198 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1912 



choke cherry, black and sweet elder, arrow- 

 wood, sassafras, kinnikinnick, flowering dog- 

 wood, crab apple, hawthorn, fire thorn, 

 cotoneaster, buffalo berry, mountain ash, 

 and tupelo. 



7. To get the Von Berlepsch booklet and 

 a list of dealers who supply the apparatus 

 write the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York. 



8. Famous bird gardens in America: Mr. 

 William Brewster's at Cambridge, Mass. 

 (high fence, wire netting); Mr. Ernest 

 Thompson Seton's at Cos Cob, Conn, (arti- 

 ficial tree, and eleven-acre lake); J. H. 

 Wade's, Thomasville, Ga. (cardinals, mock- 

 ingbirds, quail); Mrs. Thompson's, Canan- 

 daigua (greenhouses, flying cage, pergola). 



9. The moaning of turtle doves empha- 

 sizes peace, quiet, seclusion. An aviary 

 for them might be built into a garden wall. 

 The note of the turtle dove has been praised 

 ever since Theocritus in the third century 

 before Christ. Famous old aviaries have 

 been pictured in the English Country Life 

 and in Bloomfield's "Formal Garden in 

 England." 



IF YOU HAVE THE COLLECTING INSTINCT 



10. Favorite themes for wealthy collect- 

 ors are the arboretum, pinetum, fruticetum 

 viticetum, salicetum, rosary and orchids. 



11. The desire for completeness generally 

 operates on florist's flowers, i. e., those 

 which have the greatest number of species 

 and varieties. For example, among hard}' 

 perennials gaillardias have about 102 varie- 

 ties, hardy chrysanthemums 109, Michael- 

 mas daisies or perennial asters 137, pyre- 

 thrums 1S0, delphiniums 218, border 

 carnations 224, phlox 346, late or Chinese 

 peonies 657. 



12. The cheapest flowers to collect are 

 annuals. Zinnias have about 40 varieties, 

 pinks 50, petunias 57, pansies 62, balsams 

 66, opium poppies 68, nasturtiums 78, 

 phlox 82, sweet peas 166, stocks 2S3, asters 



457- 



13. The bulbs that have the greatest 

 number of varieties are tulips, daffodils, 

 hyacinths, lilies, crocus, snowdrop, grape 

 hyacinth, day lilies, and mariposa tulips. 

 Among half-hardy bulbs the favorites 

 among collectors are gladioli, cannas, 

 dahlias, and torch lilies. Among tender 

 plants are amaryllis, crinum, ixia, nerine 

 and caladium. 



14. The shrubs that have the greatest 

 variety are roses, lilacs, azaleas, dogwoods, 

 hawthorns, honeysuckle, and spireas. 



15. The broad-leaved evergreens favored 

 by collectors are rhododendrons. English 

 holly has 75 varieties which are practical 

 for collectors on the Pacific Coast. 



16. A garden composed wholly of heaths, 

 the beds cut in the turf, one species in each 

 bed, and full of delicate bells. Downing 

 saw such a garden at Woburn Abbey 

 (England) as long ago as 1850. 



17. A higher ideal than collecting is 

 plant breeding, as explained in "What 

 England Can Teach Us About Gardening." 

 The highest ideals in pure collecting are 



exemplified by R. B. Whyte of Ottawa, 

 whose "Perfect Half Acre Garden" was 

 described in Country Life in America, 

 April 1, 191 1, pages 413 to 416. 



IF YOU LOVE PRIVACY 



iS. When George Washington lived in 

 Philadelphia as President of the United 

 States he had a high brick wall close up to 

 the sidewalk clear across the lot from house 

 to boundary line. So did every other 

 gentleman of refinement until the craze for 

 putting all one's goods in the show window 

 ruined American yards. There is a picture 

 of the old presidential house and garden 

 wall in the Pennsylvania Historical Society's 

 library. 



19. Do not have heart-failure when you 

 get your first estimate on the cost of a 

 garden wall. Remember the great bargains 

 you can get from wreckers in great cities. 

 Old bricks are the very thing you want, 

 and "the worse the better." Hasn't some 

 factor}' near you burned down within forty 

 years. Can't you "rob the ruins?" 



20. "The cheapest and most artistic 

 garden wall," says an enthusiast at Glen 

 Cove, N. Y., "can be built in this way: Go 

 to a large old brick yard and ask what are 

 the worst bricks they have. Thus you can 

 get a great variety of color from red through 

 purple to black. Set these with an inch 

 joint and you will get the effect of age at 

 once. A hard, new wall, a showy wall, or 

 a dead, uniform expanse are undesirable. 

