KEEPING UP WITH THE CEIMATE 
IN CALIFORNIA 
ALICE GRAVES 
Member of the Santa Barbara Garden Club 
A Little Garden that Is Always Gay with Flowers and Plants Chosen to Fit the Finished Picture 
MraOOD morning, little California Garden! I hope you are 
llliPl glad to see me hack even if it does mean that your semi- 
vacation is finished. House cleaning and moving begin 
for you now that autumn is here. I bring greetings 
from your great family of Eastern relations. They were pre¬ 
paring for a vacation of the sort that you may never know or 
enjoy in this climate, for it is your business to be as attractive 
to our Eastern friends when they arrive this winter, as their gar¬ 
dens were to us in the summer. 
This means that we must get very busy at once. The last of 
your summer annuals must come out, though they still look well, 
and the new planting must be pushed along so that the seedlings 
may get a good start before the colder nights come. Oh! You 
say you are a little tired with the fast growing that summer en¬ 
forced, the strenuous fight with all the pests, and nothing to 
drink but the city water with its distasteful alkalies. Not a 
drop of soft, sweet rain during the entire summer! Yes, I know, 
faithful friend, California is a busy place for all of us. Keeping 
up with this climate gives some anxiety on my side of our work. 
But you are really looking very well, true to the law of growth 
affecting both your family and mine, which requires this con¬ 
stant battle for life. 
The thing that impresses me most as I return to you is your 
freshness and cheerfulness. We were very wise when we made 
the sacrificial uprooting of all those trees and shrubs that were so 
beautiful for a short period, and ever after maintained an abused 
and dejected appearance. With them moping about, you could 
never have seemed altogether happy, for each one of them chose 
a different time to express its regret that it could not keep up 
with the California game. We have such a large choice of 
shrubs and trees introduced here from all parts of the earth, re¬ 
maining always evergreen and gay, that there is absolutely no 
excuse for a small garden to assume a tired expression at any 
season; except for the fact that many misguided garden owners 
France r Benjamin Johnston , Photo 
A PASTEL BORDER IN THE GARDEN OF “ALICON” 
Blue Flax, Rosy Morn Petunias, Salvia azurea, and creamy Gladiolus, Agathea, Ageratum, and Iris against a lace-work 
of shrubbery and vines. Bignonia speciosa (at right) lifts a shower of pale orchid-pink blossoms up to the second- 
story windows and Hardenbergia climbs even more valiantly upwards (centre). At the author’s Santa Barbara home 
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