che AA ag CENA CNBR iY gp ie \ les af ra ea 5 sia hed con a 3 ee) Mans. FRANCIS KING New York State College of Agriculture At Gornell University Ithaca, N. B. Library LIBRARY FLORICULTL.2C DEPARTMENT GCORNELL-UNIKERSITY ITHACA, NEW YORK Cornell University Library The little garden, THE LITTLE GARDEN One of several good reasons for the little garden THE LITTLE GARDEN BY MRS. FRANCIS KING With Illustrations and Tables THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON Copyright, 1921 By Louisa Ygsomans Kine First Impression, July, 1921 Second Impression, January, 1922 Printed in the United States of America NOTE In preparing this book I have found much help in Miss Grace Tabor’s “The Suburban Garden,” Mr. A. T. dela Mare’s “The Garden Guide,” and Mr. H. S. Adams’s “The Flower Garden.” To Mr. Leonard Bar- ron, editor of the “Garden Magazine,” I make grateful acknowledgment for the use of tables taken from that publication. Miss Isabella Pendle- ton and Mrs. Elizabeth Leonard Strang have also been kind enough to lend for the book their charts or suggestions for color-arrangement of flowers; and I am indebted to Professor E A White for the capital tables of herbaceous perennials from a Cornell University Bulletin. To the friend who permits the publication of her planting-plan in chapter 1, and to those others who have given me many of the photo- graphs for illustration, I am most grateful My largest debt, however, is to my friend, Fletcher Steele, Esq., whose kindness in reading the manuscript, and whose suggestions from the point of view of the land- scape architect, I record here with warm appreciation. Louisa Yeomans Kina. Orcuarp House, Atma, MIcHIGAN. April, 1921. PREFACE Tuk little garden, as it will be considered in these pages, means not exclusively the spaces for flowers available in a town or sub- urban lot. It means, too, the setting for those spaces — the ground about the house, and that in which the garden lies. It is a comprehensive term, to include the planting, planning, and treatment of the whole of a piece of ground of a size to be found most generally in towns and suburbs. Material for the good small garden lies so near us. Native trees and shrubs, in these days of the Ford car, are at our doors; the flora of the woods, the envy of all foreign gardeners, which even the strictest of the preservers of wild flowers is willing that one should gather for purposes of propagation — these native plants are among the finest in any land. Almost every communi- ity has its good nurseryman, while a postcard brings that rain- bow breath of summer in January, the catalogue of flower-seeds. There is no excuse, none, for leaving the ground empty and ugly about our houses. “Some day,” said Tchekhov, the Russian poet, wistfully talking in his rose-garden with a friend, “‘some day all Russia will be a garden like this.” It may be that the fearful fertilizing of these years in Russia will bring forth beauty, even the beauty of roses; but on our own quieter continent, where the arts of peace are intelligently practised and loved, there should be, there will be, millions of little gardens for the satis- faction and delight of men and women, but, above all, for flow- ery pathways in which to set the youngest feet, the feet of the children. The little garden will save the children. In it the children are the first to feel at home; for where is the baby who does not love viii PREFACE a flower? And where is the four-year-old who will not plant and watch a seed? If our children grow to manhood and womanhood without the love of beauty, we are a nation lost. I quote the words of a friend, a fine woman farmer: “There never was a time when so much was being done to foster the commercial spirit on the farmin the children. Look at the pig clubs, the baby- beef clubs, the poultry clubs, the canning clubs, which the gov- ernment is promoting. Beauty, too, should be cultivated in the young. If the children do not grow up with flowers, they never will fully enjoy them.” When, throughout this country, the flower-garden on the farm — when the small place, well planned and planted — shall have become the rule, not the exception, we shall possess a per- vading loveliness in a land where to-day such loveliness is sadly lacking. In the successful treatment of ground small in dimen- sion, in the beautiful quality of the little garden, lies the true future beauty of America. CONTENTS I. Srruation, Som, SURROUNDINGS . . . Il. Tue Puan... ; e. oe. SP ng. 43 5 ITI. Enciosine THE GARDEN: THE WALL, THE FENCE, THE HEDGE IV. AccEessorigEs AND ADJUNCTS OF THE GARDEN V. Firowers In THE Litre GARDEN > ce. dia th 8 VI. Cotor in THe Litre GARDEN Bl, ee HR ee VIL. Cars or tae Littite GarpEn: Toois, PRUNING, SPRAYING 45 61 86 ILLUSTRATIONS One or Srverat Goon Rzasons For THE Little GARDEN Frontispiece ScREENING OUT THE GARAGE WITH PoPLARS % ee: ere atu HO Enp Puantine For Smatu Phrack . . . . . . . 16 Puan or a Lirtte Garpen Near Boston . . . . . 18 Sprrea ABOVE Iris i 8 «© & ww oe & ae & 2 180 A Mars.e Seat Wett DesicNED AND WELL Phacep . . . 36 Bauance In THE Lirtt—e GaRDEN . . . . . . . 40 A Larticep Bounpary FENcE a Ge Ge Je os & Q, 2 & ne —~— 3S = © gS 8 wy 8 S iS} Lad ~~ ~~» 3 So > ~~ *— s XX o 5 R SITUATION, SOIL, SURROUNDINGS 7 hundred feet, with wire, arranging a little entrance gate also of wire. In front of this lot, between sidewalk and street, we set two very fine American elms fifty feet apart, of the kind used in the Boston parks, and a third was planted at the extreme back of the lot, in one corner, to give shade and pleasure to a family. Fruit trees were set near the fences at the back, — apple, cherry, plum, pear, — and six grapevines started, with the fence as sup- port. Itwas the intention, when building there, to place the house within fifteen feet of the street, fill the intervening spaces with flowers, so that all passers-by might enjoy them, and so divide all the ground in the rear as to give, first, a space of green grass for drying clothes, and for use by the family in warm weather; sec- ond, a space for flowers; third, a space for vegetables; and fourth, a space for a garage. Alas, that in a lot of this size to-day the garage seems to be a part of the family need. I could write here many reasons against this so-called need. I see sometimes the deterioration of the fam- ily, physical and mental, brought about by the Ford and its kind; but in a book on the garden this type of discussion is not in place. However, the waste of good ground underneath the ga- rage, and the fearful ugliness ofits bulk in the small lot, are things which all gardeners of thebetter sort must feel anddeplore. One’s own garage is the thing to screen away from sight ordinarily; just as, on the estate of the rich, the greenhouse is— and cannot be otherwise, no matter how well designed — a blot upon the landscape. II THE PLAN Tue plan for the little garden is the pivot of success. Unless all is first put down on paper, drawn to scale, and visualized by its owner, nothing is likely to turn out well. It is the lack of plan that is responsible for most that is ugly in America; and it is the plan that is responsible for the value and amazing production of most small foreign gardens, notably those of the French, whose plots yield out of all proportion to their size, in fruits, vegetables, and flowers. As a practical matter, the plan is a necessity; and here we may, we must, turn to the landscape architect. There is no alternative. The good book, the clever or able friend, is a poor substitute for that adviser, whose training, knowledge, and experience will bring all that is best out of the least promising situation. Where circumstances permit, neglect to call in the services of a land- scape architect, and that before the house site is decided upon, is almost worse than the failure to bring to a sick man that other professional man whom he needs. It is worse. For, in the latter case, it is but the individual who suffers and may die. In the former, it is all who see that suffer. Not only the garden’s owner, and those who dwell within its fence, hedge, or wall, but every- one who enters there thenceforth fares ill or well, as beauty or the lack of it meets his gaze. In the ways of beauty no man liveth to himself. “Call a landscape architect to design so small a place as mine!” you exclaim. Certainly. The smaller the space, the more important is expert advice for treatment. I cannot too emphatically assert and reassert the need of the landscape archi- tect for every man, as he commits himself, to use the phrase of THE PLAN 9 Ruskin, in planning, building, planting. Your