarded to Professor A. P. Saunders, Clinton, N. Y., 

 for Kclway's Gloria. He also won the prize for the best individual 

 bloom with Le Cygne. For the best 100 blooms of different varie- 

 ties the award went to F. C. Thurlow & Sons of W. Newberry, Mass. 

 L. R. Bonnewitz won second place and particularly featured Therese. 

 He also exhibited blooms of rare beauty in Lady Alexandra Duff, 

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Etta. The following officers were 

 elected: L. R. Bonnewitz, President; A. W. Fewkes, Newton High- 

 land, Mass., Vice-President; Prof. A. P. Saunders, Clinton, N. Y., 

 Secretary; A. H. Scott, Chester, Pa., Treasurer. The 1920 show 

 will be held in Reading, Pa. 



—The American 



Gladiolus 



Society" 



THE tenth annual meeting and exhibi- 

 tion of the American Gladiolus So- 

 ciety will be held in the Arcadia Auditor- 

 ium, Detroit, Mich., during the next 

 convention of the Society of American Florists and Ornamental 

 Horticulturists, August 19th, 20th, and 21st. Complete information 

 regarding the exhibition will be published in the premium list which 

 will be gladly sent by Prof. A. C. Beal, Ithaca, N. Y. It is hoped 

 all growers may make their plans to attend this meeting. 



