24 CALIFORNIA 



In the state at large, about four million trees were 

 planted last winter. Nurserymen tell me, also, that 

 about two hundred and fifty thousand rose-bushes 

 were planted, chiefly in the coast counties. Such 

 large importations of plants from Japan and the 

 Orient were never before made. The enormous 

 commercial demands of horticultural communities 

 begin to display themselves. To plant one hundred 

 thousand acres in trees requires ten million plants, 

 grown at least two years in nurseries ; it requires at 

 least one hundred million vines to plant the same 

 area. And, some day all the best part of California 

 will be devoted to horticulture. 



I look out of my window. The sweet pea hedge, 

 sown before Christmas, is eight feet high and six feet 

 wide, a mass of bloom from the ground to the top- 

 most spray, and has been so since May. The rose 

 bushes are loaded with flowers, the pansy bed is in 

 its prime, the nasturtiums, from seed sown in the 

 open ground, are higher than the tops of the cottage 

 windows, and have been blooming since February. 

 Ten-cent rose plants sent me by mail last December, 

 are bearing several flowers apiece, and stand a foot 

 high or more. Down the street I can see a two- 

 story cottage whose front is entirely covered a 

 rose- vine which has been budded to eight or ten 

 choice varieties ; they are all in bloom now, and 

 have been so for a month. There are large houses 

 here that are covered from basement to roof with 

 Marechal Niels, La Marques, Banksias, Climbing 

 Devoniensis, Keve d'Or, and other famous roses. In 

 my own little garden, which in September, 1888, was 

 a piece of pasture, with only weeds and grass upon 

 it, I gathered flowers from my Marechal Niel rose 

 on Thanksgiving Day, and it has been in continuous 

 bloom ever since. 



Last summer about twenty rose-fairs, and other 

 horticultural shows, were attractions in various 

 parts of the state. We have not yet come to that 

 stage of the art which demands differentiation of 

 our material. After awhile California will have daf- 

 fodil shows in February, hyacinth shows in March, 

 and pansy shows in April, as w?ll as rose shows in 

 May ; in fact, we shall have flower shows every month 

 in the year, and ultimately, perhaps, a perpetual 

 flower society exhibition. A successful horticultural 

 magazine and a dozen or more weeklies devoted to 

 branches of horticulture are supported in California. 



The gardens which I wish to describe are using 

 in the fullest manner the possibilities of soil and 

 climate here. Perpetual growth and bloom abide 

 in a typical California garden ; the trees and shrubs 

 need very little water, except the natural rainfall ; 

 the spring bulbs and early flowers need no artificial 

 supply. The secrets of gardening liere are ron.^tant 



GARDEN GOLD. 



tillage, early planting, and the keeping plants from 

 going to seed too early. The roses, for instance, 

 are cut back after each period of bloom, and then 

 new shoots start at once. Daffodils, and many 

 other spring bulbs becomj naturalized, and are left 

 in the ground to take care of themselves, just as the 

 wild flowers do. The fortunate tendency of garden- 

 ing art here is t j produce a very extensive naturali- 

 zation of beautiful plants from all over the world. 

 Eventually, many of these plants will escape from 

 gardens into the fields, ravines, and woods, and 

 gradually add most interesting elements to the Cali- 

 fornian landscape. In Ventura, I know of a ravine 

 where the trimmings of rose-bushes have many of 

 them rooted, being carried down by the rains from a 

 garden above, and are now running wild over the 

 bushes. In Nevada county I have seen the most del- 

 icate and lovely garden annuals, self-seeding, and per- 

 manently established in the forest. In Alameda 

 county it is now proposed by some garden-lovers to 

 sow many pounds of nasturtium seeds in the warmer 

 canons, there to take care of themselves, as they 

 certainly will. 



That delightful book, Robinson's" ]Vi/d Garden," 

 says, " What it" (the wild garden) " means is best 

 explained by the winter aconite flowering under a 

 group of naked trees in February ; by thesnowflake 

 growing abundantly in meadows by the Thames' 

 side ; by the perennial lupin dying with its purple 

 an islet in a Scotch river, and by the Apennine ane- 

 mone staining an English wood blue before the com- 

 ing of our bluebells." 



The perfect type of the wild garden will be of 

 slow evolution here, because almost the entire world 

 of plants is ours to choose from ; but there can be 

 no true garden art here that does not adopt as far 

 as possible the theory of the w ild garden. We can 

 plant Japanese and Bermuda lilies in copses with 

 our own carnelian-hued and white wild lilies ; we 

 can mingle the golden-rod of New England with the 

 perennial glory of our flaming eschscholtzias ; we can 

 have the white tigridias of Mexico wild on our 

 own hills with the butterfly-bloom of the Mariposas ; 

 we can sow seed of the wild flowers of Syria, Pales- 

 tine, Carniola, Greece, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, 

 South Africa, and let them blossom with our native 

 " cream-cups " and nemophilas. All the shrubs, 

 trees, bulbs, vines, herbaceous plants and annuals 

 known to botanists, can find congenial soil and cli- 

 mate somewhere in California. To be more exact, 

 it is the flora oi the whole northern and southern 

 temparate zones, and of the vast acreage of the hill- 

 ground that lies in furrowed folds about the snow 

 peaks of the world, that the coming wild gardens 

 of California will lav under contribution. We aim 



