720 



AA INTERESTING ILLINOIS GARDEN. 



few fancy-leaved caladiums, which serve fairly well, 

 and French cannas. Cannas also line the sides, and at 

 each end is an Ehemanni. At back and in the middle are 

 dark red-leaved varieties, chiefly discolor. This is the 

 handsomest and most thrifty bed of cannas I ever saw. 

 It is naturally symmetrical, rising toward the back and 

 center as if trained, the center being eight feet high. 

 About 30 feet to the rear of this group a wire fence 

 crosses to the main fence. In the angle of these two 

 fences is a bed of plumed hydrangias [H, patiiculata 

 grandiflord). The wire fence is covered with lonicera, 

 and serves as a screen behind which are kept ash and 

 slop cans and refuse barrels, painted light brown. Be- 

 tween the honeysuckles and a rose-bed at g is a clothes- 

 drying plat. At 10 are some small fancy-shaped beds 



Egandale : Lonicera Halleana trained on the Fence ; Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora in the 



Foreground — one year planted. 



the ravine at the back, thus forming a slight ridge 

 running parallel wi^th the street through the center and 

 losing itself a little south of a bower of white and red 

 oak — young indigenous trees bent over and brought 

 together three years ago when I cleared the place. It 

 is circular and some twenty feet in diameter inside hav- 

 ing two openings — so that from the house we see through 

 it. The topis dense and the trees healthy. Now that, 

 the top is an assured success, I will next spring put ia 

 some shrubs close to the tree trunks, so as to complete- 

 the verdure from the ground up. 



Between the house and the bower are a River's pur- 

 ple birch (12), a Young's weeping birch, and between^ 

 them and ravine an Acer Woej-ii (14), an Acer Ginnala 

 (15), and a golden .hop. Near the bower is an Acer 



of annuals, in front of the gardener's cottage. This 

 gardener (?) is a Dane who could hardly speak English 

 when he came to me last spring. He persists in plant- 

 ing everything in rows, and couldn't understand why I 

 wanted my shrubs planted in irregular lines and in 

 groups. 



Returning again to the front of the house, some 

 twenty feet south from the east end of the porch may 

 be seen a group having a rosemary wilJow in its center, 

 surrounded by three Douglas' golden juniper and three 

 Tom Thumb arbor-vitae alternating. 



The house is set on a knoll, the northeast corner be- 

 ing eight feet higher than the part where the rockery is. 

 The ground slopes toward the street and also towards 



platanoides Schwedleri. To the .left is a natural group 

 of oaks and maples, in which the hammock, swing 

 and teeter tell of the children's domain. Near by 

 (ig) is a group of canna, yucca and Eulalia Japon- 

 ica ; while back of them in the ravine (20) is a bed of 

 ferns. I also have a bed of maidenhair back of a bed 

 of tuberous-rooted begonias near my perennials. 



Between the two points of land formed by the lat- 

 eral ravines is placed my rock garden. A crook of the- 

 ravine here was filled up, the filling being retained by a: 

 boulder stone breast-work across it, on which was 

 planted some ground ivy. On the top edge of the em- 

 bankment is a narrow hedge (?) of Euonymtis radicans 

 variegatus and Japan box. From this point one can 



