March, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



93 



This garden offers quiet seclusion in its well planned arrangements 



freshets of the river by concrete walls and rip-rap work of dred feet in length have now been firmly in place for over 



stone carefully saved from the dumpings. A fringe of five years. Steps were needed to connect the various levels, 



cotton wood and of willow trees, which grew near low water and these were made of concrete, still amateur work and 



mark of the river, was saved to form a fine background common labor. On the second wall was placed a balustrade 



for the garden. Then a latent love for plants and flowers of cement work. For this, the balusters, posts, top and bot- 



inherited from the days of boyhood, but which, amid the torn rails, in many duplicate parts, were cast by the "man of 



cares of an active business life, had lain dormant, developed all work" during the Winter months when outdoor work was 



into activity. American Homes and Gardens and kin- impossible. The ability to do this work developed so 



dred publications were studied and consulted for ideas and rapidly and satisfactorily, that in addition to the balustrade 



suggestions, and the garden gradually developed; a purely work, under the writer's amateur direction, this man of all 



amateur work. The plan adopted divided the upper plateau work was able to produce cement columns for the Pergola, 



into three sections, an old-fashioned garden of winding tanks for the fountains, curbing for the paths, bird paths, 



walks with shrubbery and Perennials, a formal garden, and garden seats and pedestals for sundial and for plants and 



an open lawn with shrubbery border, the river front to be vases. A friend presented a terra-cotta lion's head, and the 



terraced with three terraces to the river, supported by stone following season a successful wall fountain, using some of 



walls. The first terrace, thirty-two feet wide, lies three the forms for balustrade posts, and utilizing the lion's head, 



feet below the upper level, the second one, same width, five was evolved. The photographs accompanying this article 



feet lower; a third terrace, of gravel, eight feet lower, sub- will best illustrate the results of these efforts of the amateur 



merged at times of high water, is sustained next the river and his "man." A tank for water Lilies and gold fish was 



by a nine-foot heavy concrete curb wall. The walls support- constructed with satisfactory results, then a formal garden 



ing and separating the 1 bisected by paths formed of 



terraces the writer calls 

 "home made" because they 

 were built by home direction. 

 Lumber facings, as if for 

 concrete work, were set up, 

 the stones of various sizes 

 laid "broken ashler" style 

 were placed against the 



planks to get a true wall, 

 with filling and backing of 

 gravel concrete. When the 

 concrete had set, the planks 

 were removed and the stone- 

 work painted with cement 

 mortar, and a coping of 

 plain concrete placed on top. 

 This work was done with 

 common labor, and two of 

 these walls, nearly two hun- 



cement curbing and lime- 

 stone screenings, with a sun- 

 dial on a cement pedestal of 

 home construction, at the 

 axis of the paths. Later the 

 Pergola, seventy feet long, 

 of twenty Renaissance 

 columns was set up, inclos- 



The pergola 



ing a walk of "home grown" 

 cement blocks laid in dia- 

 mond plan of alternate red 

 and white blocks cast the 

 previous Winter. Then fol- 

 lowed a lake of about two 

 hundred and fifty square feet 

 of surface laid out naturally 

 somewhat heart-shaped with 

 a small island. In this lake 

 .Nymphaeas, Cat Tails, and 



