April. 1912 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
15 
An American garden where apple trees are being trained against simple 
lattice. The effect is charming and the method has many advantages 
What would have been a bare wall here is graced by fruit trees. The 
face of this stone is strung with stout wire for training the trees 
berries and blackberries. The early varie¬ 
ties of peaches are ripe in August and so 
are a few early varieties of apples, and a 
succession is maintained until the heavy 
frosts of fall arrive. 
The fruit garden is a source of antici¬ 
pation all summer long, and the realization 
will equal or exceed the anticipation. As 
soon as the flowers drop, the fruits com¬ 
mence to form. You can walk daily 
•through the garden, watching the fruits 
swell, growing larger and larger ; then they 
begin to take on color, and finally they are 
ready to eat — big, highly colored straw¬ 
berries and peaches that fairly melt in the 
mouth. This can all be accomplished with 
a minimum of labor and it does not require 
a vast amount of knowledge to be suc¬ 
cessful. 
A fruit garden is just as permanent as 
any plantation of trees and shrubs, and 
more permanent than most herbaceous gar¬ 
dens, for it does not require the occasional 
digging up and separating of the plants as 
is necessary with the iris and the peony, 
for instance, and it can be made just as attractive if care is 
taken in planting it. 
Growing fruits on small suburban lots may seem impossible, 
for one is accustomed to 
think of their being pro¬ 
duced by large trees. It 
is entirely possible, how¬ 
ever, for one can purchase 
miniature forms which 
will produce bigger, bet¬ 
ter flavored, and more 
highly colored fruit than 
is usually produced in 
commercial orchards. 
These dwarf trees can be 
grown in much less space 
than the larger kinds and 
they are so amenable to 
pruning and training that 
they can be grown in al¬ 
most any conceivable 
form. Exceedingly at¬ 
tractive displays can be 
made by training them in fan, espalier, or 
any of the flat forms against buildings or 
fences, or over porches, arbors or trellises. 
They can be trained low on trellises to 
form hedges or to screen unsightly ob¬ 
jects; in fact, their use about a small gar¬ 
den is almost unlimited to the gardener 
who has creative imagination. Apples, 
pears, peaches, plums and cherries can all 
be had in dwarf forms. 
The foliage of the grape is as good as 
any of the ornamental vines grown about 
the house when one is planting for land¬ 
scape efifects alone; the leaves are large 
and the beautiful green is always attrac¬ 
tive. In the late spring and early summer 
the grapes bear an abundant cpiantity of 
inconspicuous flowers, but their existence 
is heralded by their very fragrant odor. 
The grape makes an excellent vine for 
training over porches, arbors and sum¬ 
mer-houses or the many pergolas which 
have been neglected in that no vines have 
been planted over them. A pergola with¬ 
out a covering of vines is not attractive; 
it always seems out of place. Xo better vine for covering per¬ 
golas can be found than the grape. The dwarf fruit trees should 
be set about ten feet apart each way when grown in bush forms, 
b >u t when planted 
against buildings thev can 
be set closer together, 
the distance depending 
upon the method of prun¬ 
ing. The double-U .'•haped 
dwarf trees—wh.ich in 
many ways is the best 
form to grow on trellises 
against buildings—should 
be set four feet apart so 
as to allow one fc>ot be¬ 
tween each cane. Straw¬ 
berries may be grown in 
matted rows or in hills of 
individual plants. I pre¬ 
fer the latter way. In this 
case the plants are set 
eighteen inches apart. 
A good trellis on which 
There are few shrubs more beautiful in blos¬ 
som than the flowering cherry 
Upon the pergola at the back of the garden grapevines are trained, and the vege¬ 
tables in regular array seem as attractive as the arrangement of a formal garden 