companion, then, as you visit your chosen ground, should be, first, your landscape architect, and next, your architect. For my own part, I should not dare to consider buying a piece of ground without the type of advice here advocated, much less undertake to outline the steps to follow the purchase. Spend less on plant-subjects the first year or two, but do not fail, under any circumstances, to spend what you should upon a plan from the best landscape architect available. And now the question rises — should our little place be formal or informal in its treatment? Here I will not enter upon an aca- demic discussion of this interesting question, such as has torn to bits the tempers of several distinguished people in gardening. I shall only remind the reader that informal planting in a restricted area is much more difficult to manage than formal. It is my opinion that for small lots, for small gardens, the rectangular idea, closely followed, produces better effects, is practically more productive, and gives, in consequence, a greater satisfaction and pleasure than the informal plan. The formal plan has this first thing to recommend it: it saves space. In a small, narrow lot it is likely that a division of the back or living part into long narrow spaces will be best. And in that case a terminal feature at the far end of such a space from the house will be in place: say a small pavilion, shelter, or, perhaps, only a well-designed seat. But the informal plan must be considered; for there are always spots where it is to be preferred. And the very simplest material with which to block in an informal plan is shrubbery. Oh, for more tongues in which to sing the praises of this glorious mate- rial, the bush or little tree! Here it is for use — upright, droop- ing, tall, dwarf, hardy, blooming at almost every season of the year; and much of it so lovely when fruiting, or even leafless, as to call forth cries of admiration from the observer of what is 10 THE LITTLE GARDEN good. Shrubs may be planted in either spring or autumn. Their requirements are a deep-dug, well-fertilized soil and some covering of rather fresh manure about the roots for the first winter after planting. A very excellent suggestion given in “The Garden Guide” is this: for an immediate effect, shrubs should be planted almost twice as closely as they are to stand permanently. It is there advised to plant only part of one’s place the first year, and plant it thickly. By the time one is ready to plant the other part, one can draw upon the beds first planted for stock. Though I had not before seen such advice given in print, it has always been my practice to move shrubs frequently — my mistake being that I have usually let them go too long. They were then leggy and unmanageable when taken out from a crowd of their kind; not pretty enough to stand alone anywhere, or even in the front of a border. To return to the main topic, however — the question between formality and informality of plan. In Mrs. Asquith’s much- discussed autobiography, a witty man is mentioned who divides his acquaintance into two classes, life-givers and life-takers. Plants are the same. To my way of thinking, the formal plan grows, and allows for life on the small place, especially on the fifty by a hundred lot, while informal planting smothers it. Informal grouping of shrubs means that the shears must never be applied for cutting back, but only for thinning or pruning; it means that flowers, as a rule, must be grown before, in front of, shrubs. This is very well for a year or two, while shrubs are small; but as they develop, they become in the ugliest degree life-takers. Often have I seen, in my early gardening years, the finest flowers fail before the advancing cruel roots of bush honeysuckle or of mock orange. However, whethe> we advocate formal or informal plans, one thing is needed in either case; and that is some line or border of THE PLAN 11 green growth which shall encircle the lot — shall make it into that garth, or enclosed spot, which gives the word garden its old first meaning. “A garden is a man-made, bounded outdoor area, containing plants.” If your plan is formal, this line may be a trimmed green hedge; if informal, a lightly overhanging one of taller or lower shrubs. But a border there must be, a line of enclosing green; and within that line all garden practices will thrive the better for the protection from four-foot and two-foot, — the running boy, — and especially for protection from the too curious eye. Be it remembered always, that the garden belongs, first of all, to him or her who owns it and makes it; it is that man or woman who should be first considered in thinking of all plans. The owner’s own taste and desires in gardens are the things that matter. That taste needs to be led, it needs direction still, and will for many years to come, until everyone shall have secured a little knowledge, at least, of the principles with which we are concerned in this matter of garden design. Since the garden (and now we shall consider under that name only that part of the lot back of the house) is, as it is constantly called, an out-of-door room, we must first look upon it in its con- nection with the house, The main axis of the whole plan at the back should be determined upon before anything else is thought of; an important doorway or other opening at the back of the house is usually the point to determine this; and upon the straight line from this doorway to the far end of the property the whole thing must hinge. The ways of varying such a plan are countless: beautiful rectangles may be made on the very smallest bit of ground; squares symmetrically arranged, and bound to- gether by a central walk or little cross-walks. I have in mind now a little garden that really had no house-door from which to take its cue for walks and general plan at the back; but a good window gave upon the little property, which, amounting to sixty-two feet 12 THE LITTLE GARDEN by thirty, was thus divided. Immediately below the window to the south lay a bed of hybrid tea roses, all across the lot, and five feet six inches deep. First, however, a hedge of privet Ibota, to be three or four feet high and kept trimmed, enclosed the whole lot on both sides to within seven feet of the far end. Next to the rose-bed there was a drying-green of grass, about twenty feet square. In the corners of this green space, some two feet in to- ward the centre, stood four dwarf apple trees of standard varie- ties for blossom and fruit. As dwarf standards these would never be so large as to interfere with the practical uses to which this spot must be put. The privet hedge enclosing the ground now en- closes this ‘square of grass, leaving a space of five feet in the centre of the hedge for an open walk of grass to an arbor of trel- lis-work at the back of the little place. This grass-walk now carries one south, first, between two beds of very simple design for perennial plants; next, past two very long, narrow beds, for annuals, two and a half feet wide. Back of these borders, on either side, are spaces reserved for vegetables. The perennial beds are separated from those for annual flowers and vegetables by a low white trellis four feet high, in the simplest possible de- sign of open squares; and back of this low fence to the south, close below it, is a line of stepping-stones from hedge. to grass- walk, for the convenience of the worker in the tiny garden. The grass walk leads to a trellised arbor, ten feet wide by over five deep, where a bench can readily be placed, and a pretty vista of flowers, grass, hedge, and trees obtained. The arbor is entirely framed in by tall shrubs, Lonicera tatarica and Philadelphus coronarius. Imagine what a charming terminal point this is — like sitting in a little grove; and though but a few feet wide and deep, even here may the imagination be stimulated, and the sug- gestion of a larger and more peaceful beauty be indulged in. On this small lot the garage is in the extreme southwestern corner — THE PLAN 13 its eastern wall masked by leaves of the wild grape. Its con- crete drive (and is there anything uglier and more interrupting than a drive or a walk of whitish concrete anywhere?) is hidden from the garden, first, by the four-foot privet hedge; and for forty feet from the house to the rear, — where there is an irreg- ular space, broader here, narrower there, — by a planting of half a dozen fine hybrid lilacs. Below these lilacs a capital space is afforded for spring flowering bulbs. The house covers practically the whole width of the lot. Across the front is a verandah, with broad steps at the west end. Regel’s privet