PARK AND CEMETERY. 
DECORATIVE PLANTING FOR RAILROAD STATION 
GROUNDS. 
The subject of decorative planting for railway 
station grounds should interest the American peo- 
ple for we are pre-eminently a nation of travelers. 
Such planting has been done to some extent in 
the East for several years, and is constantly being 
extended. Not only are new lines taking it up, 
but pioneers in the work are doing more and better 
planting each 
year. It is get- 
ting to the 
point where 
nothing but the 
best in land- 
scape design is 
good enough 
for railroad offi- 
cials, who are 
nothing if not 
“up to date.” 
At first the 
work was lim- 
ited to summer 
bedding, prob- 
a b 1 y because 
the matter was 
left entirely to 
gardeners, 
whose knowl- 
edge, while 
thorough as far 
as it goes, is too 
often limited to 
plants of the 
bedding order. 
Some of the 
most successful 
efforts of this 
kind must be 
credited to the 
ga r d eners o f 
prominent rail- 
road com- 
panies, notably 
the Pennsyl- 
vania lines, the 
Boston and Albany, the Philadelphia and Reading 
and the Michigan Central railroads. 
But advancing taste, in considering what con- 
stitutes good planting, now demands something 
less formal than the old-time carpet- bedding, 
which, though admissible in some instances, is not 
deemed artistic by artists and art critics. 
It must be admitted, however, that a certain 
part of the public clings to these showy results of 
skillful gardening — and it is only just to say that 
great skill is essential to the production of the 
elaborate designs that seem to be in a sense 
popular — and that a certain amount of such plant- 
ing may be desirable at some stations. But it is a 
mistake to entirely ignore the hardy vines, shrubs 
and trees that insure beautiful effects even in win- 
ter, and which are especially attractive at the 
seasons when space devoted to tender material is a 
dreary blank. 
Even where 
greenhou se 
plants are used, 
the results will 
be far more 
pleasing when 
a background 
and setting of 
permanent ma- 
terial forms the 
basis of the 
planting. In- 
deed, the de- 
mand for some- 
thing more in 
line with the 
canons of art, 
as applied to 
other branches 
of art work is 
becoming so 
strong and in- 
sistant that it is 
felt in the realm 
of railroad 
planting as well 
a s elsewhere, 
and a change is 
already being 
made. 
This change 
of taste is for- 
tunate, both for 
railroad com- 
panies and 
travelers — for- 
tunate for the 
companies because landscape planting is less ex- 
pensive than formal bedding; and fortunate for 
travelers, because broad and beautiful landscape 
effects may be established and maintained at such 
slight expense that all the station grounds on a 
line may be redeemed from barrenness and made 
to blossom as the rose. 
The fundamental factor of landscape planting 
is the use of strictly hardy material that, when once 
1. View on .Station Grounds of Michigan Central R. R. at Niles, Mich. 
2. Planting showing combination of Tender and Plardy Material on the same grounds. 
