KELSEY’S HARDY AMERICAN PLANTS 
Landscape Department 
Planning and Planting, and the Use of Hardy Native Plants 
The successful carrying out of any landscape improvement depends to so great an 
extent upon the knowledge, skill, and good taste of the one to whom this work is intrusted, 
that it is supremely important to start right, no matter whether the work be large or small. 
By the employment of a trained landscape architect expensive experiments may be 
avoided and successful results insured. This applies to questions both of design and of 
practical planting. 
There are so many well-trained landscape architects today that there is little excuse 
for anyone not having the joys that come from well-executed work that properly fits each 
case. 
The undersigned takes charge of the laying out and planting of large and small 
grounds, extensive estates, parks, cemeteries, and other public or private landscape 
improvements. Particular attention is given to the use of hardy American plants, which 
are unquestionably the basis of all the best permanent plantings in this country, and 
particularly where naturalistic effects are desired. If this fact is ignored, the most finished 
and lasting results cannot be secured. The formal garden, where in the past exotics have 
been used almost exclusively, has wonderful possibilities for the employment of native 
plants, and especially our magnificent Rhododendrons, Kalmias, and other broadleaf 
evergreens, as well as Junipers, Hemlocks, Pines and other Conifers. These plants are 
not only absolutely hardy and unusually free from foreign diseases and pesls, but show 
splendid summer and winter effects that can be produced in no other way. There are, 
in fact, no foreign plants which can adequately take their place. 
Horticultural knowledge, including soil requirements and an intimate acquaintance 
with plant material, is quite as essential as and co-ordinate with proper designing, — 
facts too often overlooked. Moreover, water-color sketches do not constitute landscape 
gardening. It is an art to be practised only after years of study and experience and, like 
painting and sculpture, must be born in one and cannot be altogether acquired. 
We arc not committed to the use of Native Plants exclusively, and, where useful and 
advisable, always introduce the best exotics to produce desired results. 
The undersigned is prepared to make professional visits for consultation and advice, 
to make surveys, plans, and designs, and to undertake the entire construction, planting, 
and carrying out of landscape work of all descriptions. 
The wild garden, the rockery, and the bog and water garden offer possibilities in the 
way of interest, distinctiveness, and variety that arc often almost wholly overlooked or 
but mcagcrly taken advantage of. 
The mountain or seashore bungalow, the modest town home, and the pretentious 
estate must each have a treatment suitable to particular needs, though in every case a 
development should prevail that makes the most of striking natural features or topography, 
giving to each a character of its own. 
Lack of time, distance, and other conditions may sometimes lead customers to desire 
a local landscape architect. I know the leading members of the profession, and at any 
time on request will gladly recommend landscape architects who may be safely trusted 
with any commission, large or small. 
Correspondence with those having new grounds to lay out and plant, or unsatis¬ 
factory old grounds to make over, is solicited. Charges are reasonable, yet sufficient to 
warrant the best results in fairness to my clients and myself. 
IIARLAN P. KELSEY, Landscape Department 
Telephone Connection. Hawthorne Building, Salem, Massachusetts 
2 
