PARK AND CEMETERY 
41 
AN OLEANDER IN BERMUDA. 
THE OLEANDER IN BERMUDA. 
By Joseph Meehan. 
As a decorative plant for our lawns in summer or our 
conservatories in early spring, the oleander is a well 
known plant. Being a native of the Mediterranean, it 
gets along in winter with no more heat than suffices to 
keep away frost. A frost proof cellar is a very good 
place for it in winter, when it is wanted only for its 
flowers and appearance in summer. When kept in a 
warm conservatory in winter it will often flower in 
early spring, before being placed out doors for the sum- 
mer. It is a better way to keep it cool until spring 
opens, so that it will not flower until placed on the 
lawn. It needs to be grown in a tub to have the best 
results. When planted out, as is done in some cases, 
there is a vigorous growth made, and if the lifting in 
the fall is carefully done, and the care continued until 
the time to plant it returns, there will be a good dis- 
play of flowers; but the tub is the better way, for, be 
as careful as one will, there is more or less check in 
digging and replanting, resulting in a loss of flowers. 
In Bermuda, where frosts do not occur, the oleander 
flourishes splendidly. The illustration presented with 
this was taken on that island. It represents a char- 
acteristic specimen of it as it grows there. The artist 
has made no attempt to select for reproduction a shape- 
ly specimen, but caught this one, with a branch or two 
blown over, such as one would often see in the case 
of shrubs bearing clusters of heavy flowers. 
The one reproduced is the common single one of 
bright red colored flowers, the typical Nerium Olean- 
der of the Mediterranean region. It is growing near 
Hamilton, Bermuda, at which place there may be seen 
quite a number of others, some of them twenty-five to 
thirty feet in height. The island is an ideal place in 
v inter, the thermometer ranging from about 60 to 75 
degrees in the winter. In the parks are palms, cactuses, 
gardenias, camellias and a general representation of 
what are occupants of our tropical houses. 
Oleanders are easily raised, and at least a dozen vari- 
eties are in cultivation. 
TERRACES AND TERRACE BANKS, 
By H. A. Caparn. 
To begin with, the popular idea of a terrace appears 
to be the sloping bank of turf dear to the suburbanite 
and hated of his hired man who has to mow it ; but, of 
course, this is not a terrace, but the flat space above it 
is. Now the flat space may be held up in several ways, 
but generally by a wall or sloping bank. This latter is 
so popular that one is tempted to overlook its values 
because of the cloud of general esteem that covers it. 
Of course, however the landscape architect may feel 
about it, and however dearly he may see the right and 
the wrong place for it, it is the layman who builds the 
terraces and supports them with sod banks or with 
stone walls, and it is the layman who has to be con- 
vinced of the need for spending his money on a wall 
or saving it (temporarily) on a bank. It is difficult to 
find any formulated rules or body of opinion on the 
different values and proper use of the wall and the 
bank, but there is a long-felt want for the expression 
of such to be used as a club to knock down (meta- 
phorically) a refractory client with. For instance, 
there are two clients of mine, neighbors, with houses 
on the same steep slope. I proposed level walled ter- 
races in front of the houses with massed foliage on the 
steep slopes below, and now they want to have sod 
banks ! Ridicule is probably the most effective weapon 
in such cases, but it is often a mean one to use, and 
betrays weakness instead of strength. This and other 
instances have led me to try to formulate my impres- 
sions, with these rules as results. Sloping sod banks 
may be used only when ( 1 ) the line at the foot of the 
bank is even; (2) when the turf at the foot of the 
bank is smooth for some distance; (3) when there is 
no mass planting immediately in front of it; (4) when 
the ground below the terrace is comparatively level ; 
(5) when there is no architectural structure, pergola, 
etc., immediately above the slope. Of course, where 
a grass slope cannot be used a retaining wall may. 
The grass bank is a thing of primness and formality, 
for trim surfaces and parallel lines, for sunken girders 
and brush, but not high, level surfaces. This is written 
in the hope that others may add to and modify these 
rules and somewhat increase their knowledge and my 
own. 