is planted below the porch across the front, and carried around to the east side; Regel’s privet, too, flanks the steps to the right as one ascends them; also there is a small arbor-vite pyramidalis on either side of the same steps. Ampe- lopsis Lowii is used now and again against the stucco foundation of the house. This plan, while it is decidedly intensive, and may seem to some people rather crowded, is, when carried out, really entrancing. Planting can never get ahead of the gardener if he is constantly on the watch, and keeps in active use the pruning shears and the saw. And oh, the pleasures of variety! They do indeed give life half its zest. The ingenuity of such a balanced plan as this must result in countless joys for the owner of the garden: his few square feet of grass, flowers, vegetables; his ultimate few bushels of fruit; the delight of his crocuses, tulips, and daffodils in spring; his fol- lowing lilacs, then his flowering mock oranges and honeysuckles; this interest to be quickly supplanted by blooming squares of summer flowers — what a succession of pleasures, what a pro- cession to anticipate during the winter months! The one thing lacking on this place, and probably of necessity so, is the presence of one good tree for shade. On so narrow a lot both root-growth and shade, however, would have had their 14 THE LITTLE GARDEN disadvantages for the owner, and for his neighbor as well. A tree is a great beauty; it is a comfort and a convenience; but some- times one might be quite unable to give it hospitality. And the interest of other planting will readily divert the mind from what it cannot have. There is an informal plan set forth on page 19 of the “Book of Garden Plans,” by Mr. Stephen A. Hamblin, which I might profitably mention here. This is the informal planting of a small lot reduced to its lowest terms. It is evidently a plan for an older time than ours: no automobile necessities seem to have existed; the owner was, evidently, satisfied to stay at home and play cro- quet. The matter of economy of expense and of upkeep was apparently in mind; and there was space for a few trees, as well as for a goodly variety of shrubs. Five creepers, or vines, are speci- fied about the foundation of the modest house, standing in a lot ninety by thirty feet. The trees used are, to the west of the house and close beside it, a sugar maple (Acer saccharum); just back of the house and still to the west, a Catalpa speciosa; and beyond these, in the corner of the lot, two specimens of the ailanthus or Tree of Heaven. Remembering all too vividly as I do, from child- hood days in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the bad odor of the flowers of the latter, I should always omit the ailanthus. The foundation planting of the house is Spirea Thunbergit, Ribes odoratum, or flowering currant, and Colutea arborescens, bladder senna — all good. The rear end of the little place is hedged by an informal grouping of five-leaved aralia (Acantho panax penta- phyllum), Japanese barberry (Berberis Thunbergit), staghorn su- mac (Rhus typhina), and Ramanas rose (Rosa rugosa) — a good planting all but the rose, which is not, in my opinion, a practical shrub, and may well be supplanted by such a shrub as Phila- delphus avalanche, a plant without a fault. Near the sumac, and along the east boundary-line, comes a group of flowering rasp- THE PLAN 15 berry (Rubus odoratus), and farther to the south, still along the line, wild Hydrangea arborescens appears. Japanese barberry lifts its low rounds along the entire front, or south line, of this place, and vines are used for the most part to screen the service- steps in the rear. To my thinking, the omission of the large- leaved subjects, such as Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia macro- phylla), and Tree of Heaven, as well as of Catalpa speciosa, would be a benefit to such a place as this. These have an exotic look; and the normal, the inconspicuous, in a small planting is essential to the best effect. I could, too, leave out the barberry. But these are matters of personal taste, introduced only for discursive rea- sons, and for the pleasure of provoking garden argument. An illustration shows another type of informal arrangement — what we may call an end arrangement of shrubs and plants, their grouping either for the purpose of dividing a lot half-way down its length, or furnishing it with a screen, a background, and a terminal feature at its utmost end. This planting forms one of the simplest and most practical possible. Yet, by careful man- agement, there may be had from these few feet of ground, say a space thirty feet square, an enclosure for daily use out of doors, a good effect of foliage, and many flowers for cutting during May, June, September, and October. The tall shrubs are old lilacs. When I say old, I mean that it is about twenty years since they were purchased. To the left, there happens to be a hedge of clipped Spirea Vanhouteii; to the right, bush honeysuckles. Within this curve, and forming another rather careless curve of their own, are fine peonies of various kinds; Marguerite Gérard, Jeanne d’Arc, Sarah Bernhardt, La Rosiére, among them. Between these peonies appear, in May, before the peony leaves are developed, grape hyacinth, Mus- cari, Heavenly Blue, and daffodils, planted mainly to the left of the grass space. A little to the right of the centre, and still 16 THE LITTLE GARDEN among the peonies, in the open ground, which must always be left open for the well-being of that plant, bloom in late August a dozen or two plants of that very tall Helianthus orgyalis, Miss Mellish; below these, and planted among the peonies quite thickly, are some fine later and lower hardy asters or Michaelmas daisies, such as Lil Fardell, Climax, Aster amellus elegans; some- times a Buddleia also has been allowed to seem as if escaping from this group of gold and purple flowers by flowering to right and left of it. Buddleias, in that case, were planted back of the peonies, between them and their background of lilac or honey- suckle, but not on the side with the spirea. See, now, what this simple planting gives us: a planting made up. of, say, six lilacs, ten spireas, six bush honeysuckles, twenty- four peonies, with the other plants used at discretion. Privacy, shade at certain times of day, a screen, at least four little flower- crops, and, at all times, beauty. In winter, a leafless beauty, it is true. But how easily could one substitute for the lilacs white spruce, with a group, to the right and left, of some sort of cedar of a formal type, and face this curving round of evergreens with a low border of the handsome Cotoneaster horizontalis, letting these evergreen subjects take their way to full development alone, with no intermixing of deciduous shrubs or trees. This planting is more costly in its beginning, and its main flowers should be a brilliant effect of color in spring, from crocus and tulip; for herbaceous plants would not do well among these roots. But a gorgeous picture could in this way be assured; a rich green of foliage for the whole year is relieved in autumn by the gay color of the foreground of cotoneaster. I am told, how- ever, that this cotoneaster is not reliably hardy in the latitude of Boston, and often loses its leaves in winter in the latitude of Philadelphia; therefore, another low-growing shrub must be found for the foreground of the grouping proposed. aovjd yous Lof Burpunjd pug THE PLAN 17 The only garden plan published in this book, given for the reason that it is without doubt one of the best arrangements for restricted areas that one could find, is that of a charming small place near Boston. A few pages back I tried to set forth in words the plan of a little garden in which grass, fruit, flowers, and vegetables were provided by spacing them one beyond another, from the rear of the house to the rear of the lot. The garden now to be considered has a totally different arrangement. The flower- and vegetable-gardens flank the central turf, flowers to the right and vegetables to the left; and the logic of this is seen as the gen- eral proportion of the property is noticed. The house, L-shaped, with its wing to the south, stands perhaps forty feet from the sidewalk, in ground measuring roughly seventy feet by one hundredand ten. A straight walk leads from sidewalk toentrance porch, and opposite this porch stepping-stones take one to a sundial on a circular paved platform. Turning here sharply to the left, this walk of stepping-stones runs to the southwest, about ten feet within the boundary line of the place, connecting with a brick walk. This