A GARDEN BESIDE THE ADIRONDACKS 
JOHN L. REA 
Under the Old Trees Which Give Applegarth Its Name Generations Gone Are Not For- 
gotten Even in the Midst of the Feast of Color Spread by Its Present Artist Occupant 
jS'ardtr^ 
|N THE belief that the 
garden at Applegarth 
' s somet hing of a suc- 
uIOjI cess, I am moved to 
tell others about it and a little 
of how it grew. For in the 
beginning, which means some 
ten years ago, when the place 
was bought back into the fam- 
ily, it was just a vacant, -un- 
kempt run-to-seed village prop- 
erty. There was a strip of 
unmown lawn, perhaps twenty 
feet wide, at either side of the 
house, that to the north being 
bordered by a three-acre Apple 
orchard and that to the south, 
by a weedy driveway, an eight 
foot Osage Orange hedge, and, 
beyond the hedge, another old 
Pear and Apple orchard. In 
front, across a narrow lawn that was yet somewhat wider than 
those at the sides of the house, ran the newly constructed 
state highway which had replaced the dirt road of my grand- 
father’s time. 
The small lawn spaces had been garnished with circular and 
moon-shaped flower 
beds, in which grew at 
one time pink and 
white flowered Gerani- 
ums — some with varie- 
gated leaves — Fever- 
few, and Heliotrope. 
At least I am morally 
certain that these grew 
there, for they must 
have furnished forth 
those trim, close 
cropped, hard headed, 
white-and-green Gera- 
nium-leaf -enc ircled, 
pulpit bouquets child- 
hood memory connects 
inseparably with the 
village church! 
The first spring was 
spent getting the or- 
chards into shape and 
the small farm under 
cultivation. By July, 
however, we were ready 
to tackle the Osage 
Orange hedge, which 
we did, armed with a 
stump puller and extra 
heavy leather gloves. 
And once it had been dislodged piecemeal and committed en 
masse to the brush heap down in the back pasture, we went 
about making a lawn under the Apple-trees beyond the driveway. 
The ground was plowed, harrowed, and stone picked at that 
time, but not seeded until the following May. That first 
August, however, a start was made toward forming a screen 
across the end of the lawn away 
from the highway by transplant- 
ing native evergreens from the 
woods and rough hillsides of the 
neighborhood. In the Autumn 
a rather timid beginning was 
made at planting a hundred and 
sixty foot border at the side of 
the lawn farthest from the 
house. 
T! 
THE GENERAL LAYOUT OF APPLEGARTH 
HIS border was the first 
and has proved one of the 
most successful of the various 
garden projects, hence I shall 
describe it in some detail. There 
have been changes as time de- 
veloped the need, but I shall 
confine the account of it to its 
description as it was during 
the summer of 1918, when the 
accompanying photographs were made. 
In all gardening, the aim, 1 take it, should be for pleasing, 
ever-changing color combinations and a series of beautiful garden 
pictures when seen from the vantage points one naturally comes 
to in walking through the garden. So in placing a plant or a 
BETWEEN THE TENNIS COURT AND THE HIGHWAY IS THE IRIS GARDEN 
This was pictured and described in detail in the February issue of the Garden Magazine, together with some 
very convincing arguments for making this flower a special feature rather than a part of the general border 
group of plants I always keep the possible observer in mind quite 
as much as the plants themselves. The plant must of course have 
its proper soil and surroundings, but it is necessary to har- 
monize them esthetically and spiritually as well as physically. 
As a case in point, most people see this border from the end 
abutting the highway; so in general, the yellows, pinks, and 
