PLANNING A PROGRAM 
FOR YOUR GARDEN CLUB 
ARDEN ING has ceased 
to be merely the hobby 
of a few pleasantly 
arilll minded souls and lias 
become a unified, definitely con¬ 
structive endeavor conducted by some thousands of rather 
earnest people. 1 he day for taking even relaxations lightly has 
passed—we are too “rushed,” too aware of life’s relative values 
to spend serious effort on the negligible. What has been lost in 
flavor may have been gained in power and at any rate we have 
the comforting assurance that gardening is a steadily strength¬ 
ening factor in the shaping of national thought and character— 
a sane, clear stream in the hurried, somewhat turgid flow of 
present-day living. 
1 his transmuting of a primarily personal enjoyment into the 
larger enjoyment of a social movement finds unmistakable echo 
in the activities of the Garden Clubs, which reach out widely 
beyond community affairs into those of state and nation—as 
witness the present vigorous Anti-Billboard Campaign (See 
page 227, Dec., 1923, G. M., also page 363, Feb., 1924, page 46, 
Mar., 1924), recent and pending legislation on behalf of threat¬ 
ened native plants, and the many civic benefits inaugurated by 
National Garden Week. 
Thus in planning the year’s program all these newer interests 
must have their place together with such time-honored and 
yet somehow perennially stimulating topics as “Good Design 
in the Little Garden,” “ Roses for the Summer Garden,” 
“ Flower Arrangement," and so on—in essence, perhaps, ever the 
same but clothed with the lustre of fresh knowledge and fresh 
uses. After all. gardening is not a static art but an alluring mis¬ 
tress, many-sided and very much alive, at whose feet scientists 
and voyagers are continually laying newly discovered treasure. 
Every well-rounded program 
will, then, take cognizance of 
the garden as a recreation for 
the individual and as a force in 
the creation of national charac¬ 
ter, though any such outline as here given can, of course, 
furnish only a bare framework on which to build according 
to the fancy or the purpose which animates each club. Such 
individual variations do, in fact, lift any plan out of the in¬ 
sipid slough of the purely general into the more sparkling realm 
of the particular and personal. 
In choosing the topics for discussion listed below, an effort 
has been made to pick subjects that are generally interesting 
to gardeners everywhere. No specific months have been as¬ 
signed as appropriate times, for the topic to be considered will 
vary with the varying horticultural conditions in the different 
sections. Nor are these suggestions meant to be final in any 
way but rather they are set down as tentative “leads” for 
new groups which are groping for some sort of systematic study. 
So many queries keep coming in to us from fledgling garden 
clubs all over the country and from clubs in the remoter places 
that this plan has been built with the hope that it may provide 
some logical answer. 
So far as possible, bibliographs and references have been 
appended in the double hope of facilitating the work of mem¬ 
bers who undertake the preparation of papers and of inducing 
the habit of reading among gardeners. So many failures can 
be avoided, so much time saved even in this forever experi¬ 
mental art by finding out the facts first, profiting by your 
predecessor’s mistakes, that at least a short bookshelf seems an 
indispensable adjunct of every Garden Club, fledgling or ma¬ 
ture. 
TOPICS FOR A TWELVE MONTHS’ PROGRAM WITH BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 
I. Essentials of Good Garden Design 
Governed by the same laws that govern all the fine arts, i. e.: space 
divisions or composition; color groupings; line and mass. 
If possible arrange for a talk by a competent landscape architect; 
visit actual gardens and use them as object lessons, showing what is 
good or bad in the design of each and why. 
Come Into the Garden, Grace Tabor ( Macmillan ) 
Planning Your Garden, W. S. Rogers ( Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) 
The Little Garden, Mrs. Francis King ( Atlantic Monthly Press ) 
The Spirit of the Garden, Martha Brooks Hutcheson ( Atlantic 
Monthly Press) 
Landscape Art Past and Present, Harriet Hammond McCormick 
(. Scribner’s) 
The Garden Magazine, “Making a Garden Plan for Yourself,’’ Carl 
Stanton (Jan., 1922) 
II and III. Different Types of Garden 
1 . The Flower Garden 
(a) The Hardy Garden (Planting for a Succession of Perennial 
Bloom) 
(b) Garden of Annuals (Flowers for Cutting and for Quick Effect) 
The American Flower Garden, Neltje Blanchan (Doubleday, Page Sr 
Co.) 
The English Flower Garden, William Robinson ( Scribner’s ) 
The Garden Month by Month, Mabel Cabot Sedgwick ( Stokes ) 
My Garden, Colour in My Garden, Louise Beebe Wilder (Double- 
day, Page Sr Co.) 
The Garden Bluebook, Leicester B. Holland (Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) 
Continuous Bloom in America, Louise Shelton (Scribner’s) 
A Garden Bluebook of Annuals and Biennials, Henry Stuart Ortloff 
( Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) 
The Amateur’s Book of Flower-Growing, Leonard Barron (Double- 
day, Page Sr Co.) 
2 . Rock and Water Gardens 
Adventures in My Garden and Rock Garden,” Louise Beebe Wilder 
(Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) 
Making a Rock Garden, H. S. Adams (McBride) 
Book of Water Gardening, Peter Bisset, (De La Mare) 
The Garden Magazine, “Bringing Alpine Plants Into Our Garden,” 
Henri Correvon, Clarence Lown and Louise Beebe Wilder (Feb., 1922); 
“A Most Easily Grown Three Dozen,” Montague Free (Mar., 1924) 
The Complete Garden, Albert D.Tavlor (Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) ch. xv 
3 . Fruit and Vegetable Gardens 
FIome Vegetables and Small Fruits, Frances Duncan (Scribner’s) 
Principles of Fruit Growing, L. H. Bailey (Macmillan) 
The Home Fruit Grower, M. G. Kains (De La Mare) 
The Amateur’s Book of the Vegetable Garden,” 1 . D. Bennett re¬ 
vised by A. Kruhm (Doubleday, Page Sr Co.) 
The Garden Magazine, “What, Why, and How Much Fruit to Plant,” 
John L. Doan (Feb., 1922, and subsequent issues); “ Planting Chart for 
a Family’s Vegetables,” Adolph Kruhm (Feb., 1922) 
IV and V. The “Big Seven” of Flowerdom 
Daffodil 
Daffodils, Joseph Jacob (Stokes) 
The Book of the Daffodil, Rev. S. E. Bourne (John Lane) 
The Garden Magazine, “Dallying with Daffodils,” Agnes Fales 
Huntington (Oct., 1922); “The Golden Cup That Cheers in Spring,” 
Wm. D. 1 . Arnold (Sept., 1921) 
Tulip 
Tulips, Joseph Jacob (Stokes) 
Bulletin of the Garden Club of America, “Tulips,” Flenjry Gibson, 
(Sept., 1923) 
The Garden Magazine, “Gems among the Tulips,” A. F. Huntington; 
“Tulips for the Connoisseur” D. W. Hart (Oct., 1923) 
126 