walk, flanked by flower spaces, continues to the entrance to the narrow garden south of the lawn at the rear of the house, when stepping-stones again are used for a walk straight through the garden, broken only by a bird-bath on a paved platform of stone. This long walk, now of stone, now of brick, now of stone again, is the axis upon which hinge the flower- beds south of the house and the small formal garden beyond. Opposite this small flower-garden, across the lawn to the left, is the space given over to the vegetable garden. This, too, has its long walk, connecting with a brick service-walk to the left. The two walks and the two gardens are in delightful balance as regards each other; and the two gardens, as may be seen, are perfectly tied to each other by a belt of high shrubs at the far end of the oblong of turf, and by a generous planting of shrubs and 3 18. ‘THE LITTLE GARDEN flowers between the low terrace of the house and the same grass ‘oblong. This is a lesson in the beautiful use of a small piece of ground. So much variety here, interest at every turn, yet such charming relation of part to part and of all to the house in the ‘midst. The planting is full of good suggestion too; and concern- ing this I am permitted to use some sentences of the garden’s mistress; these from letters of some years since, when the house ‘was new, the garden in process of planting. “For brevity let us say the house is exactly north, south, east and west; that is, the street-side north, the terrace-side south, etc. First, to complete the house, above the dining-room and study is the living-room, seventeen by thirty feet, with eight feet of balcony across the west end, and five diamond-paned windows looking through the ash tree into the garden and be- yond into the L—— and T——— gardens. The conception of the house is old English, because I think the small English cottage house is the most charming of small houses. The balcony, again, looks into the green trees and lawns of the S estate. So, to start with, we have lovely vistas from the living-room, and also from the south and west sides of the house. High fence and lilac hedge shut off our neighbor on the east, and the bench on the terrace is high at the back, that we may forget said neighbor’s kitchen-porch nearby. A high fence continues on the south line, to make a background for our enclosed view from terrace and study. What we have done so far is as follows: all the shrubs are planted; the trees were there; the garden’s brick walks are made; but not the stepping-stones, or sundial, arches, garden-house, etc. -The feeling that they will not look at home until the green backgrounds are a little higher has prevented our getting them. As to flowers, the suggestion was made of planting iris on both sides of the lawn, among lilac and spirea. One reason for this was that I did not wish too much of a flower-garden that took ex- wna ~ a gc omen’ Se = LON ON ON SN > f Pm Lciecaces? ja el SAS= WSR 3 JS 2 5 FXG YS a So _ ro ( ee Alw mee, Tuer PAUL R. FROST x LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT CAMBRIDGE MASS. Plan of a litile garden near Boston (THE PLAN 19 pensive care, as we really do most of the work ourselves, with the help of a little boy we are training. “Therefore both gardens on the two sides of the lawn have irises of varying colors, as all the flowers I have, almost, have been given to me by my generous gardening friends who have large and beautiful gardens. Against the back fence are the hollyhocks and woodbine. What we have in the principal flower- gardens, which are on both sides of the brick walk from the ter- race and along the west walk, too, are mostly annuals, because I did not wish to get things which I was not sure of, but we have delphinium, phlox Miss Lingard, Jeanne d’Arc, and another white; twelve blue Salvia patens, which I got this year from Dreer, bleeding hearts, which I love, two peonies, which have not bloomed, so I don’t know the color, pink cosmos, small Canterbury bells, blue, only they are not just that variety of campanula. We have Japanese anemones, a lovely old-fash- ioned rose-bush, white, just on the right coming down from the terrace on the west end, and a few other things. “This is what we have for vines, but I am not pleased with the selection. I think the idea of having all the vines the same kind, more or less, on a small house, is a good one. On the north front we have the Boston ivy, which has grown nicely; to the left of the front door a wisteria, no sign of blossoms in this its third summer; I think the vine is too heavy for the house. To the right of the front door, on the north wall, climbing up to the balcony, are Hall’s honeysuckle and trumpet vine. I don’t like these there. On the west wall of the study are grapevines, also on vegetable-garden fence; on the south wall of study the single carmine pillar rose; very pretty, but I would have liked an Eng- lish climbing rose. “As to bulbs, last spring I had only jonquils, a dozen Narcis- sus poeticus, early yellow tulips, and one dozen brilliant red 20 THE LITTLE GARDEN Darwin tulips. I have already ordered for next spring, but not many, in my effort not to make mistakes. I planned, in fact, only for the front shrubbery and for both sides of the little walk from the terrace to the south, which is bright with sunshine in early spring before the trees leaf out. Then I will explain what I had for the front and around to the terrace. Here the conditions are splendid, sunny with a little shade on the south sides, and wonderful in the spring, being protected from cold winds; there, in general, among the lilacs and spireas, one might have, first, bulbs, then, iris, then poppies and lupine, then gladioli; but the conditions are good for tall things, with shrubs as backgrounds. Something ought to come up rather more densely close to the terrace, as there is no wall. I have planted evonymous around it. In these special places I long to see beautiful color effects as often as possible: — “1, Just as one enters the walk from the street, I have left spaces on each side for bloom. Last spring I had there my yellow tulips, but I thought them too yellow with the jonquils all about, so I have ordered the pale lavender President Lincoln, to put there for next spring. “Q. Exactly in front of the front door-posts — spaces about nine inches in diameter. “3. A little space among the shrubs exactly at the head of the long front walk. “4, To the left of the front door; not much space after early spring flowers. “5. Both sides of the little brick walk from terrace to lawn; I had planned as I said for the spring, that we use pansies after- wards, but it is too shady for them. It is very shady there after the leafing of the trees. “6. Straight across the lawn from the same walk; the little vista is so pretty, and there is a good space between the shrubs there for color. THE PLAN 21 “, J am not sure I shall ever manage the garden-house, as indicated on the plan. I’m not sure I should like it; at least it will be the last thing, and just now it is a lovely place for color; one’s eyes rest on that spot as one starts down the little steps into the garden. “8. Color for pots, especially for the terrace as indicated on the plans. We have hydrangeas this year which are doing very well, only I don’t like hydrangeas; also Rosy Morn petunias, which are charming. *“*9. Color to climb the service gate. This is such a shady spot that I have not been able to arrange it — even rambler roses don’t do well. “Our soil is very sandy, and I sometimes think that I ought to make the gardens all over, as we have only one and a half feet of loam, I suppose, in most places. I want flowers mostly for spring and fall, with some, however, for summer. I like just these colors, violet, pale blue and cool rose with white. I do not like any red or yellow, except the spring yellow, and possibly the orange for fall in calendulas, if necessary, but I should rather have the other colors. As to how much I wish in actual gay color — especially the little gardens by the west study wall; one of the problems is the areas. I have wondered if one could have little pots around them, or a table made to fit in, for pots to stand on, or should one just accept them as utilitarian necessities, the price I am more than glad to pay, to be able to walk into my hospitable front door without a step? “These things, by my observation of gardens these last two years, I have learned I do not like: — “Yellow or red (except in spring); mixed colors in the same flower, double flowers as a rule, the same kind of flowers all over the garden. For instance, I should