August, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



3<>5 



The success of the whole garden depended chiefly upon 

 Mr. Takahashi, and his work is remarkable as a triumph 

 of garden ingenuity. As it is impossible to bring trees of 

 size from Japan, the large trees are of necessity native 

 grown and pollarded to reduce their height. There are 

 elms, oaks and maples treated in this way. Among them, 

 artistically arranged to give the Japanese air to the whole, 

 are scattered a great number of smaller trees — all planted in 

 the spring — bushes and flowering plants safely imported 

 from Japan packed in water moss. Chief among them is a 

 wonderful "chabohibi," a variety of cedar, about ten feet 

 high, and of a probable age of two hundred years. Other 

 importations obtained from the Japanese nurseries of South 



cealed; artifice achieves marvels; and mosses and lichens are 

 used with astonishing skill to counterfeit the appearance of 

 age. Rejecting many of our traditions, the Japanese gar- 

 dener in the United States has a remarkable faculty for mak- 

 ing things grow. He scorns bone dust and all chemical fer- 

 tilizers, and yet after a trial is willing to discard his home 

 ways and for only fertilizer uses well-rotted horse manure. 

 Completing this Bernardsville garden, Mr. Uyeda has re- 

 built the entire fence to a true model of Nippon. He has 

 carved numerous lamps, built several heavily thatched tea- 

 houses, decorated with the good-luck scrolls called "tomoto," 

 an elaborately carved Buddhist shrine, two boats like dug- 

 outs, and, chief glory of the garden, a Japanese dwelling 



A Bit of Old Japan Transplanted to New Jersey 



Orange and Long Island are hydrangeas, weeping mul- 

 berries, Japanese privets, and a vast array of dwarfed 

 maples, pines, cedars, hemlocks, bush wisteria, cherries and 

 plums. These are all kept in glazed pots and are taken into 

 the greenhouse for the winter. Other dwarf trees are being 

 carefully grown, curiously bent in infancy to grotesque 

 forms, bound by strong wire-like grass, many of them trained 

 to climb picturesque rocks of tufa. 



In spite of the patient genius of Japanese gardeners, who 

 are wizards in budding and grafting, it has been found use- 

 less to import some of the most attractive of Japanese plants. 

 1 he cherry, the most famous of all their trees, with its pro- 

 fusion of delicate double blossoms, in our eastern climate 

 within two years loses, by degeneration, nearly all of its 

 characteristic beauty. Yet its absence is wonderfully con- 



house, perfect in every detail, from sliding rice-paper-covered 

 room walls to heavy floor mats. 



Ornamental additions to the garden are a timber boxed 

 well, a quaint shed housing two "jinrikishas," great storks 

 and tortoises of bronze, conventional grotesques of granite 

 lions on "rockery" pedestals, dogs of stone, a heavy umbrella- 

 like iron "snow lantern," and cumbrous pagoda-shaped lamps 

 of gray stone and glazed earthenware. 



In creating a Japanese garden one must be content to ac- 

 cept a hundred compromises. Perfection is impossible, and 

 illusion must be the ideal. For many old plants — and age is 

 essential — the two months' journey is fatal; many others 

 can not stand the severity of our winters; many again are 

 too valuable to subject to rash experiment. Differences in 

 soil, climate and methods work many transforming changes. 



