THE GARDEN OF MRS. LINN WHITE, CHICAGO, ILL. 



BEAUTY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 



Editors' Note: — The trend is nowadays distinctly toward group-life, as ever-swelling city populations and octopus-like suburban developments 

 make manifest; with the influences and factors behind it all we, as gardeners, are not obliged to concern ourselves, but the fact itself demands attention. 

 If wide spaces and the refreshment of green, growing things are being gradually crowded out of the lives of many of us, it is imperative that we set out 

 deliberately and with seasoned plan to re-create, as far as may be, these essentials. Hence any and every association of men and women banded to- 

 gether for the furtherance of such work commands our friendship and cooperation. 



I. ITS PLANNING TO FIT ITS LOCATION 



LENA M. McCAULEY 



Art Editor of the Chicago Evening Post 



IHE ideal of the far-sighted gardener is to bring country 

 influence into the cities which, magnet-wise, are draw- 

 | ing the country folk to them and so robbing many of 

 s^JPlP^ their birthright of association with the soil. 



Certain landscape architects of national reputation, who 

 shape great park systems and forest preserves, have submitted 

 plans for community and school gardens, the saving grace of 

 greenery wedged into congested sections, with the hope that it 

 may to some extent assuage hunger for the soil and act as an 

 antidote to artificial living. Others are recognizing the possi- 

 bilities of planting the small vacant areas back and front of 

 homes, where men, women, and children may find pleasant occu- 

 pation and win the joys of country life among vegetables, flowers, 

 birds, and butterflies that cheer the cultivator of even the small- 

 est plot. 



If the spirit of garden design keeps pace with the enthusiasm 

 for cultivating the small area, many hopes brought to light at 

 the exhibition of Landscape and Garden Design under the aus- 

 pices of the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association 

 at the Art Institute last spring, will be realized in the region 

 about Chicago, at all events. 



The Mid-west Branch of the Woman's National Farm and 

 Garden Association is displaying considerable enterprise and 

 energy under the direction of its president, Mrs. Russell Tyson. 

 Although its headquarters are in Chicago, its membership is 

 widely scattered through the Middle West, drawing from many 

 groups that range from the traveled owners Jof large estates to 

 the woman worker in the small garden, and the housewife on the 

 remote farm. During the war its activities included the Liberty- 

 ville Farm for training young women in actual farm work, the 

 promotion of war gardens, the raising of vegetables for Infant 

 Welfare, as well as floriculture in the Garden Clubs. A story of 

 the women who went to the horticultural schools at the Univer- 

 sities of Wisconsin and Illinois for the specific purpose of carrying 

 on the work of these universities in developing new species of 

 flowering plants would make interesting reading. 



HOWEVER, the city membership held the true vision of its 

 opportunities — namely the development of the small home 

 plot of which there are tens of thousands within the Chicago 



limits. So a competition was announced and the students of 

 the University Schools of Landscape Architecture invited to 

 submit plans for two types of small garden — a garden planned 

 for the pleasure and use of an invalid, and a simpler one for the 

 average householder. 



The designs were exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 

 happy combination with the annual display of the Chicago 

 Society of Architects who brought drawings of homes and home 

 grounds and some models which had relationship with the aims 

 of the Farm and Garden Association. As a result two galleries 

 were filled with garden plans supplemented by quite an assem-' 

 blage of garden statuary, fountains, sun-dials, and bird pools, 

 staged among shrubbery and blossoming plants. 



The universities of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Evanston, and 

 Chicago; the Harvard School of Architecture; and enthusiastic 

 draftsmen from Takoma Park, D. C; from Boston, and from 

 Leominster, Mass., were entered. Despite the necessarily 

 limiting requirements of the competition, delightful originality 

 was shown in many of the designs. 



j 



THE requirements of the first problem, the garden for an 

 invalid, were as follows: the formal treatment of a rectan- 

 gular enclosure 75 ft. east and west by 150 ft. north and south; 

 at the centre of the north end a porch 80 ft. long projecting 5 ft. 

 into the garden on which the invalid owner may spend his sum- 

 mers; ground sloping slightly downward from the porch for 

 about 50 ft. to a tiny brook, then rising until at the south end it 

 is 12 ft. above the brook; a heavy evergreen copse to skirt the 

 garden on the south; on the west a view extending to the open 

 valley and the sunset. 



The judges based their awards on: 1. simplicity of plan; 2. 

 treatment of varying levels; 3. design and proportion of enclosing 

 wall or hedge; 4. garden features; 5. plantation. In addition to 

 the plan (of course drawn to scale, \ in. to 1 ft.) a perspective 

 of the garden as seen from the invalid's chair was to be rendered 

 in colors. The first prize ($100), given by Mrs. Edward L. 

 Ryerson, was won by Hale Walker of Harvard University School 

 of Landscape Architecture and the second ($50), given by Mrs. 

 J. Ogden Armour, by Henrietta Marquis Pope of Boston; to 

 Francis Nearing of Boston was awarded a third prize given by 



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