like the two west-side study gardens to be alike and to be balanced. I have thought of them perhaps as a succession of blue and white; but then I should like 22 THE LITTLE GARDEN the south study garden to be different from them, with different flowers. I have thought another rose-bush to balance the white one would be pretty, close to the terrace. How I should like to see adorable borders along the brick-walk garden, as I have no grass at all to edge the walk. Just now sweet alyssum, white, is pretty. Mignonette is coming on — pansies and zinnias for the fall. I do not know, however, whether I like or do not like the same border all along, or even on both sides. “For the vegetable garden, the walks bordered by parsley, sweet lavender, fennel, thyme (saffron proved not so pretty), all were enchanting to look upon and useful for fines herbes the winter following. The gooseberries and currants gave the right notes of accent in all the corners. Then there grew peppers, radishes, and lettuce with the real crop, the yellow and red tomatoes, graceful and fruitful on their several high green iron poles. It really was a delightful little vegetable garden, in per- fect keeping with everything else about, and so many good things to eat from that small space.” Love of gardens shines out in such sentences as these. How discriminating the gardener who writes thus clearly and affec- tionately of her planting, and of the pictures existing, or to be made! COLOR GROUPINGS OF TULIPS! Piantine Puan ror A Srx-Foor Brep Instead of the usual flat bands, try planting tulips in irregular bands of color, with a graduation from the outside; and between the bulbs fill in with a carefully selected ground cover. Four Sucerstep Comsrnations or Earty TuLirs Purple and Yellow. — 1. Wouverman, dark purple: purple pansies between the bulbs. 2. Globe de Rigaud, dark violet, feathered purple and white: lavender | These notes were to accompany planting-plans, not reproduced here. They will be useful without the plans. THE PLAN 28 pansies under. $. Franz Hals, creamy white: creamy pansies under. 4. Golden Queen, golden yellow: yellow pansies under. Pink and Purple. — Bed entirely with white arabis for softening effect. Note that the vivid cerise and violet are at the two ends of the scale with soft inter- mediate tones. Medium to late bloom. 1. Queen of the Violets, clear magenta violet. 2. La Triomphante, white with faint edge of pale pink. 3. Queen of the Netherlands, soft pale rose flushed white. 4. Drapeau Rouge, bright cerise red. Tones of Pink. — Shading from darkest on the outside to a light centre. Pink English daisies and forget-me-nots for planting between the bulbs. Blooming latest of the early tulips listed. 1. Rose luisante, brilliant deep rose pink. 2. Rosa Mundi Huyckman, bright rose pink, with broad white stripe. 3. Cerise Gris-de-Lin, soft carmine-rose shaded fawn and margined creamy white. 4. White Swan, pure white. Bed this one with yellow pansies to carry out the idea of the centre of a flower. Yellow. — Shading from the palest on the outside to a deep centre. These are the earliest listed, all coming together. Bed with blue forget-me-not. 1. Franz Hals, creamy white. 2. Goldfinch, chrome yellow. 3. Golden Queen, golden yel- low. 4, Rising Sun, very deep golden yellow. Four Comermations or Lare Tunes Purple and Yellow. — Early varieties of the late tulips. Plant purple pansies under the bulbs. 1. Reverend Ewbank, soft lavender violet. 2. Fulgens lutea pallida, a pale sulphur yellow. 3. Moonlight, soft luminous canary yellow. 4. Lion d’Orange, orange with yellow base, deepest color for centre. Pink and Purple. — Medium in time of bloom. Bed with arabis. A particu- larly delicate combination. 1. Erguste, dull lavender. 2. Edmée, cherry rose. 3. Madam Krelage, soft rose. 4. The Fawn, rosy fawn changing to cream flushed blush-rose. Tones of Pink. — The lightest on the outside, deeper toward the centre. Medium tolatein time to bloom. Bed with lavender and purple pansies, darker toward the outside. 1. Clara Butt, clear pink-flushed salmon-rose. 2. Inglescombe Pink, soft rosy pink. 3. Baron de la Tonnaye, bright rose-margined blush-rose. 4. Pride of Haarlem, brilliant carmine. Yellow. — Deepest tones toward the centre, coming late among the late tulips — blooming together. Bed with blue forget-me-nots or purple pansies. 1. Primrose Beauty, pale primrose changing to cream. 2. Miss Willmott, soft primrose yellow, turning darker with age. 3. Mrs. Moon, rich golden yellow. 4. Orange King, deep orange-shaded rose. Grovupine or Saruss, Buss, ETc. For an informal effect in a six-foot border. If the border is long there can be a more elaborate combination of color. Numbers on the plan refer to index. Individual bulbs represented by dots. Shrubs, etc. 1. Purple lilac. 2. Pink flowering almond. 3. Deutzia Lemoine. w THE LITTLE GARDEN 4. Alyssum saxatile. 5. Arabis alpina. 6. English primrose. 7. Forget-me-not. Early bulbs. 8. Narcissus Barri conspicuus, Stella, etc., 4 to 6 inches apart. 9. Checkered fritillary, white variety, 3 to 4 inches apart. 10. Blue grape hya- einth, 2 to 3 inches apart. Late bulbs. (Cottage and Darwin tulips, 5 inches or more apart.) 14. Vivid pink combined with the purple lilacs: Edmée, Pride of Haarlem, Glare of the Garden. 15. Lavender combined with pink flowering almond. Erguste, Reverend Ewbank. 16. Soft intermediate pinks: Clara Butt, Madam Krelage, the Fawn. 17. Pale soft yellows with forget-me-nots and white deutzia: Moonlight, Mrs, Moon, Fulgens lutea pallida, Orange King (this one for a touch of deeper yellow), Til ENCLOSING THE GARDEN: THE WALL, THE FENCE, THE HEDGE In embarking on this subject, I should like first of all to give my position with regard to the question, to enclose or not to en- close; and this position has been so deftly, clearly stated by Miss Grace Tabor, in “The Suburban Garden,” an excellent guide to gardeners, that I quote: — “I cannot express too earnestly the belief that nothing worth while will ever be done with suburban or any other gardens until we restore the fences and walls so ruthlessly torn down and abandoned around the latter quarter of the last century. Neither will it be possible to accomplish much while our ugliest inspira- tion is the work undertaken by real-estate development com- panies. They were responsible for this destruction of boundary markings in the first place, in their endeavors to make streets ‘catchy,’ by reason of their novelty, to persons passing through them, every such person being of course a potential sale. And because it is still the streets that the commercial designer wishes to dangle as a bait before the indiscriminating, he will fight every effort to restore privacy to private grounds and the thrusting out from them of the public highway. There is absolutely no in- centive to really fine garden work under the conditions which are to him ideal, however, and as long as those are tolerated, the art will languish. Be sure of that. Not until all places, with- out exception, are enclosed completely, and have gates, too, at their entrances, not merely unprotected openings, will the instinct really to make gardens awaken, and really beautiful gar- dens appear.” 2% THE LITTLE GARDEN These are energetic words; it may well be that partly to them is due the fact that, since they were published eight years ago, there is not only a decided improvement in taste in the larger gardens of good amateurs, but also a slight tendency toward more privacy, even on the part of those same real-estate men whose doings our author deplores. A mark of this change lies in the plan often adopted now in suburbs where groups of houses are built on a semi-private street, — called a court, — with en- trance gates (usually horrors, these gates). Here is a little move toward what we all desire. I often wonder how long it will be be- fore the smaller householder in America will begin to understand the necessity for the beauty of privacy in his own grounds and gardens. If we might have, in our towns and suburbs, a garden missionary or friendly visitor, I would have him say as he en- tered the first backyard, “See — the first thing needed here is a screen of foliage. Do you wish to see those outbuildings or that barn? Is there anything interesting in the view of your neigh- bors’ linen hung out to dry? Plant tall shrubbery against that fence at once. If there is no fence, make one, if only of chicken- wire, to keep out other people’s living things and to keep in your own.” The use of structural green in small gardens is very little un- derstood as yet; it is, to my way of thinking, the first thing to impress