An Experimental Year in a Flower Garden 
WHAT WAS LEARNED ABOUT COLOR ARRANGEMENT AND PLANNING A GARDEN— 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PRINTED DESCRIPTIONS AND THE ACTUAL RESULTS 
T O live in a garden 
has, for years, 
seemed to me the acme 
of earthly bliss. The 
garden of my dreams 
has always been en¬ 
closed, not so much to 
shut out, as to shut in, 
for I would share the 
pleasures of my garden 
with all who love its con¬ 
tents. ]\Iy little imper¬ 
fect one of to-day may 
be a preparation for, or 
foretaste of. the joy that 
will be mine when my 
dream comes true. 
It was in the years when 
a city flat was my home 
and a public park my 
garden, that I began to 
study the care of plants 
and to choose the ones — 
which varied but slightly 
from year to year — that 
I deemed essential for 
the smallest beginning. green tropical foliage of the 
1 h e opportunity f o r blossoms 
demonstrating my “book 
knowledge” came, when, 
two years ago in August, we came by M . \ i r G i 
into possession of a house and a 
37' 6" X 150' lot in Oak Park, Protographs by Mary H. 
a suburb of Chicago. The lawn in 
front and a few feet from the house in the back was in fair 
condition; the rest was bare earth and wild grass sod, over which 
were scattered dilapidated barrels, lime, sand and minor building 
debris. I began at once to reduce some of my garden ideas into 
concrete form and soon had a plan on paper which I have been 
working out and which has, on the whole, thus far been satisfac¬ 
tory. By the fifteenth of October the portions assigned to the 
service garden, as well as the shrubbery and flower border, had 
been spread with manure and spaded and the shrubs and a few 
bulbs planted. The soil is light sandy loam, easily worked. My 
actual experience in flower growing had been so meager that I 
confined myself to old, easily-grown plants and shrubs, with a 
few additional ones I had seen blooming in parks. 
I have drawn for greater clearness the plan of the border, 
the numbers on it corresponding to the appended list. I wanted, 
first of all, of course, plenty of green to serve as a background 
for the flowers. By consulting the plan, three sumacs will be 
found in the southeast corner, with one elder in front. Had I 
then this year’s experience, these two shrubs would have contin¬ 
ued clear across the garden. The dark green of the sumac and 
lighter tones of the elder with their luxuriance of growth make 
them desirable, aside from the beautiful bloom of the latter in the 
spring and the brilliancy of the former in the autumn. The 
syringa coming next along the fence is all that could be desired, 
but the five Persian lilacs — three purple and two white, beautiful 
in blossoming time—are to me undesirable as a background 
shrub, particularly the 
white. The foliage is 
small and thin. The Jap 
snowball has yet to 
prove itself more desir¬ 
able than the old it has 
all but superseded. Had 
I known enough to have 
placed these foreign 
plants in front of stur¬ 
dier growth, their mea¬ 
gerness would not have 
been so apparent and the 
impression more favor¬ 
able. In front of the 
lilacs, the three Rugosa 
roses are satisfactory 
with clean, fresh-looking 
foliage — the older dark 
and rich and the newer 
flower producing 
branches of a warm, 
tender, spring-like green. 
Running from the su¬ 
mac north across the lot 
are two high bush cran- 
, nil If berries, only one of 
sumac made an excellent background for bloomed and 
no berries formed last 
year, and few this year. 
NiA Arford possibly because it is not suffi¬ 
ciently well established. Nor has 
Northend and Thos. Marr the Betchel’s crab blossomed, 
though growing; but the two 
double flowering almonds, pink and white, were covered with 
small rose-like flowers, dhe three Van Houtts spiraeas flowered 
even last year, and this spring were a mass of white. When 
these shrubs were planted and well mulched, I waited for spring. 
However, with the coming of the first catalogue in Febiuai}, my 
gardening in a sense, as well as its difficulties, began, dhere 
were difficulties of selection, for all seemed so desirable. What 
to leave out became a problem and the list was revised many 
times. In the end. as with the shrubs, I chose the reliable, com¬ 
mon flowers to which were added a few perennials, highly recom¬ 
mended bv those practical writers whom I have come to regard 
as authorities. 
Not having the necessary space to put the colors in separate 
beds, I worked out a color scheme for the annuals along the 
north, which on paper looked very attractive, and in my ignoiance 
I assumed that labor, which I was willing to give fieely, was all 
that was required to transform the brown seed into the tints of 
my color box. As will be seen I have simply separated the three 
primaries, red, blue and yellow, by secondaries, except in the 
uniting of blue and yellow, which would, of couise, result m 
green. These two primaries make a natural and pleasing contrast, 
and not too strong, when white predominates where they merge. 
I have made yellow in the corner the pivotal color, with the warm 
reds in scarlet and cardinal at one end and carmines and pinks 
at the other. Violet — a product of pink (red) and blue — is placed 
between these two primaries. Again, yellow combined with scar- 
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