AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



March, 190S 



March, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



the possession of a hanging garden may not sound like an 

 Arabian Night's dream and when indeed the name Roof 

 Garden will no longer carry associations merely of music- 

 hail and vaudeville but will imply a place of pleasaunce for 

 home-loving, quiet people alive at last to the joys of sunshine 

 and the out-of-doors. 



1 1 . — A Successful House-top Garden 



By Adelia Belle Beard 



In Seattle, the city of enthusiasm and progress, there is a 

 house-top garden, a garden on a roof. A real garden with 

 flowers and plants growing in earth beds and a lawn of soft 

 grass in the midst of which stands the hall mark of the garden 

 lover — a sun dial. It is just such a garden as one might 

 have on the ground, only prettier in a way, and decidedly 

 more novel, for the very difficulties to be overcome in 

 planning a garden of this kind result in schemes of arrange- 

 ment one would otherwise never think of. This house-top 

 garden, although on the roof of the "Lincoln," one of Seat- 

 tle's best hotels, is like the grounds of a private residence. 

 There is nothing stiff, nothing stereotyped, for it was not 



planned by a professional for a public roof garden, but by a 

 woman who conceived and carried out the idea because of her 

 great love for Dowers. Her home was to be a large hotel 

 without grounds or verandas; with no place where one could 

 sit out in the fresh air to read or sew, and her idea was to 

 make a garden that could be enjoyed without one's realizing 

 that it was on a house-top. 



With the help of her two gardeners, Mrs. Blackwell, part 

 owner and manager of the "Lincoln," created this country 

 garden in the midst of a hustling city far above the rush and 

 noise of the busy streets. Up where the air is purest and 

 the sunshine brightest, in this veritable hanging garden her 

 flowers blossom and her fruit ripens. 



Yes, fruit, for there are trees in the garden, the tallest of 

 which arc the mountain ash and the birch. These arc twelve 

 feet high, and one very small apple tree bears enormously 

 large apples. There arc six or eight maple trees, six holly, 

 four hawthorn, a few evergreens, two laburnums and sev- 

 eral Arabia trees. 



Then there are large shrubs like the lilac, and roses, 

 quantities of roses, three hundred or more bushes. Many of 

 them are of the kind that can be grown only in hothouses In 

 the vicinity of New York. There are a thousand pansy 

 plants in a bed a hundred feet long, there are sixty dahlias, a 



number of rhododendrons, two hundred carnations, fifteen 

 hundred Dutch bulbs and numberless annuals that grow and 

 blossom in profusion. 



The vines that add softness and grace, and give the flow- 

 ing lines needed to complete the picture are jasmine, Virginia 

 creeper, grape, three varieties of clematis, wistaria, ivy, and 

 climbing roses. Many of the rose vines run over the rose 

 trellis which fences in the roof on two sides. 



But to begin at the beginning, the "Lincoln" was built and 

 Mrs. Blackwell took charge, then a few years ago she com- 

 menced to make her garden. It was not all done at once, 

 and is not yet entirely finished, for, like the garden on the 

 ground, Mrs. Blackwell enlarges her garden from time to 

 time and adds new beauties every year. There is still some 

 room for further expansion, for the garden space is a hun- 

 dred and twenty feet square. 



The roof is covered with concrete and slopes slightly from 

 the center on all sides, and the first step was to test its strength 

 by architect, building inspector, and fire marshal. After that 

 cedar boards were laid for the flower beds and lawn with a 

 little space left beneath for drainage. This was effected by 

 placing two inch pieces of wood beneath the boards at regu- 

 lar intervals, the opening at the sides being hidden by strips 

 of wood. The boards in place, the work of carrying the soil 



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began. It was sifted to remove stones of any size and carried 

 to the roof in sacks holding about a hundred pounds each. 



The flower beds were made four feet wide, the soil being 

 eighteen inches deep at the back and sloping down to eight 

 inches in front, and the beds were kept from spreading out ot 

 bounds by narrow boards placed on edge which box in the 

 front. The boards are painted a dull green and, being cov- 

 ered with vines and overhanging flowers, are not noticeable. 

 For the lawn, which was started with sod, the soil is three 

 Inches deep, and there was not the slightest difficulty in mak- 

 ing it grow. There arc a number of bay windows in the 

 building which reach to the roof, and the tops of these were 

 covered to the depth of eighteen inches or more with soil, 

 and in these beds are planted trees and large shrubs. The 

 effect of trees growing outside and beyond the rose trellis i^ 

 one of the remarkable features of the garden. 



All the first summer the owner of the garden worked with 

 her two gardeners and everything planted sprang into instant 

 growth. It may have been because of the looseness of the 

 soil, the quantity of sunshine or the loving care they were 

 given, but whatever the cause the result was a wilderness of 

 the most beautiful flowers and plants where formerly there 

 had been but the arid roof, unadorned and uninviting. 



Nothing has failed to grow in this garden of the sun, but 