upon the owner of a small place in a town. Granted, then, that the place should be enclosed: of what material shall such enclosure be? Where a property is large enough, trees make the most durable, the most suitable, and the most magnificent boundary. Deciduous and non-deciduous trees, in great groups, with their branches, like the beech, say, sweep- ing the very ground. And beyond those trees, a wall of good pro- portions and suitable stone or brick. But trees take room; there- fore, for the small place less exacting subjects must be found. ENCLOSING THE GARDEN Q7 Before considering one of the best of all manners of enclosing the garden, — the hedge, — one word must be said for the wall and fence. I myself believe in walls, even about the very small place. Build your wall, hang your gate, and then invite everyone to enter! This I consider an Anglo-American compromise in gar- dening. For my idea of sharing a garden is that it is one of those heaven-sent possessions which can be enjoyed most only by being shared most. This matter of opening the garden to all outside it is not, I am well aware, either practicable or desirable, when the garden is on the outskirts of a city. My experience is that of a life in a town forty miles from a city, where the coming of visitors is not subversive of all chance for quiet personal enjoy- ment of the garden by its owners. A wall, however, we must preach in this country; a wall we shall eventually have. The wall really protects; the wall affords a charming background for planting, both within and without. Mrs. F. F. Thompson’s garden at Canandaigua, New York, af- fords a lovely illustration of a beautiful wall-treatment so far as the outside is concerned. The smooth turf belowit, the restrained use of vines upon the wall, are here a lesson to all interested in this matter of walls in America. To go back to the practical side of the subject — fancy the freedom from care of the mother of young children, whose gar- den is enclosed by a wall. What freedom, as compared with the present, when children spill over the landscape in a way both inconsequent and dangerous. Next best after the wall is the fence; and by the fence I do not mean the picket or white painted fence, perfect and necessary as that often is with and to the Georgian house. Perhaps this type of fence is the only proper wooden fence to allow in this country; this is for architects to decide. I mean here the easily obtainable fence of wire: that fence which, after three years — no, two 28 THE LITTLE GARDEN years — of proper planting and good seasons, becomes an invis= ible fence, yet a true barrier, and in time a beautiful one. As shrubs grow, as creepers climb, and all form a mask of green for the wire fence, good wooden gates may be suitably placed at the entrance openings — gates painted green, to melt into their surroundings; or simple gates of wrought iron, hung be- tween posts of brick or stone, are also attractive, breaking lines of foliage-masses such as the wire fence will have become. What shrubs shall be used to cover this enclosing wire? Num- bers of good ones come to mind here. Japanese quince is, to my way of thinking, one of the best, if four or five feet of space may be allowed for its spread on either side of a fence; it must be sprayed as apples are, however, and that is an objection. But its beautiful flowering in spring, and the particularly interesting habit of growth which belongs to this genus, make it a remark- ably fine shrub for such a place. Besides, it may be pruned to four feet or allowed to grow to ten. The fence, bye-the-bye, should be four feet high, of graduated spaces, so that dogs and chickens may not break through the lower openings. Other excellent materials for covering a wire fence so as to form an in- formal hedge are Regel’s privet, allowed to grow free; the low- growing philadelphuses, or mock oranges, such as P. Avalanche, and the bush honeysuckles, whose greens are so agreeable, whose foliage is so fine and thick, but whose breadth and height will need constant keeping in check. No word has yet been said as to the use of climbing vines on the wire fence, yet how beautifully, in spots where wire predomi- nates and foliage does not, may be used, for instance, Clematis paniculata, or Virginia creeper, the best known of the ampelop- sis family — a root or two set in, and by autumn a space five by five feet has become a thick and leafy screen, while a young hedge is getting its growth. I should advise the use of such vines as ENCLOSING THE GARDEN 29 these to cover wire; they may, in a year or two, have served their purpose, and can then be dug out and passed on to a neighbor for his own needy and unclothed barrier. Two uncommonly fine creepers for clothing the wire fence I would recommend here, partly because they are not in general use, partly because of their beauty of leaf, flower, fruit. These are Chinese. Clematis tangu- — tica is a fascinating variant of the usual small-flowered clema- tises. This has small light yellow flowers, a beautiful leaf, and interesting feathery-tailed seeds. Do not fear that Ampelopsis aconitifolium dissecta, with its painfully long name, is a weird or ugly creeper. On the contrary, this is one of those newer vines from China, absolutely hardy and quick-growing, whose cut and shining leaf deserves the infrequent adverb, elegant. These two beauties in climbing things merit more than is said of them; they are perfect as a covering for wire, and form a delight- ful change from the clematises and Japanese ivies in widespread use in our gardens. For the formal tall-growing or clipped hedge, there is much material to be had; and here, after such a hedge is well-estab- lished, the wire fence will not be needed. Twigs thickly inter- lacing will be all that is necessary. For the low-clipped hedge, Privet ibota and P. californica are among the best, though the California privet kills back to the ground sometimes, in severe winters in the latitude of Boston. In that of Philadelphia it is the very best possible shrub for the perfect hedge. For colder regions J recommend the hedge of Thunberg’s barberry, which clips beautifully and is practically non-killable by frost. Just here, however, the value of Spirea Vanhoutteii for trimmed hedges must be mentioned. This I saw for the first time in a lovely garden at Milton, Massachusetts. The ingenious amateur had there used this popular shrub in a way totally new to me — clipping it from the time it was small, till, in some cases, 30 THE LITTLE GARDEN and for certain purposes, it had attained a height of eight to ten feet. I then tried the experiment along both sides of a short walk on our own place, and found it eminently satisfactory. Thereisa time in late May when this shrub, of enormous vitality, will bloom. It flowers whitely within its clipped sides, and the effect for a week is really funny; for these imprisoned flower-panicles seem to say, “What you do with shears matters not to us — we flower in our recesses in spite of what goes on outside!” What a delight to find a new, practical and beautiful use for Spirea Van- houtteii, of whose common presence below porches and along foundation lines of houses many suburbs and towns are un- doubtedly weary. In the case of my two short hedges of this shrub, ithappens that only the sides toward the walk are trimmed, and the top, which is trimmed square. On the sides of the hedge away from the walk, the spirea boughs are allowed their own way, and spray out over and between quantities of peonies, in a thoroughly graceful and satisfying manner. These spireas we planted a foot apart, in a line — the best method for all decidu- ous plants for hedges. They were set when two feet high. For the evergreen or non-deciduous hedge, I prefer always American arbor-vitz, when it can be had. But it is very costly, and its life is a bit precarious in certain soils and climates. Box is, of course, the material for southern climates; but box too is costly, and sometimes fitful in behavior. A combination of two. large shrubs exceptionally good is bush honeysuckle (Lonicera bella albida) for the back of a planting, and Spirea prunifolia before it; for another equally fine, — and I have seen these growing superbly among, yes, actually among the roots of a great ash tree, — use philadelphus, one of the tall varieties like grandiflora, and Forsythia suspensa, or an upright variety of the latter. A beautiful willow sometimes grown in shrub form is Salix pentandra, with its shining dark leaf; the ne UIs Spirea abou ENCLOSING THE GARDEN 31 growth of this is very rapid. The cockspur thorn (Crategus Crus- gallt) is a