House and Garden 
pression, which so took off the sharp edge of strange¬ 
ness, never fully loses its hold. But there are 
differences. I'he conifers are more numerous and 
varied—a condition he had not looked for in ad¬ 
vance; the palm lifts its tall branches where the 
maple would have stood; the black acacia takes the 
place of the thorn tree; the eucalyptus looks from 
the heishts where the elm would have shaken its 
tresses; and the pepper droops its feathery leaves 
where the willow was wont to mourn. Then at 
the spot where would have been one of the queer 
beds in the l^oston Public Garden—those that so 
gracefully combine the modest forget-me-not and 
the queenly calla lily—the eye, seeking the persistent 
absurdity, finds satisfaction in the eccentricities of 
a cactus garden. But one realizes that queerness 
is characteristic of the cacti and that they make no 
pretense of being anything else. 
This sense of fitness is a close third among one’s 
As to the color discords, these are always a 
threatening danger where there are masses of 
bloom. All depends on the good taste of the gar¬ 
dener or his employer. For this reason one does 
stumble occasionally on dreadful combinations in 
private and hotel grounds; but the superintendent 
of parks in Los Angeles, James G. Morley, has a 
good eye for color, and the city parks very rarely 
offend in this way. They are not riots of blooms, 
for all the beautiful mass of it. 
As to special effects, the geranium is largely used 
for road border and hedges. The latter use is 
commoner in private grounds, as a lot division, 
although on the drive winding up the steep hillside 
in Elysian Park, the municipality thus uses the 
geranium for a long distance, as a protecting hedge 
on the lower side. A species of the ice plant is in 
very familiar use to cover rocks, the precipitous 
walls of embankments and of cuttings, and as a 
Courtesy Los Augeles Chamber of Commerce 
RESIDENCE OF EDWARD L. DOHENY, ESQ., CHESTER PLACE-LOS ANGELES 
Showing the use of the geranium as a border plant and the palm as a picture plant 
impressions in one of these Los Angeles parks in 
winter. The impression does not belong to the 
Boston Public Garden, where its place is taken by a 
consciousness of showy expensiveness. But you 
feel here that floral display is not particularly costly, 
and that great masses of geraniums, patches of 
held daisies, roadside begonias, nodding roses, and 
hedges of calla lilies, bloom because they can’t 
help blooming, and with no meaning of undue 
extravagance. “Where every month is June,” as 
the railroad advertisements say of California, why 
shouldn’t all the annuals be perennials and each 
park be one big, bright bouquet of flowers .? How 
else could they be true to California So the 
typical small park becomes a flower garden as natu¬ 
rally as in New ^Trk or New England it is almost 
anything else. 
path border. The cacti are usually concentrated, 
in a cactus garden; palms are used as picture plants 
in the centre of a lawn, and for roadside planting. 
In the latter use, the date and fan-shaped are often 
alternated, with an effect that is interesting and 
showy, but not very symmetrical. The black 
acacia is recognized as the best roadside tree for 
street use; but now and again one finds an avenue 
of tall palms which is very stunning and dignified— 
in fact, so impressive that it has been included as a 
feature in one or two of these parks. Doubtless, 
such is the ideal toward which the roadside use of 
palms always strives; but the avenue pathetically 
cries out—and generally in vain—for a sufficient 
accent at the end of the vista. To be satisfying, it 
absolutely must lead to something. The pampas 
grass is lovely by the waterside, and the banana 
