AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



January, 19 lo 



GARDEN NOTES 



CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DOWNING LAY 



Ox anotlier page of this issue is the 

 announcement of next year's gar- 

 den competition, which promises to 

 be even more interesting than tlie last, be- 

 cause of the more restricted conditions and 

 the greater chance it oft'ers to the true gar- 

 den lover. 



These prizes give one a rare chance to 

 make a profitable pursuit of a delightful 

 luxury. 



Who v^ould not like to have the satisfac- 

 tion of a cash prize added to the other 

 pleasures of a flower garden? Even the 

 smallest prize would pay for many new 

 plants, or seeds, or bulbs for the following 

 year. Is it not as great an honor to the 

 architect of gardens to get a first prize or 

 even an honorable mention for the product 

 of his genius as it is to the artist who gets 

 a "mention" at the Salon? 



There is no reason why a garden de- 

 signed this winter and planted this sum- 

 mer should not take a prize. There is no 

 reason why a garden already built should 

 not be so worked over and im])r()ved this 

 spring and summer that it will take first 

 prize. 



If you are going to enter your garden 

 for the competition, now is the time to think 

 of its arrangement for next year. You 

 should make a plan of the garden, showing 

 the planting, and you should study the 

 planting scheme with great care, going 

 over it in detail, trying new groupings to 

 make it more harmonious in color, new 

 plants to make it more constant in bloom- 

 ing, never forgetting, of course, the phy- 

 sical needs of each plant. You will not 

 have peonies in front of pansies, to take 

 an exaggerated case, nor will you care to 

 mix the reds of gladioli and phlox. These 

 are samples of poor arrangements. You 

 will find others that are less obvious though 

 no less distressing to a cultivated taste. 



Flowers that are uninteresting or inef- 

 fective will, of course, be weeded out, to 

 be replaced by the untried novelties of this 

 season's catalogs. 



The design of the garden in general may 

 lack simplicity and unity. It may fail of 

 its efi^ect because it is too disordered and 

 diffuse. This fault you may be able to 

 correct by some rearrangement of paths 

 or of beds, or you may decide that a radi- 

 cal change is necessary. Sometimes en- 

 larging the garden will help, and again, it 

 may be well to divide it into several parts 

 differing slightly in character. 



If it is flat and uninteresting, and lacks 

 "scale" (that is, is out of proportion either 

 to its surroundings or its own details or to 

 the human figure) — if it lacks scale, it may 

 be helped by spiry cedar trees or poplars or 

 by some architectural details, such as an 

 ornamental gateway or pergola or a sun- 

 dial. 



Water in a garden, either in a pool for 

 pond lilies or a fountain, is always a great 

 help, and is often easier to introduce than 

 people suppose. 



In a wild or naturalesque garden, the 

 free use of the axe and the bushhook in 

 cutting out its deformities and monstrosi- 

 ties may be suffiicent. 



If the gartlen is not now built, it will 

 be harder to win a prize, tliough by no 

 means impossible. There are three months 

 between now and April, when operations 

 should be begun. \'ou should try many 

 schemes for many sites, and when you have 

 at last decided on one of them, you should 

 have a clear conception of what the garden 

 will look like when finished. 



Be careful about the location of the gar- 

 den, and make the most of all its natural 

 beauties and character. 



If there is a fine old tree, make that the 

 focus ; if there is a boulder or a ledge or a 

 stream, make it part of the garden. 



Above all, enclose the garden, whatever 

 its nature, so that nothing except the blue 

 distance can be seen beyond its boundaries. 



NEW CLIMBING ROSES 



Two new climbing roses, hybridized and 

 raised by Jackson Dawson, are to be intro- 

 duced this spring, and promise to become 

 more popular than the crimson rambler. 

 They are certainly more beautiful in flower 

 and foliage, and are equally hardy. 



Lady Duncan is a seedling of the me- 

 morial rose (Rosa Wichuraiana) , fertil- 

 ized with pollen from R. rugosa. The 

 flowers are single, petals a deep pink and a 

 little larger than those of the memorial 

 rose. The stamens are yellow. The 

 rugosa blood shows in the dark, roughened 

 foliage and the plentiful spines. This rose 

 won the silver medal of the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society in igoo. 