great favorite among good planters, for its summer beauty and fine autumn fruit. A good simple rule for the informal planting of such shrubs for an enclosing border, given by Mr. O.C. Simonds, is this: “Straight rows should be avoided. A laborer or novice, when told this, will arrange the plants in a zig-zag manner, thinking that he is plac- ing them irregularly, the result often being almost the same as that of two rows. If the group is being planted along a straight line, as the boundary of a lot, the distance of the successive plants from this line ought to be somewhat as follows: two feet, four feet, five feet, three feet, one foot; and the distance apart, measured parallel with a fixed line, should vary also.” This definite idea of measurement can very well be used to lay down the guiding hose mentioned in a later paragraph (page 48). In the use of shrubs for the small lot, however, it is a mistake to think that any rule is absolute. While, for instance, a bound- ary planting is often desirable, often necessary, under certain conditions none should occur. The same is true with setting shrubs about the foundations of a house. Planting is usually needed where the foundation or basement wall of a house rises some feet above the ground, to meet a wall of a totally different material, like wood. There is an incongruous line in this meet- ing, which it is best to hide, to some extent at least. But often, where a good wall of brick or stone comes smoothly to a right angle with the well-kept grass of a small lawn, the effect is more interesting if this joining is occasionally visible. Deep digging, good manuring or fertilizing, and firm tramping down around the little plants, are the essentials for setting a hedge. The low-growing kinds, such as Japanese or Thunberg’s barberry, or Privet ibota, should be set six inches to a foot apart. Professor Mulford advises setting plants for the very low hedge, 32 THE LITTLE GARDEN of a foot or less than a foot in height, — that is, hedges for bor- dering or outlining beds of flowers, — not more than four inches apart. Also, digging and fertilizing of the planting-place for a hedge one year in advance is strongly recommended. Buy not one shrub from an agent, a man who comes to your door. Much time and money are lost by such purchases. These men, as a rule, act for nurseries overstocked with poor or ugly material, such as the golden-leaved shrubs, so difficult to use well, obsolete because undesirable; and this is their method of disposing of such stuff. To find out where to buy, send a postcard to any nursery listed or advertising in a gardening periodical; a good catalogue of shrubs not only is a guide for buying but serves, too, as an informal textbook for reference. Indeed, the tree-, shrub-, and seed-lists are first aid to those innocent of horticul- tural knowledge, and quickly lead to the buying of more per- manent literature on this enthralling subject. When all is said, the enclosed place or garden has the best chance of becoming the beautiful place or garden. Aside from the protection of the wall or hedge, the background for inner plant- ing is established, that background against which may perhaps shine out only a few rare and perfect shrubs, or which may form the green foil for such a burst of color in flowers of spring or sum~ mer or autumn as will amaze the visitor who enters through the garden gate. 33 TYPES OF TREES, SHRUBS, AND PERENNIALS TREES ; Height Growth Tall—100 ft. American elm Quick Poplar Large—60 ft. American linden Slow Tupelo Medium—40 ft. Crab-apple Easily moved. Willow Small—20 ft. Dogwood, flowering Difficult to move Hickory aah a vee walnut oft-woode illow Leafage Poor soil Gray birch Early in leaf Larch te ao Magnolia Late in leaf Catalpa 5 et al Red maple Shade dense Horsechestnut I TY 80% Black locust Shade light Locust nsects and disease | Cherry Evergreen Pine Free from disease Ginkgo Autumn coloration | Red maple Large Catalpa, Use Small Willow Hang late English oak Shade Maple Drop early Sycamore Flowers Horsechestnut ut Weir's maple Fruit Apple Colored Purple beech Bark Birch, canoe Specimen Beech, purple Habit poredt Oaks Windbrede Nee — Narrow Lombardy poplar i Spreading White oak eee Hedge Arbor-vits Irregular feple Shrubby wthorn Peculiar Weeping beech SHRUBS Height Soil Tooele Gowee 15 ft.)| Redbud Sandy Sweet fern 10 to 1 Viburnum Peat Rhododendron 6to8 ae Rosa rugosa Very dry Sumac 3 ft. Japanese barberry Very wet Pussy willow Trailing Dewberry Standing water Buttonbush Full sun Spireas Leaves Shade Blueberry Evergreen Mountain laurel Care arge Hydrangea Small Barberry No pruning Hawthorn Colored Purple barberry Much pruning Hydrangea Fragrant Sweet fern Insects and disease | Rose Cut Cut-leaved hazel Bark colored Red osier dogwood Use Screen Privet — pee. | ere . ‘ ij 0 azel ee Sours Y | apenas e ecimen a a planer : Yellow Forsythia iM lower mass Sete an Houttei Red Weigela Rok hard H. oe a Fragrant Honeysuckle Wat id en i CPSU, Early Forsythia aterside er Late Witch hazel Fruit Barberry 34 TYPES OF TREES, SHRUBS, AND PERENNIALS (Concluded) VINES Habit Leaf Clinging Boston ivy Large Dutchman’s pi Twinin Clematis Small Wistaria Ba Scrambling Rose Evergreen Evonymous radicang Size Use Tall Boston ivy Buildings Boston ivy Low English ivy Walls Virginia creeper Vigorous Actinidia Fences Grape Slender Clematis Trellis Clematis Flowers Wistaria Thickets Lycium halimifoli Ground cover Hall 8 oa PERENNIALS : Heights from creeping to 10 ft. Foliage Months of bloom (from March to October) Color of Flower. Evergreen Yucca (The most important lists. Many, have Effective after been given in earlier issues of the ‘‘Gar- blooming Peony den Magazine.”’) Ragged after blooming Hollyhock Bold leafage Rhubarb Growth Finely cut foliage | Meadow-rue 2 Aromatic Lavender pone ved tre Resists autumn ‘ransien’ ‘oxglove We edly Wik 4 geranium frosts Phlox Spreaders olden glow Tender Canna Flowers Dee Footed 7 Hollyhock Very large Hollyhock; peony Shallow-rooted poe ynoens ered Ferns bbery Peony assed about leaves| Iris Rosa staking Larkspur uP ‘aer: alt Pinks ‘tl Raised from seed Larkspur Sty GaHly Siberian squills Hod sed al | : Sie z blo aa winter peraniirs Short bloomers Oriental poppy Soil Use Aquatics Water lily ; Ith Border Tris nies margins eA ute = issih Cut-flower Peo ay Wet meadow Joe-pye-weed. ass1ng Moist woods Lady's slipper eirubpery vd Balboa plants Dry, open woods Astera ‘orma! ef en hl Dense shade Plantain-lily Hae eS en Cooping phlox Poor eoil in sun Boatiastly red ee ap nting (see Native plants Salty soi Marsh goldenrod Specimen Plume poppy Special uses, etc. (Sp ) IV ACCESSORIES AND ADJUNCTS OF THE GARDEN As one enters a little garden, — and now we are considering only that part of the small property supposed to be behind the house, in the secluded portion of the ground, — as one enters, the effect of finish, which does or does not make itself instantly felt, is governed in large measure by the proper use of the gar- den’s furnishings. Considered as an out-of-doors room, how sim- ple is the process of furnishing the garden. All we need do is to turn to some authority on the decoration of houses, and trans- pose the terms, — using sky for ceiling, trees and hedges for walls, turf and gravel for floors, — and the small things, such as settees and other material, almost arrange themselves. Above every novelist this country has produced, Mrs. Wharton understands decorative beauty of interiors. In her stories one is always finding descriptions of perfect rooms; one might use either of her books, “Italian Gardens,” or “The Decoration of Houses,” as general guiding material for furnishing for the garden. The principles for the house and for the open air are the same. The actual objects in arrangement are the same. Why do we set indoors a couch or settee, or out of doors a seat or bench, there, and not here? Because of some advantage to be gained there, and not here, in the way of a pretty vista from a given position, a good light for reading, a certain seclusion conducive to quiet, or to intimate talk. Whatever the bit of furniture may be, in either house or garden, if its placing for use is absolutely right, it falls into the picture and adds charm and distinction to its surround- ings. “All’s fair that’s fit.” 36 THE LITTLE GARDEN In furniture for the garden, that which is within reach of the average owner is, again, painted wood. The pretty foreign chairs and tables of painted iron are not for the casual American, but for the traveled, the fortunate few. Iron, then, we must put aside; marble, too, for this is only for the great, the important garden, and it