 Rich texture and quiet coloring are the 

 optimum." 



21. A lady who wished a seven-foot 

 fence on two sides of her village lot was 

 horrified to find that it would cost S225 for 

 about 225 ft. including painting inside and 

 out. She plans to save $100 by planting 

 shrubbery instead. She will have a dense 

 irregular border of shrubs that will attain 

 8 feet, in four years. On the street side she 

 may have a hedge of Japanese barberry 

 costing about $50. 



22. To make his high board fence as 

 inconspicuous as possible Mr. John Robin- 

 son of Salem painted it inside with a dull 

 chocolate brown — the complementary color 

 of the green of shrubbery. But the 

 outside of the fence he painted white to 

 harmonize with the buildings that sur- 

 rounded him. 



23. The passion for privacy reached 

 Ottawa, Ont., a few years ago and the city 

 blossomed out with awnings. Every veran- 

 dah had a set of awnings arranged on hor- 

 izontal iron rods. These grow faster even 

 than the Kudzu vine. They may not be 

 as beautiful as vines, but they enable you 

 to regulate sunshine and shade, grateful 

 breeze and chilly blast. Now the housewife 

 works, writes, or reads in morning dress 

 free from the glances of neighbors and 

 passers by. 



24. Speaking of the Englishman's fond- 

 ness for seclusion and privacy Downing 

 wrote, "Just in proportion to the smallness 

 of his place, his desire to shut out all the 

 rest of the world increases — so that if he 



owns half an acre, his hedge shall be eight 

 feet high, and the sanctity of the paradise 

 within remains inviolate." 



SUGGESTIONS TO OLD FAMILIES 



25. The phrase "old-fashioned gardens" 

 is meaningless and unworthy. What period 

 pray, does this refer to? Sentimentality 

 can never take the place of scholarship. 

 There are hundreds of box-edged gardens 

 of perennials which are supposed to have 

 the spirit of the Colonial times, yet they 

 are full of anachronisms. If you wish to 

 know more accurately the flowers of the 

 Colonial period you will find a classified list 

 in Country Life in America, March 1907, 

 pp. 507 to 511, price fifty cents. 



26. We have houses true to every period 

 of art, and "period furnishing" is popular. 

 Why not gardens true to some particular 

 period? You can get a list of the trees, 

 shrubs and vines introduced to cultivation 

 during every period from ancient times to 

 1834 in the first volume of Loudon's 

 "Arboretum et Fruticetum Brittanicum." 



27. Have you considered a garden in the 

 same style as that of the earliest settlers of 

 your state, or the period of your immigrant 

 ancestor? This may mean Dutch, French, 

 Swedish, English, Spanish, or German. 

 Foreign books published during our Colonial 

 period will give you illustrations of actual 

 examples which must have influenced your 

 ancestors. 



28. James L. Greenleaf, the landscape 

 architect of New York, in a lecture on 

 Colonial Gardens before the Colony Club, 

 told how to make a garden that has the 

 old-time charm and is adapted to present 

 day conditions of life, labor, and materials. 



29. A lady who owns a garden that dates 

 from 1680 is stocking it with roses, shrubs, 

 and perennials from the oldest gardens 

 of America. This is an easy and pleasant 

 task since she is acquainted with most of the 

 important old families. Her house being 

 one of the most famous in America has been 

 visited by other owners of old gardens in 

 every one of the thirteen original states. 



30. Alice Morse Earle's "Old Time 

 Gardens" is a mine of information about 

 colonial gardens, flowers, herbs, fragrant 

 plants, dooryards, garden furniture, etc. 



31. Around every public building that 

 has come down from Colonial times should 

 be a Colonial garden based upon local 

 records. The same is true of all the 

 "Washington's Headquarters" in every 

 state for each of these was the best house 

 in the locality. So, too, with every historic 

 and genealogical society, every city hall in 

 a community older than 1776, and every 

 building preserved by patriotic societies on 

 account of its historical, literary, archi- 

 tectural, or scenic interest. 



SUGGESTIONS BASED UPON CLIMATE 



32. Beginners are never satisfied with the 

 plants of their own climate. They want 

 rare, costly foreigners. Colonists always 

 want to grow the flowers of the mother 

 country. New countries imitate old ones. 



