222 
PARK AND CE/nCTERY. 
A Charming Water Garden. 
The most attractive lily pond that I know is the 
one for hardy aquatics at Lincoln Park, Chicago: 
and the prettiest water garden I have ever seen was 
the one in Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, in the 
summer of 1895. Water garden is the right name, 
for it consisted of a chain of pools, irregular in size 
and shape, connected by narrow, winding channels. 
The water was shallow, but as the surface of a good 
part of the system was sunk three feet below the 
level of. the surrounding lawns, the effect of the 
sloping banks gave variety and added greatly to the 
appearance of the design. 
The art of the designer of this delightful water 
garden was seen in the graceful plan of pools and 
'l'YPIC.4L VIEW IN 'I HE WATER GARDEN. 
tortuous channels with their setting of emerald 
banks; in the adaptation of plants to the position 
best fitted to display them to advantage and to de- 
velope the characteristic growth of each; but per- 
haps most of all in the nice blending of the water 
scene with its surroundings. This was done by the 
fitting use of scmi-aquatics, as well as of plants 
used in the groups and beds on the lawns near the 
water. One could scarcely determine where water 
plants ended and bedding began, so artfully were 
the two wedded by the choice of plants and by their 
distribution to soften or disguise boundaries. 
An excellent example of the application of the 
latter general rule in Landscaiie Art is seen in our 
illustration of theLotus Hed. Looked at from cither 
the water or the land side, the circular clump of 
Lotuses either ends or begins the view— one feels 
that beyond it there may be more water garden 
or there may be more lawn. There is that pleas- 
antly mysterious uncertainty as to what lies beyond 
that is the essence of Landscape Art. 
In most locations a duplicate of the 1 ower 
Grove Park aquatic garden would involve great 
labor and expense too, perhaps, but its making was 
simplified by the peculiar character of the soil in 
that part of the park. As the sub-soil is fire clay 
the loam above is ahvays more or less spongy with 
moisture, and by merely excavating the series of 
basins and channels, the water is held as in a dish. 
There is always water, but the pools' are, neverthe- 
less, supplied with the overflow 
from a large natural pond on a 
trifle higher level so there is a 
slight movement throughout the 
system to an outlet at the lowest 
point where the surplus escapes. 
This creates a gentle ripple that 
gives life to the surface and 
makes agreeable conditions for 
the plants as well as for the lively 
gold fish that find this flowery 
water way a summer resort quite 
to their liking. 
The larger aquatics inhabit the 
pools, the largest, forty-five feet 
in diameter, being reserved for 
Mer Majesty Victoria regia. To 
insure the high temperature de- 
manded by this royal plant there 
is a cemented basin in the 
centre of the pool, which con- 
tains the heating pipes and bo.x- 
es of roots. This basin is en- 
closed in a rim of masonry the 
top of which is slightly lower 
(perhaps six inches) than the 
level that is maintained in the pool during the 
warmer months, so that wdien the weather permits 
the water is raised until the masonry of the basin is 
submerged — an excellent feature that takes away 
artificiality and makes the Queen look less exclu- 
sive and quite Americanized. All of the Nymp- 
haias were used as well as the highly ornamental 
Luryale I'erox or Gorgon plant. The winding 
channels w'ere irregular in width and in the wider 
spaces small Nymphmas, as the starry little Japan- 
ese N. Pygmea, and N. Ledegkeri rosea with flow- 
ers that sit on the water like birds, apparently quite 
detached from any plant. 
The grouping of water Poppies, two kinds of water 
Hyacinths viz: Kichornia crassipcs and E. Cerulcea, 
