MY LOS ANGELES SUBURBAN GARDEN 



W. J. GHENT 



The Personal Account of an Amateur Enthusiast's Recreations on a 40 x 150 ft. Plot where the Garden 

 is a Pleasure Spot with Flowers a-riot and a Rich Variety of Luscious Fruits Ripen in their Season 



HE Easterner who plants a garden in southern California 

 will need to forget much of the lore he learned back 

 I home and to start all over again. The differences 

 drlr ^ between the two sections are many and notable. What 

 first strikes him is the topsy-turvy calendar. He sees the russet 

 and brown of summer on the hills and rolling stretches turn to 

 a luxuriant green with the first rains of November. He sees the 

 Loquat blossoming in the late fall and fruiting in the early spring; 

 Oranges ripening in January; Sweet-peas planted in August in 

 order that the gardener may have blooms for his Christmas table; 

 bulbs put in from October to December, and Pansies, Marigolds, 

 Callas, and other flowers blossoming throughout the winter. 

 He finds on every hand the evidences of a hospitable clime which 

 fosters not only the sub-tropical growths of its own, but many 

 of the growths of northern zones and some of those of the tropics. 

 He discovers a vast field of contrasts to what he has known, and 

 he must shape anew his art and science of cultivation. 



Nature will be kind to him, however, and turn even his mis- 

 takes to advantage. The local boast that anything stuck into 

 the ground and watered will grow, is a bit extreme; and yet this 

 California sun works what to the newcomer are miracles and 

 blesses even blundering with a fortunate outcome. 



M Y - C 



OWN garden is the result of work — shall I say pottering? 

 at odd hours, and cultivation by rule of thumb. Not 

 that I do not read the books and the articles — some of them — 

 and give full faith and credence to their precepts of scientific 

 gardening. I do. I should read more of them and more sedu- 

 lously follow their precepts if I had the time. But most of my 

 day must be spent at the desk. Gardening can thus be for 

 me no more than a fascinating avocation. The early morning 

 and the late afternoon are usually all I can give to it. Yet even 

 so, the rules and counsels, though framed for this specific region, 

 cover but a part of my problems. For many of my queries I 

 find no answer on the printed page. 1 learn most by observation 

 and experiment. 



IT ISN 'T a large garden of which I write. What there is of it 

 is comprised within the boundaries of an ordinary city lot, 

 47 x 147 ft. The house, the summer-house, stretches of lawn, 

 both front and rear, fruit trees, turfed paths (perhaps too many 

 and some of them too wide) take up much of this area. What's 

 left is garden. 



Except for the fruit trees, it is not, at least in the narrower 

 sense, utilitarian. No vegetable grows in it. All the available 

 space is given to flowers, vines, and ornamental shrubs. Most 

 of the larger growths were set out by the former owner. But 

 then the place went to a long succession of tenants, during whose 

 occupancy great heaps of refuse accumulated, making a sorry 

 picture of disorder and neglect. When we moved in, the work 

 of renovation at once began, and the vast deposits of junk, ashes, 

 broken glass, shoes, rags and tinware were gradually cleared 

 away. Into the redeemed spaces 1 have thickly crowded the 

 sort of growths that we care most to have about us. True, 

 there is a somewhat bewildering variety. But we want it so. 

 The clime is, as I have said, a hospitable one, and the garden is 

 representative. The Banana, the Avocado and the Cocos plu- 

 mosa of the tropics touch tips with the Broom of Scotland; the 

 Peach, the Plum, the Apricot and the Concord Grape of the 

 North are neighbors with the Fig, the Loquat, and the Lemon of 

 the South. 



Too thickly crowded, some might say. But I reject the criti- 

 cism. The arrangement has all been thought out, and every- 

 thing has been placed with an eye to symmetry and general effect. 

 From time to time the plan has been slightly altered, necessitat- 

 ing some shiftings and new plantings. But each particular has 

 been determined with regard to the whole. The crowding I 

 admit; but not an over-crowding. The plan is coherent, what- 

 ever verdict might come from a landscape gardener. 



The transformation has not been without its special difficul- 

 ties. In the first place, the soil, in its natural state, is unfriendly. 

 In the level sections of the city the surface is a powdery silt. 

 But this is the hill section, and our soil is what we call black 

 'dobe, though the experts insist that its color is really brown. 

 However that may be, one fact is clear: it is dreadful stuff. It 

 ranges in consistency from a thin glue, when saturated, to an 

 india-rubber, when desiccated. And yet it is amenable stuff. 

 Lime, ashes, sand, compost, shavings, sawdust — all in their 

 several ways help to break down its original stubbornness and 

 render it workable. Moreover, it is usually fertile, and when 

 properly prepared gives surprising results. 



THIS is not all. Of bitey and blighty things in the garden we 

 have our full share — and more. Perhaps our mild climate 

 enables them to thrive more vigorously and persistently than in 

 the colder North. Aphids are usually — except in midsummer — a 

 daily worry; and a more or less constant campaign must be kept 

 up against slugs, snails, cucumber beetles, scale and other pests. 

 At its appropriate season comes peach-leaf curl; while mildew, 

 rust, and yellow blight must recurrently be fought. Still, a little 

 alertness and industry enables one to keep them under a measur- 

 able degree of control. But a pest which apparently defies 

 efforts to exterminate is one of a different category. That is the 

 Ailanthus, or Chinese Sumach. The former owner had set out a 

 shoot of it, which quickly grew into a clump of stately trees. 

 But the roots insisted on monopolizing the ground for a wide 

 radius from the centre, and so the clump was cut out. Then 

 the real trouble began; for each severed root, denied the function 

 of contributing to the growth of the main stems, began forming 

 new root nodules and sending up fresh shoots. As fast as they 

 appear, these shoots must be dug up. But are the remaining 

 roots discouraged? Not that I can discover. They are only 

 stimulated to greater activity. Like moles they race through 

 the soil, and every day a new head peers forth from somewhere 

 within a forty-foot radius of the old-time clump. The Chinese 

 may call the Ailanthus the "tree of heaven," but in this 

 neighborhood the title is regarded as a woeful misnomer. 



THE house faces east. The front lawn is divided midway 

 by a walk. The north half is clear, giving a wide view of 

 an amphitheatre of hills, with a tiny lake in the foreground and 

 a mountain range (the Sierra Madre) in the distance. In the 

 centre of the south half is a stately Cocos plumosa. The front 

 porch is graced by a riotous tangle of Honeysuckle and festooned 

 at the top with a branch of Banksia Rose running from the great 

 trunk (do Roses in the East ever have trunks?) against the north 

 side of the house. The front and side margins are planted with 

 a variety of perennials; a few annuals; some Roses, including a 

 second Banksia; a Scotch Broom; a tall and spreading Spanish 

 Broom; a wall Peach (which probably is dying); a Cassia flori- 

 bunda, and a couple of small Magueys. 



In the rear are the summer-house — covered with Honeysuckle, 



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