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The Garden Magazine, January, 1920 



little spaces on the home grounds under trees and close to 

 the buildings where the grass cannot well be made to grow, 

 and which are oftentimes unsightly blots upon our small 

 gardens in America. And the low Box hedging is invaluable 

 to good garden design near the house itself. 



The use of "espaliered" and standard trees is very good 

 indeed as it gives variety, unique interest, character, a modi- 

 cum of shade, and accessibility to all of the garden ground. 

 These trees offer an immense amount of delightful possibili- 

 ties to the gardener on the small estate or on residence 

 grounds, and espaliering and training against walls of apples 

 and pears and other small fruits may well be taken up here. 

 It quite possibly may be successful in this country if the proper 

 interest is awakened and the work carefully tested out. 



In Luxembourg the use of the combined flower and vege- 

 table garden is universal. We find the broad gravelled path 

 with an earth, brick, or stoned gutter, then the low Box or 

 Privet edging, then the flowers and trees at intersecting 

 points of the paths, and the intervening garden space given 

 up to vegetables. George Sand's description in "Mau- 

 prat" of the eighteenth-century gardens of an old chateau 

 gives perfectly the atmosphere of these gardens: "A 'quick- 

 set hedge,' with stone walls on the outside to protect it; 

 vegetables on either side of a broad walk: cabbages, carrots, 

 lettuce, and some sorrel at the back near the hedge, Apple 

 trees in among the vegetables where the paths diverge, and 

 standard pear trees and espaliered apple trees alternating; 

 borders of thyme and sage, Sun-flowers, and Gilly-flowers." 



THE French are formal always in their use of flowers 

 but often delightfully informal with their shrubs and 

 tree masses. Indeed, there is quite a little of the informal 

 type of gardening in France, and even Le Notre, that fa- 

 mous exponent of the formal school, indulged in it in the 

 upper gardens at St. Cloud. In Luxembourg they have a 

 delightful custom of covering all the flower beds in the fall 

 with evergreen branches, broken off short and weighted down 

 with a few stones. This provides the necessary mulch for the 

 bed without that unpleasant appearance characteristic of 

 our flower beds in the winter time, when they are covered 

 with dead leaves or discolored straw. 



The French go on the principle that there is enough country 

 all around them, and that the garden should be — like the 

 house — private, and in reality an outdoor living room, an 

 extension of the house itself. And it is here that you find 

 them in the evening, seated in the rustic arbor or walking 



along the quaint, 

 strangely patterned 

 paths, completely 

 walled in from the out- 

 side world and as much 

 en jamille as though 

 they were within the 

 protecting four walls of 

 the dwelling. And the 

 French garden wall, too, 

 is very good and al- 

 ways interesting. The 

 wall copings are unique 

 and of infinite variety, 

 and their quaint, little 



I Omai-l-Gappen - In - PigeNT - <3>r- -Peasant s -Cottage 



postern gates which give admittance to the garden are rich 

 with the charm which age lays on beauty ; and they further 

 incite that sense of curiosity which lies in us all to see what 

 lies beyond, whether it be from the inside looking out or from 

 the outside looking in. Appeal of this character is indeed 

 one of the striking elements in all their work; which is an 

 appeal that can never be made until there is full recognition 

 and acknowledgment of the child-element in ourselves, and 

 pleasure in it. 



Much more might be said of the interesting use of rustic 

 arbors, fantastic trellises, quaint bits of stone and masonry; 

 but the foregoing will, I believe, convey that impression 

 of the gardens of the French people which 1 wished to carry 

 back to this country with me. It was the same every- 

 where; even in the public garden of the Prebendes d'Or, at 

 Tours where the design is of course admirable, likewise 

 the selection and location of the trees and shrubs and flowers 

 which adorn it, the curious thing about it was that prac- 

 tically the entire scheme might have been transplanted di- 

 rectly to an American garden. Indeed, so walled in and 

 private is this public garden that it might well serve as a pat- 

 tern to be duplicated upon any medium-sized estate in this 

 country. 



WHAT France has to teach us therefore may, I believe, 

 be summed up as follows: first, the possibilities that lie 

 before us in making the most out of even our small places; 

 second, the advantages to be gained by courting and develop- 

 ing privacy; and third, the beauty and charm of informal 

 formality, if I may use the term, such as abounds in the 

 French gardens. And finally these gardens prove that in 

 the long run it pays to study carefully the why and the 

 wherefore of every path and garden feature, and every tree, 

 shrub, and plant which we put into our own gardens here 

 in America — for such studied care is what has made the 

 gardens of France the finished gems that they are. 



Nothing is done by chance in their gardens. Moreover, 

 no detail or unimportant bit of planting takes precedence 

 over the general arrangement that guarantees the charm 

 and beauty and usefulness of the garden as a whole. 



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