It can be trained on pillars or arches 

 in the garden, or on the piazza. Like the 

 memorial rose, it is prostrate when not 

 supported. The long shoots run ten or 

 twelve feet over the ground in one sum- 

 mer. 



Daybreak is a cross between Wichurai- 

 ana and the Dawson, which is itself a cross 

 of R. multiflora and General Jacqueminot. 

 It is a vigorous grower, and blooms pro- 

 fusely. The flowers are single, deep yel- 

 lowish pink, in loose clusters. The sta- 

 mens are bright orange, and the leaves are 

 a light green. 



A SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



Though not a new idea, the Shakespeare 

 Garden, or garden of plants mentioned by 

 Shakespeare, is a delightful one, and of 

 all gardens it is the fullest of sentiment. 



It should be a picturesque garden, or 

 perhaps a whole place, with the English 

 oak, the Scotch pine, the plane, the syca- 

 more, the linden, the apple, the hawthorne, 

 the birch, the ash, the beech, the elm and 

 the willow planted on the edges or in the 

 lawn. The ebony, cypress palm, date, 

 senna, etc., cannot, of course, be grown in 



this climate. The "locust" is not a tree, 

 but a fruit, and the hemlock is not a tree, 

 but a common, umbelliferous herb. 



The yew is mentioned, of course, and is 

 identified as the hebenon which killed 

 Hamlet's father. 



Many of Shakespeare's plants are weeds, 

 like the rush, sedge, burdock, etc., and 

 others are kitchen garden plants, like po- 

 tato, cabbage, onions, garlic, lettuce and 

 radish. 



Of the real flowers or sweet herbs men- 

 tioned, the following can all be grown here 

 with little trouble : 



Aconitum, anemone, bachelor's buttons, 

 balm, burnet, camomile, carnations, car- 

 away, columbine, cowslip (primrose), crow 

 flowers, crown imperial, cuckoo buds, daf- 

 fodils, daisies, Dian's bud, eglantine, fennel, 

 flax, flower-de-luce, fumitory, gorse, hare- 

 bell, heath, hemp, honeysuckle, hyssop, ivy, 

 ladysmocks, larkspur, lavender, lily, long 

 purples, mallows, mandrakes, marigold, 

 marjoram, mint, narcissus, oxlips, pansies, 

 pinks, piony (paeony), poppy, primrose, 

 roses, rosemary, safifron, samphire, savory, 

 thyme, vetches violets, wormwood. The 

 list is not a long one, but they are all in- 

 teresting plants, and what opportunities they 

 give to quote ! They will not all be found 

 under these names in seed catalogs, but 

 can be looked up with their fitting quotation 

 in Canon Ellacomb's delightful book on the 

 "Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shake- 

 speare." 



BOOKS ON GARDENING 



THE collection of books on gardens 

 and gardening is almost as fascin- 

 ating a pursuit as gardening itself, 

 and easier to follow in the winter, par- 

 ticularly if one moves to the city with the 

 first snow, to stay until the crocuses and 

 daffodils are in bloom. 



The gardener's library will, of course, 

 include such excellent works of reference 

 as the "Cyclopedia of American Horticul- 

 ture," in which one can find a description 

 of any plant that is grown in America, out- 

 doors or under glass. Besides its botanical 

 and cultural information, there is much in- 

 teresting history and biographical gossip. 



Button and Brown's "Flora," with its 

 drawing and description of every plant 

 found wild in the Northern United States, 

 is indispensible, and should be followed in 

 nomenclature. 



Sargent's "Manual of Trees," which is 

 an abridgement of his monumental sylva, 

 is useful and entertaining. 



In Prof. Bailey's "Rural Science" series. 

 "The Soil" and "Irrigation and Drainage," 

 both by Prof. King, are admirable. 



The "Garden Craft" series has many 

 useful books which the gardener will do 

 well to own. "The Horticulturalist's Rule 

 Book." "Garden Making" and "The Prun- 

 ing" books are to be especially noted. 



