PARK AND CEMETERY 
and Landscape Gardening. 
VOL. XIII CHICAGO, MARCH, 1903 No. 1 
Urban and Suburban Landscape Gardening. 
By Jens Jensen. 
Landscape gardening is an art very little appreci- 
ated and less understood. This is largely due to the 
greater intelligence required to understand its ever- 
changing colors and forms and its breadth of view. 
It is a picture in the full sense of the term, but a liv- 
ing one and as such can not be composed of fixed col- 
ors and confined within a small frame like a painting. 
There are many poor forms of either, but those of 
superior art are even admired by the uneducated ; 
therefore, for the latter the art of landscape gardening 
shall exert its great influences. “Landscape garden- 
ing will develop until its powers to move the passions 
shall be equal to that of music.” Landscape garden- 
ing as applied to the city or village is a subject of 
such great possibilities, that to give it a fair treat- 
ment would be impossible within the limits of this 
paper and I shall, therefore, restrict my remarks to 
the most important practical points. Architecture and 
the treatment of surrounding landscape must follow 
hand in hand whether we have to deal with it in the 
city or suburban town ; but in the latter architecture 
must be subordinate to existing or prevailing land- 
scape, whereas in the city landscape gardening is 
rather subordinate to architecture, the latter being the 
dominant factor. 
Landscape gardening in the city is limited by a 
number of causes; first of all, space; second, soil and 
drainage, and third, polluted atmosphere. Each one of 
these will have to be consulted in the selection of plant- 
ing material or failure is an assured fact. Let us 
first consider space. The ground available for plant- 
ing is often limited to the narrow strip of land be- 
tween the sidewalk and the street, known as the park- 
way. Its availability for planting is determined by 
its width and distance from adjoining buildings. 
There is very little chance, indeed, for any vegetation 
to grow where the building line has been established 
along the sidewalk edge, and this is greatly diminished 
on the south side of streets running east and west, 
and especially where eight or ten-story modern apart- 
ment buildings line the thoroughfare. Then add to 
this a street filled in with cinders and rubbish on the 
other side and you will admit that the chances for a 
tree to grow under such conditions are poor at the 
best, even if you have been generous enough to pro- 
vide your nursling with a few loads of good soil. 
Where a building or private house line has been es- 
tablished on the avenue there is usually room for plant- 
ing inside the lot line besides on the parkway, and it is 
in such localities that some possibilities exist for land- 
scape gardening. 
Soil and drainage are great factors in tree grow- 
ing. To plant a tree in ashes and tin cans with an 
asphalt pavement on one side and a cement sidewalk 
on the other and still expect it to grow is not an un- 
usual thing. Nourishing food is the first principle of 
good health, whether it applies to vegetation or hu- 
man life. Starvation means an easy victim to disease. 
As good soil is essential to success in tree culture so is 
drainage. This may exist naturally in gravelly or 
sandy soils, or artificially in the tiles or sewers. Where 
nature has provided proper drainage artificial drain- 
age is not only superfluous but dangerous to tree 
growth. We have some good examples of this in the 
destruction of the once beautiful woodlands north and 
south of Chicago. Their disappearance is attributed 
to the sewers. But we must have sewers and we must 
have trees that will thrive in their vicinity. Is the 
sewer artificial so is the hose, and I say do not neglect 
to use it, especially where the street pavement con- 
sists of asphalt or brick, and every drop of rain is 
carried away into the sewer. 
Irrigation by perforated tiles is the proper and only 
way to water street trees. That smoke and poison- 
ous gases, characteristic of manufacturing towns, are 
dangerous to tree life you all know. Few, indeed, are 
the trees that will grow under these most trying con- 
ditions, but we are progressing fast and the city of the 
future will not have to- fight the smoke nuisance. 
- All this tells us that in the city “countryfied” — which 
is our aim — we must select trees that will thrive under 
existing conditions. I doubt if we can find one that 
will grow on an ash heap. Where the surroundings 
are extremely unfavorable you may have to close your 
artistic eyes for the sake of getting some green leaf- 
age even if it is a promising weed. To select 
planting material for streets lined with tall buildings 
to the very edge of the sidewalk is quite difficult, as the 
