June, 1 910 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS' GARDEN COMPE- 

 TITION FOR 1910 



DURING the past twenty years, in traveling through- 

 out the country, the Editor has had an opportunity 

 to observe the rapid progress which has been made 

 in the embellishment of the home grounds and the garden 

 about the house. 



Twenty years ago the average house owner who had a 

 small place in the suburbs or in the country, and had but 

 a limited amount of money to spend upon it, would be 

 planning how to build a bay-window on the parlor, or how 

 to add a porch to the front or side of the dwelling, as the 

 case might be. As a rule, the money was spent in this direc- 

 tion without any material addition to the artistic value of 

 the house, the alteration frequently being a detriment. 



To-day the bias toward the house has changed, for the 

 housewife with a workman to assist can be found during the 

 warm days of early spring, building flower beds and plant- 

 ing trees here and shrubs there, as the fancy may dictate, 

 thereby not only creating a picture frame for the house, but 

 adding a value to it that cannot be possibly obtained for 

 anything like the amount of money invested in any other way. 



It may be fair to say that the progress which has been 

 made in the beautifying of the home grounds in the past 

 two decades is largely due to the force and amount of criti- 

 cism that has been brought to bear by magazines of the class 

 of American Homes and Gx'^rdens, and which literature 

 has been the means of substantially checking the rivalry be- 

 tween the house and the garden, until each has been recog- 

 nized as equally necessary in the maintenance of the equi- 

 poise and balance of improved suburban property, small or 

 expensive, modestly or pretentiously treated. 



An all-around look over the horizon of gardens through- 

 out the country shows that an effort to obtain a better de- 

 velopment of the house plot has been stimulated by the 

 prize garden competition which closed September 15, 1909, 

 and formed the subject of a series of interesting and 

 instructive articles appearing in our columns during the past 

 few months. The last to be published is presented in the 

 current issue. At its conclusion the donors are so much 

 impressed with the wide interest manifested by our readers 

 in the series, that they have decided to institute another gar- 

 den competition for 1910 and to offer a prize of $100 for 

 the four best planned and developed suburban and village 

 gardens. The specific scope of this competition is the prep- 

 aration of articles on "The Planning and Developing of 

 Suburban and Village Gardens," accompanied by sketches, 

 diagrams and photographs; the sole object is to further a 

 love for gardening in America, particularly in suburbs and 

 villages. We want our readers to help us so that we can 

 assist others to beautify their surroundings. There are 

 many people who would like to improve their garden con- 

 ditions, but are unable to do so from the lack of knowledge, 

 and this is the reason that we want your co-operation and 



your assistance. It makes no difference whether your gar- 

 den be naturalesque or formal, English, Japanese, French 

 or Italian, a rock garden or a rose garden, it will be judged 

 solely on its merit as the successful presentation of a par- 

 ticular arrangement of results. 



If you have an attractive garden, send in one or more 

 photographs with a plan or a description of It. In these 

 days almost everyone has a small camera and if you have 

 one, take some photographs of your garden from time to 

 time during the summer, showing the progress of the 

 various plants and their gradual development. If you have 

 no camera borrow one from a friend and make the pictures. 

 Make a rough sketch of the garcien, showing the position 

 of the plants and their relative arrangement to each other. 

 Tell the story of the garden's success in your own way. 

 Where it is found difl'icult, even by one who has the gar- 

 den habit, to present in the text the full floral beauty of 

 design and reach of culture displayed in his acre or anv part 

 of it, he has the art of photography to render outline, tone 

 and body nearly as well as it would be perceived if one 

 were upon the spot. So the literary value of the written 

 description or the technical perfection of the plans or photo- 

 graphs will help you only so far as a good presentation of 

 the garden helps the judges to understand the problem and 

 its solution. 



The Editor when traveling through England some few 

 years since took particular notice of the manner in which 

 the garden was developed in small villages throughout that 

 country, and he found that the love for the beautiful did not 

 rest with the wealthy class or the middle class, but was deeply 

 instilled into the hearts of the men of most modest means. 

 He found that these people delighted in flowers and that 

 this feeling for them found its expression in the wav in 

 which they used them. There were flowers evervwhere. 

 Vines clinging to the walls of the cottage, crimson ramblers 

 trailing over the front doorway, flower boxes built in the 

 windows and sills for the use of plants, trees and shrubs 

 planted over the lawn. Wherever the space permitted, a 

 garden was built at the rear of the house, and planted with 

 all the various kinds of flowers in artistic profusion. 



Having this in mind, the Editor feels that there arc 

 almost endless possibilities in a small house plot in this coun- 

 try and that something ought to be done to stimulate the 

 suburban house-owner to embellish what little land he mav 

 have and add not only beauty to his own possession, but a 

 charm to the whole general surroundings of the place in 

 which he lives. He apprehends that despite the fact that 

 our gardens are sufficiently ornamental in themselves, thev 

 are isolated and bear no general relation to each other as 

 do the gardens of Europe. England, for example, mav be 

 considered as a single continuous garden. Hence each pos- 

 sessor of a home should so design his garden as to harmon- 

 ize with those around him, and we trust that he will not 

 only contribute but receive valuable suggestions from the 

 forthcoming garden prize competition. 



