May, 1912 AMERICAN 
beauty we Americans should take 
seriously to heart when we have so 
many wastes of criminal ugliness 
staring us in the face at every turn. 
Adverting once more to the ar- 
boretum, it is safe to say that in few 
if any other gardens in America is 
there a broader or more complete 
general collection of trees. Some 
arboreta have finer and larger col- 
lections of the things in which they 
have specialized, but scarcely any- 
where else is there as good or com- 
prehensive a general gathering. 
As to the planting of annuals and 
perennials, they are sensibly 
grouped in great masses. Nothing 
could -be more strikingly effective 
in the Fall than the wide borders, 
all of scarlet Sage, or more daz- 
zlingly brilliant than the huge beds 
of Phlox in a setting of mid-Sum- 
mer’s full rich green. A group of 
ten or twenty stalks of Phlox does 
not attract special admiration. 
They are beautiful and fair to look — 
upon, certainly, but there are scores Rock work and 
of other things close by that equally challenge your atten- 
tion. But plant your Phlox in a clump of five hundred or a 
thousand stalks—and it does not take so much space to hold 
that number—and then see the effect. The blaze of gorge- 
ous color will fairly make you hold your breath. Massing 
flowers of one sort together is but copying one of Dame 
Nature’s methods of managing her garden, and is sure to be 
successful, as all her methods are if we will only follow them 
intelligently. Take, for instance, a field of Buttercups or 
Goldenrod. How wonderful they are and how they give the 
scene life and interest! It is because of their massing in 
countless thousands. How effective would Buttercups or 
Goldenrod be if only a few scattered stalks grew here and 
there? 
Between the arboretum and the Japanese garden is a 
trellised arbor built out at one end on a singularly excellent 
pile of rockwork, in whose crevices grow plants suitable to 
SLOT ELLLLL 
TRE PO 9 
HOMES AND GARDENS 
the little cascade 
157 
the spot and down whose front 
pours a diminutive cascade. At the 
sides grow clumps of blooming 
perennials. Over the arbor 
clamber Rose _ vines, Clematis 
and Jessamine. A more enchant- 
ing place to sit and chat or muse or 
read, at any time from May to 
October, it would be hard to im- 
agine. Hard by, the shade of a 
lofty Hickory invites us to sit a 
while on the bench built round its 
trunk and watch the arabesque of 
jets spout and play into the long 
pool fountain. From this same 
seat, when Autumn’s touch has 
blazoned the leafage of Barberrys 
and Dogwood with copper hue or 
glowing crimson, when the gilded 
leaves above our heads, diapered 
against heaven’s clearest blue at 
noonday, cast an amber-colored 
shade, when brush fires fill the air 
with golden haze, the sight over the 
garden slope beggars all human 
words. We gasp for sheer delight 
at being alive and wish for Janus 
heads and Argus eyes to drink in all at once and all the time 
the fullest draught of nature’s iridescent beauty. 
However hard to tear ourselves away from such a spot, 
other regions of the garden insistently claim our notice. 
Beyond the orchard, on a rising sweep that overlooks the 
lower portion of the grounds, the formal flower garden 
spreads its squares, fenced on two sides where the hill falls 
sharply away by a heavy stone balustrade on which peacocks 
perch and strut. At the corner where the balustrades meet, 
a circular stone-coped gazeebo affords a vantage point whence 
you may feast the eye, look which way you will. The paths 
that bound the garden and those that quarter it, intersecting 
at the center, are edged with close-clipped boxwood. Be- 
hind ramparts of lowlier plants tall Hollyhocks and Lupins 
wave, while Foxgloves, Phlox and crowding Larkspurs, with 
many another old-time favorite, all add their several shares 
(Continued on page 190) 
Se 
ba “Ve See 
The entrance gate and driveway to Compton, the beautiful, wonderful private garden at Chestnut Hill, near Philadelphia 
