. 8 ee 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
Jan. 9.1904, 
THE RESIDENCE OF MR. J: i. 
WEIDENHOFER. 
The garden we have to describe this 
month is situated in Kent Town, about a 
mile from the centre of the city. - The 
first thing to strike a visitor is the neatness 
and method with which Mr. Weidenhofer 
has laid out the place. Having a property 
‘covering something over an acre in the 
‘shape of a triangle, with the house already 
‘set down in the middle of it, the problem 
was how to best utilise the house surround- 
ings so as. to harmonise with it, and at the 
same time give the utmost efficiency in 
both appearance and utility. This has 
‘been admirably accomplished, and for so 
‘comparatively limited an area we may say 
we have never seen better disposed effects. 
The front entrance is at the apex of the 
triangle, with Rhamnus hedges down each 
a 
eh 
i 
side. The house, which has a broad, com- 
fortable verandah facing the entrace, is 
some 10 or 12 feet higher than it, and the 
garden is consequently sloped gently from 
the house down to the gate. ; 
A. very large amount of exhaused or too 
clayey soil was carted out after the grading 
was done, scores of loads of old cow manure 
and loamy soil carted in to improve the 
beds. The centre of the triangle-shaped 
front garden consists of a Buffalo grass 
lawn, also triangle-shaped, and the beds 
and lines of Roses are laid out from this at 
the centre in rather straight but hardly 
avoidable geometrical lines. Around the 
centre three-sided bed are planted Roses 
and Carnations, the bed being some 7 ft. 
wide on each side. 3 ft. }-standards are 
used for the back row, and 18 in. }-stan- 
dards, or dwarfs, are used in the front row, 
The Residence 
leaving some 4 ft. between ‘the rows, the 
front row planted to face the middle of 
the spaces between the back row; between 
the dwarf Roses are planted choice Per- 
petual Carnations. Facing these on the 
opposite side of the paths are similar wide 
beds. with Roses and Carnations, and 
between them and the hedges further beds 
are being filled, the pathways being much 
narrower. 
Each path ‘is caréfully graded and'sloped 
and covered with siftea gravel, both sides 
‘of each path having a slightly sunken 
gutter of concrete cemented. - At the base 
of the triangle, and just opposite the front 
verandah, Mr. Weidenhofer has planted 
some 40 or 50 plants of another very 
favorite flower of his, viz., the Delphinium, 
the side spikes of which, with sprays of 
Asparagus Plumosus, he assured us, consti- 
tute his wife’s most useful table decorations 
during the hottest months of summer. 
proved of best decorative’ value’ for “his 
house. He also grows a few ferns, as these 
are pets of Mrs. Weidenhofer’s, and; doubt- 
less; when in due course the fever strikes 
him, he will add regal ‘and show Pelar- 
goniums and tuberous Begonias, a few of 
the very best, to the contents of this house. 
On the opposite side of the house is the 
little model orchard o. peaches, apricots, 
grapes, cherries, oranges; lemons, &c. The 
cherries (6 of the best varieties) and 12 
vines of the best dozen varieties, are en- 
closed in a wire netting hip-roofed frame 
house, one inch mesh netting being used. 
The wire was specially stretched and laced 
so as to show practically no sag and little 
or no join, and, though put up at a cost of 
£50, it will, we should think, last out the 
owner's existence. aa 
The cherries, which are kept dwarf 
pruned and severely summer pruned, have 
this summer, at four years old, produced 
. anit, Su 
The front verandah, being elevated 4 or 
5 feet above the beds, is bordered by a 
double row of 10 or 12 choice climbing 
Roses, the back row being taken high up, 
the front row carried festoon fashion lower 
down. On the verandah facing east is one 
of the finest plants of Asparagus Plumosus 
we have ever seen, over 20 ft. in length, and 
rising from hundreds of suckers 12 ft. high, 
and at the base 3 ft. through. 
Mr. Weidenhofer’s good temper and 
patience are at times tried by numerous 
requests for trails of Asparagus to decorate 
churches, &c. 
Just beyond the Asparagus and between 
the house and the hedge, is a compact, neat 
gable-roofed glass house about 12 ft. x 20 
ft. x 10 ft. high in centre. This has been 
used by the owner for propagating a large 
number of those Carnations that have 
of Mr. J. H. Weidenhofer, ‘ Rosalie,” Ke 
-and tantalise Jack Sparrow. 
No wonder * 
nt Town. 
heavy crops of fruit to delight the grower 
_ The vines, 
too, are carefully spur and rod pruned, and 
have an immense crop of shapely bunches. 
Beyond the fruit garden is a further con- 
tinuation or the flower borders, restricted 
practically ‘to Roses, dwarfs and own roots, 
and Carnations, and it is here that Mr. 
Weidenhofer is testing about 100 of the 
best of the Australian tree Carnations, and 
doubtless very many will, before a year is 
past, find their place on the rubbish heap. 
This part of the garden is shut in by a 12 ft. 
high galvanised fence from the road, and 
against this fence there is a two-year-old 
passion fruit vine spreading rapidly upon 
the wire netting against the iron, and 
loaded with hundreds of plump fruit. Mr. 
Weidenhofer wonders why more people 
do not invest in a plant or two of this 
