THE GARDEN 
INDOORS AND OUT 
IV.— IN THE CITY GARDEN 
EDITOR’S NOTE: This last article of the series has been prepared with 
the hope that it may stimulate the owner of even the smallest city pro- 
perty. Thanks to the courtesy and cooperation of clubs and individuals busily 
engaged in establishing city gardens we are enabled to present, by way of in- 
spiration and practical assistance for “the other fellow,” some account of what 
is actually being done. 
LIMITATION AND OPPORTUNITY 
LEONARD BARRON 
. ARDENING in a city presents peculiar difficulties. 
1 1 is a fifdit against the maximum of conditions unfavor- 
pf able to plant growth in general, complicated by the 
$s need of a style of treatment that will fit harmoniously 
into the surroundings which usually are the unattractive backs 
of neighbor houses. 
From the gardener’s point of view there are difficulties of bad 
soil, of air pollution, wrong drainage, inadequate lighting, and 
other minor conditions which may vary in each individual case. 
The city atmosphere is laden with impurities from the products 
of combustion and the dust from the erosion and wear and tear 
of materials that are the essential part of city existence. De- 
posits of soot and dust on the foliage of the living plant greatly 
reduce its feeding capacity, but quite apart from this mechanical 
interference of the natural course of the plant’s life is the 
additional impurity of chemical pollution in the way of various 
fumes, or even corrosive acids, that are carried in the air. 
Speaking generally, thin-leaved plants are unable to bear up 
against such handicaps. Deciduous plants may make a bold 
fight for a year or two, but each succeeding crop of foliage be- 
comes less and less vigorous until ultimately the point is reached 
when the feeding capacity of the plant is unable to supply the 
demands for new growth. 
, Contradictory as it may seem at first, it is yet a fact that the 
best adapted plants for city endurance will be found among 
those having thick coriaceous or leather-like foliage. By its 
peculiarity of construction this foliage will survive when many 
other more delicate, slender-tissued leaves will succumb. It 
has a thick, tough outer membrane protecting the leaf tissue 
which is built upof several layersof cells containing a proportion- 
ate supply of moisture and thickly filled with chlorophyl, — the 
ever present green coloring matter of vegetation, which is the 
functioning substance that under the influence of sunlight 
converts into starch and other organic compounds (upon which 
the plant actually feeds itself), those raw food materials ab- 
sorbed from the air and taken by the roots. 
Recognizing these limitations, the city garden cannot be a 
showy flower garden unless the flowering material is grown 
elsewhere and carried in merely as so much decoration to be 
discarded as soon as it has served its purpose. Reliance must be 
placed on certain permanent plants having the required foliage 
characteristics, and these are found in certain groups of broad- 
leaved evergreens. The coniferous evergreens, on the contrary, 
do not take at all kindly to conditions with atmospheric pollu- 
tion. Natives of regions where they require to make the ut- 
most use of all the available light, they are not easily adaptable 
to situations which directly result in reduced light supply. The 
broad-leaved evergreens, however, in a great majority of cases 
are more or less under-growth in their natural habitats and, 
brought into city places, often surprise the uninitiated by their 
triumph over untoward conditions. 
Naturally attention must be given to a proper soil before 
anything else is attempted; and usually it is necessary to re- 
move the original soil, such as it is, and bring in fresh composted 
loam from a distance. The soil found in the city plot is very 
often not the natural soil of the region, but is the product of 
accumulations of debris and refuse mixed in the turned up 
subsoil; and even where it is the original soil it has lain so long 
out of actual cultivation as to be deficient in bacterial activity 
and consequently will not support ornamental plants. 
Water must be supplied, since it is part of city design to pro- 
vide for the prompt and complete removal of all surface water. 
The reversal of this condition may not be possible, but artificial 
irrigation may be arranged. 
In the matter of design it will be found that as the area in 
hand becomes restricted and narrow, and more and more sur- 
rounded by buildings the better harmony with the environment 
will be produced by the accenting perpendicular lines rather 
than by introducing a broad or horizonatal treatment which is 
expressive of the open country. Statuary, fountains, pools, and 
such like accessories fit well into the city and town garden 
— better than they do in the country garden — acting as focus 
points for the observer and detracting attention from the less 
interesting surroundings. The sky reflection in a pool of water 
is an especially welcome attribute in a city area, animating 
and lighting up the scene. 
Though the city garden problem has its difficulties yet that it is 
not without solution is clearly shown by the present evidence in 
the case. Even the meanest city yard can be redeemed by an 
appropriate use of the gardener’s art — perhaps more than in 
any other one single way. Do gardeners realize sufficiently 
their good influences thus lying latent? 
CITY GARDENS VISITED 
LUCY EMBURY HUBBELL 
H E “city garden” has suddenly become so familiar a 
v term ' n our every-day speech that its absurd anomal- 
ousness is apt to pass unnoted and its significance not 
(P' grasped. Green things trampled to death under the 
feet of men in their frenzied city building are now being toil- 
somely nurtured back to some sort of changed and feeble life. 
There is a growing realization that, severed from the scent of 
flowers, the refreshment of sheltering trees, human existence 
cannot long continue wholesome or even sane; and so between 
the stones, green pat-hes are beginning to appear and that tini- 
est of gardens, the window-box, clings to grim brick walls, 
lighting their dinginess with the glow of living, blossoming 
things. Everywhere Mother Earth is silently reclaiming her 
own, stealing sometimes up to high housetops where she flour- 
