A Screen Bed the Second Season after Planting. 



SCREEN AND FRUIT CROP AFTER THREE YEARS. 



NOTES FROM THE EDITORS' GARDENS.. 



Nature's Responses to our Efforts. — Perhaps the 

 greatest of all the delights found in gardening comes 

 from the ease with which the most gratifying results 

 may be secured, if one but sets himself rightly about 

 it. Nature is lavish indeed, in presenting us with 

 the simple materials of gardening — soil, trees, shrubs, 

 plants, seeds in a vast number of kinds — and invites us 

 by easy methods to employ them for securing the most 

 delightful ends. Not only are her materials, in surpris- 

 ing variety, very freely at our command, but they are so 

 adaptable in nature, that the place hardly exists to which 

 some kinds are not perfectly suited, so as to meet the 

 particular desires of the users. So far as one spot is 

 concerned, the above engraving, from a photograph 

 taken on the writer's grounds, serves to illustrate the fact 

 to which allusion here is made. The bed illustrated is 

 of oval form, measuring 27 feet the long way. It was 

 located at this point to cut off an undesirable view of 

 the back yard from the much frequented front walk and 

 lawn. 



Let us go back only to the spring of 1889. At that 

 time the drive leading to the back yard passed directly 

 across the middle of the present site of the bed figured. 

 By way of improvement, a new drive was carried con- 

 siderably further to the right, as shown in the engraving ; 

 the old one was filled in with good earth, and the surface 

 of this part was re-graded to make a continuous sweep 

 from the house (at the extreme left) to the drive in its 

 new course. 



For cutting off the unpleasant view beyond the old 

 drive course, a tight board fence or wall might readily 

 have been thrown across at this point ; but how incon- 

 gruous that would have been in such a place ! Gardener- 

 like, we called in the assistance of Dame Nature, and as 

 usual when she is becomingly treated, the outcome has 

 been as satisfactory as possibly could have been desired. 

 Indeed, as a result of her favors in this particular case 

 we are more enthusiastic than ever before, over the kindly 

 way in which she responds to her patrons' desires. What 

 can be said of this screen bed is that it had reached the 

 state shown by our engraving in less than seventeen 

 months from the day of planting, the photograph having 

 been taken in September, i8go. 



In this instance, unlike in most of our planting experi- 

 ments, the soil was quite highly enriched with a view to 

 securing a complete screen of foliage in a reasonably 

 short time. Still the manuring was not of an excessive 

 kind. It could have been doubled in quantity without 

 the slightest injury to any of the subjects planted. 



The contents of the bed are as follows : To the left 

 is a golden leaved poplar which branches from near the 

 ground. (The foliage in the upper left corner of the 

 picture is that of a cherry tree standing just outside the 

 bed.) The height of the poplar when the view was taken 

 was about seven feet. The conspicuous central tree 

 with large leaves is an empress tree [Paiilownia imper- 

 ialis), which had reached a height of nearly eight feet at 

 the time our camera was directed toward the bed. The 



