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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
THE 
GARDENERS^ CHRONICLE 
OF AMERICA. 
Published by 
THE CHRONICLE PRESS, Inc. 
office of Publication 
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MARTIN C. EBEL, Editor. 
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OFFICIAL ORGAN OF 
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GARDENERS 
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PARK SUPERINTENDENTS 
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Entered as second class matter Nov. 3, 1914, at the Post Office at New- 
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editorial matter should be addressed to M. C. Ebel, Editor, Madison, K. J. 
Vol XXI 
May, 1917 
No. 
WHY NOT AMERICAN GARDENS? 
A S ';he spring comes up the land and the time of plaai- 
in,s:: is upon us, we would say a word for the wild 
flowers and the native shrubs, not as blossoms of the woods, 
but as integral parts of our gardens. To some of us it is 
a little depressing to see so much of Italy and England, 
of Holland and France, in the American domestic scene, 
and so little of America, ^^'e all have irises about our 
garden pools ( German, Japanese, Spanish, English, even 
Siberian ) . but how many of us have planted that aris- 
tocrat of American brook banks, the cardinal flower, 
which responds superbl}- to cultivation? \\'e make a 
great show of tulips (which are often gaudy splotches 
on the lawn, as nearly ugly as a flower ever can be), and 
forget the lovely dog-tooth violet, that sunlit lily which 
follows the melting snow up the slopes of the Rocky 
JMountains. making the high meadows a cloth of gold, 
and nods equally at home where the salt Atlantic fogs 
enwrap it. How many Americans have backed a border 
with goldenrod and New England asters, shooting uj) 
prodigiously in enriched soil, or brightened a shady spot 
with crimson bimch berries? The list is endless of our 
native plants, the flora of any particular region, New 
England, say, or the prairie States, or the southern high- 
lands, or the Rocky JMountains furnishing without alien 
additions a plenitude of bloom and color with which to 
develop a native garden. A true garden style, we affirm, 
must be based on the native flora and the native land- 
scape. To copy Italy, England, Japan, is to have no 
style of otir own. We know a man in Iowa who, on his 
•eleven acres, has neither tree nor shrub nor flower not in- 
digenous to his State, yet his garden is a lovesome spot 
just the same. We do not ask for this exclusiveness — 
who would banish the pansies, for example, or the Can- 
terbury bells? — but we do urge all our readers who plant 
a garden to save some corner, or some section of the bor- 
ders, for the native blooms, to weave them into the gar- 
den scheme, to study the native landscape and try to base 
a garden style on that. You will perhaps be surprised 
to learn how much nature knows about the creation of 
beautv ! — Colliers. 
THE CEDAR OF LEBANON 
T 1 is always pleasing to those interested in trees to be 
able to grow Cedrus Libani, the Cedar of Lebanon, 
because of its historic connections, writes Joseph Meehan 
in Florists' Excha)igc. To say that this tree is not hardy, 
as some insist, is a great mistake. Cedrus atlantica glauca 
may be hardier, as some aver, but when C. Libani is per- 
fecly hardy in Pennsylvania, one can see that in a general 
sense it can be saiiJ to be quite hardy. There are trees 
of it in Philadelphia planted upward of 50 years ago, 
which have been bearing cones for years, trees 40 feet and 
over in height. 
The specimen photographed is quite a }"0ung tree, not 
over 12 feet high, and has endured zero weather many a 
^^'inter since planted. It represents a bushy specimen, 
because of having been deprived of its leaders when 
}-oung, and consequently is becoming many branched. 
The usual growth, in its uncontrolled condition, pro- 
duces a conical outline until the tree has attained many 
years' growtli. It then takes on a wide-spreading top. 
The Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus Lebani). 
each large limb supporting a mass of smaller ones, with 
foliage of flat appearance, the tree then being quite unlike 
what one would suppose it to be from the appearance of 
the young specimen of our illustration. 
The seed cones of the Cedar of Lebanon are about three 
inches to four inches long, conical, but so very broad at 
the base that the_\- are not far removed from a round 
shape. These cones practically never open naturally, but 
have to be opened artificially. The writer has had one in 
his possession for some 20 years, grown on a tree in Eng- 
land, and it is closed as tightly to-day as it ever was. The 
catkins appear on the trees in Autumn, and it is claimed 
that it requires two years for the cones to attain maturity. 
Our specimen is quite unlike the usual trees of this 
cedar when grown to a single leader ; in fact it is the 
most bushy the writer has ever seen. The type is a tree 
with a single stem, the branches starting out at regular 
intervals but rather far apart, and this open character is 
natural, as well, to the other species named, Cedrus atlan- 
tica glauca. F>oth are among the most interesting and 
valuable of our hardv evergreens. 
