The Garden Magazine, December, 1923 
203 
THE IMPRESSIVENESS OF THE GIANT CACTUS 
Visitors to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition were introduced to tropical gardening by reconstructions of Cali¬ 
fornia scenes; the foreground of one of these showing Opuntias and Cactus as they grow in the southern part of the state 
New York’s, and the Poinciana and Grevillea reach magnificent 
altitudes in that of Norfolk. 
What limited claims climate makes upon the tropical gardener 
may be gathered from these scattered observations: The Jacar- 
anda is best only in the south; the Lasiandra will not do well 
above San Francisco; Begonia rubra, as it is commonly called, is 
finest in the cool coast counties; the Poinsettia cannot be grown 
out-of-doors excepting from Santa Barbara south; such palms as 
Cocos plumosa, Livistona chinensis, Seaforthia elegans, Areca 
sapida, and Washingtonia filifera are not to be trusted farther 
north than Point Concepcion and the Sierra Madre; two species 
of Eucalyptus, ficifolia and calophylla, are in danger where the 
temperature drops to twenty-eight degrees. 
F ROM the standpoint of design there are several errors upon 
which the unwary may fall in establishing a tropical gar¬ 
den. Such choice of plants must be made as will not thwart 
these climatic demands, else an unusual winter may leave the 
garden with ugly vacant spots and entail the loss of years until 
slow-growing successors replace the lost plants. 
Again, unsuitable genera should not be associated. It is an 
error easy to commit when plants from so many different re¬ 
gions take to local conditions with like eagerness. This should 
be no defense for juxtaposing a Cocos Palm from southern Bra¬ 
zil and a White Pine from northern Michigan, though it does 
make possible the neighborly existence of Cryptomerias from 
Japan, Yuccas from Mexico, and Cannas from the Ganges’ 
banks. 
In the third place, equatorial verisimilitude is not achieved 
without some such close surface planting as suggests the very 
jungle itself. Tropical plants do not demand the constant cul¬ 
tivation of the soil that our Northern pets must have; there need 
be no fear of so obstructing the space that one cannot get to 
them. Obstructing the space with all sorts of succulents, 
grasses, and thick-growing shrubs is precisely what is needed to 
complete the tropical picture. 
