Definite Directions for Fall Activities in the Garden 
SUGGESTIONS OF GARDEN ARRANGEMENT—A SPECIMEN PLAN WHICH MAY BE APPLIED WITH CON¬ 
SIDERABLE VARIATIONS TO FIT NUMEROUS CONDITIONS—THE ADVANTAGE OF AUTUMN PLANTING 
by Grace Tabor 
Photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals 
T S it not true that there is a something in common between the 
quieting down of Nature’s preparation for the winter rest 
and the very act of planting — of burying in the earth? For that is 
what planting really is, and it always seems to me that the plants 
themselves would rather be “planted” then and tucked in snugly 
and left to rest. 
All of which is a most fanciful vagary, to be sure; yet it is not 
by any means a misrepresentation of the real state of affairs. But 
there is another reason, an esthetic reason, that in itself is enough 
to prompt the fore¬ 
handedness of fall 
planting without any 
practical or sentimen- 
t a 1 considerations 
whatever. And this is 
the very real advan¬ 
tage actually gained 
by fall planting. With 
the coming of spring, 
work is done instead 
of to be done; there 
is something there. 
It is usual to begin 
our garden apology- 
promises about with 
the coming of the 
first dandelion. From 
then on the burden of 
our song, sung aloud, 
fortissimo, to our 
neighbors and the 
critical non-gardening 
members of our fami¬ 
lies, or hummed pi¬ 
anissimo, secretly to 
our own hearts, is 
“this - is - what -it’s-go- 
ing-to-be;” for by the 
time the first dande¬ 
lion smiles broadly up 
at our feet, the garden’s “improvements” have just about reached 
the most impossible stage. Hence, so far from contributing fa¬ 
vorably to its general appearance, they uglify it beyond measure. 
Every spot that has had earth turned up in the process of plant¬ 
ing or transplanting, is marked by anaemic, weary looking grass, 
if grass remains at all; otherwise it shows bare earth. Every little 
leaf bud that had started into growth on trees or shrubs just set 
out, has given up and is dead and black. And borders that are 
newly made show long and bare and brown, with never a green 
iris blade spearing its way through, or rosy peony shoot glowing 
with promise of what lies beneath. 
“Shucks,” say the unfeeling, “where's the garden?” 
Then begin the explanations and the apologies and the efforts 
to demonstrate beauties which are to be — another season; but 
even the politest, and the most considerate, and the most imagina¬ 
tive, unsupported by the gardener’s faith and hope as they of 
course must be, can muster only faint murmurs expressive of 
obviously fainter belief in the wonders so confidently predicted. 
Fall planting does away with all this—and it gives us too a 
chance to enjoy that ever delightful spring expectancy which is 
as true a fruit of gardening as any that more substantially feeds 
the inner man. A garden, newly made and put to sleep, offers 
quite as much in its awakening as any long established garden 
does. Buds open in the springtime, green appears, the blossoms 
take their turn just as buds and green and flowers ought to do; 
and even though they are less rank and lusty than the second year 
will show them, sure¬ 
ly the fact of having 
them at all, of really 
having a garden that 
shows the year of its 
infancy something of 
what it will become 
when time brings it to 
fulfilment, is enough. 
So much for the 
new garden; now for 
the old. Autumn is 
the time when defects 
are most obvious, 
when gaps show, 
when vegetation, 
generally tired out 
and ready to stop 
work for awhile, re¬ 
veals its weak spots. 
Therefore it is the 
time above all others 
when the garden 
should be examined 
and studied from 
every point, and cor¬ 
rections should be 
made. 
None but the gar¬ 
den maker knows the 
ideal toward which he 
is working; none but the garden maker is qualified, therefore, to 
say what the garden needs to have added, changed or rejected. 
And not until he has spent a week in studying it, from every 
angle, from near at hand and at a distance, from indoors as well 
as out, is even he qualified, perhaps, to say what it needs. A week 
spent in such study will be a week well spent, and will reveal a 
great deal, if each discovery is noted down as soon as it is dis¬ 
covered. Then it should be noted outdoors, on the ground with 
stakes labeled and driven in where new things are to be planted 
or just plain stakes set down beside the things which are to be 
transplanted. 
Orders should be placed so that goods may be delivered by the 
end of September in the latitude of New York, September and 
October being the months most favored by the experts for fall 
planting here. The idea is to give things a chance to become 
settled in the ground and established before the leaves would 
naturally fall. This allows the summer’s wood to ripen and the 
The garden which has been planted in the fall attains by the following summer a com¬ 
pleteness and appearance of age impossible with spring planting 