has its bad, impractical side even there. I doubt if any material for gardens has been more misused in this country than marble. I have seen marble benches in spots where it was either to laugh or to cry, one could not tell which. Unless a small garden contains a secluded entity in gardening, apart from all else, and entirely of one character, as a picture, and as a place to sit in, I cannot conceive of the suitable introduction into it of any such monumental material as marble. Aside from taste in such matters, one cannot really compose one’s self readily upon a seat whose temperature in shade, in our cool climate, is always low. Cushions must be at hand; and cushions are a nuisance. After this diatribe against marble, I shall seem incon- sistent as I call attention to the charming picture opposite; but here the marble seat is in entire harmony with the lines and spaces in the garden of a fine Georgian house; and it is not alone, it is one of two, placed in relation to each other on either side of a straight walk leading to the garden on a much lower level. This is an example of the good use of a marble seat. Such use, I still maintain, is rare. The same arguments would hold for concrete as material for garden furniture. Wood is the third substance for the tables and chairs of our little garden, and wood is the best for our purpose. The landscape architect is again the one to consult upon designing or securing the simple garden furniture needed where space is limited; aside from this, good garden books may be looked into. A most beauti- ful settee is seen in one of the pictures of Miss Jekyll’s and Mr. Weaver’s “Gardens for Small Country Houses.” This was de- pasnjd qjan pun paubisap jan poas ayqunw F ACCESSORIES OF THE GARDEN 37 signed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and would raise the level of beauty in any garden where it should be placed; but there are few such aids. Various English firms send out lists of extremely well- designed tables, chairs, settees, and so on, though there are some lapses from good looks, even in these. In our own country, I think of only one firm whose work is good, and their models are, if I am not mistaken, taken from English ones. There is a com- pany in America, too, now sending out stuff for gardens which is as ugly, as stultifying, as such things can be. It is sad to see it given circulation. Wood, then, for seats; and when we have such seats, where shall they be placed? The simplest placing of a good bench or seat in the little garden is at the far end of a walk; or at the two ends of a cross walk; or within a small shelter that shall form the terminal feature of the little garden, and shall entirely supplant the pergola, which has no place whatever in our scheme of things here, so difficult is it to use properly, and so atrocious is it when out of place. The proper use of even a tiny pergola, made, per- haps, of posts and saplings, calls, in the little garden, for the most expert and exquisite knowledge of such things; I do not venture lightly on such ground, and shall consider that the per- gola, then, has no place in the average small garden. A thing that is, however, in place in the little garden, is, somewhere, a gate. A little garden-gate may give the most enchanting effect, if of the right material, well designed and properly placed. The pictorial value of the gate is known to everyone. But it must be charmingly framed in living green — a wooden gate, either solid, or partly solid in a wall; a gate of wood, as I have suggested in another chapter, set among foliage of the screened wire fence; or, best of all, the gate of delicately conceived wrought-iron, preferably from some old French, Italian, or Flemish model. Such gates were like flowers; indeed, a flower was often taken by 38 THE LITTLE GARDEN the old artificers in views as the decorative motif for garden- gates; initial letters, too, were cunningly introduced into the designs. Gates in hedges; gates surmounting steps where a change in grade calls for these — in the gate we have one of the finest of all possibilities for interest in the little garden. The opening for a certain unpretentious gate of wood was boldly cut through a wall entirely clothed with Virginia creeper, as well as through an old shrubbery eight feet in width. A pretty effect of light and shade resulted, as well as the practical convenience afforded by the gate itself. Before considering the subject of small adjuncts to the gar- den, let us touch upon the wall and trellis as decorative matters. The color, texture, and type of laying, of a stone or brick wall may make a, vast difference in the beauty of the garden. It must be considered exactly as one considers the coloring or hanging of the walls of a good room: its height with relation to the breadth and length of the strip of ground; its tone as a background for foliage and flowers; and where its outline can properly be broken by recesses at the ends of walks, in which to set well-designed benches; in this last, we have one of the most beautiful of all uses of walls. The trellis — or treillage, for the French equivalent has been really adopted into our tongue — may be the loveliest garden accessory possible, or it may cheapen the garden beyond descrip- tion. The little garden calls for a most delicate use of this most delicate garden decoration. It has much to commend it, espe- cially for limited spaces; but in a limited space it must be always sparingly used. A little garden whose boundaries are of green, a garden of, say, fifty by one hundred feet, can support the use of a tiny pavilion, or shelter, of treillage at one end, of an interven- ing rose-support or two in the form of light arches, and of two flanking features in the way of arches or shelters, perhaps, but ACCESSORIES OF THE GARDEN 39 no more. No line of treillage surrounding the whole garden should be set, if this form of light wood-work is to be used to a great extent within the garden bounds. An example of simple latticed boundary fence is shown in the picture opposite page 48. The openings of the fence might well have been a little smaller, but the proportions generally are good, especially of walls to posts, and posts to length and height of fence; and the latter is well placed and prettily concealed, to a certain extent, by the belt of low shrubs before it. The points of advantage over a wall offered by a well-designed treillage are: less original cost; chance for freedom of design and for change after a time; and a light grace in screening, in rose- support, and in a semi-architectural effect which this type of construction may bring to the garden. Design is all-important. Better no treillage, than that which is commonplace or stupid in pattern. Consult your landscape architect here again. Occa- sionally, in some fine book of gardening — such, for instance, as those published by “‘Country Life,” London — one may find suggestions in this type of design. There you will find patterns of distinction and charm readily adaptable to the smallest gardens, and easily made by a good local carpenter. By treillage I mean, of course, lattice-work, the open designs of squares, lozenges, or other shapes, which are used as light screens or as supports for flowering things. In this connection I might say that some particularly charming designs for individual rose-supports are the work of Inigo Triggs, the English landscape architect and writer. The illustration facing page 40 shows two simple rose- supports, blue spruces facing each, and posts of an arbor or per- gola, all in delightfully balanced relation to each other. I will re- frain from discussion here as to the mistaken use of the blue spruce for an eastern garden. But those who know the ugly older specimens of this tree in the Arnold Arboretum will never buy it 40 THE LITTLE GARDEN for themselves. To go back, however, to the treillage: the ques- tion of the use or non-use of this lattice-work will be governed entirely by the type of one’s house and one’s garden; its color — for it is always of wood, painted (preferably I think of cypress)— will also be settled by the color of the house. Where the house is of low-toned material, a stark white treillage is inappropriate; and here, either a good dull green, or a color near that of the bark of a tree, will probably give the best effect. Of sundials, of bird-baths, and of garden sculpture I can say little; this will be enough: think twice before overcrowding a little garden; use such things as dials and bird-baths with great restraint and care; treat them only as accents, and not as ob- jects in themselves; think always of proportion, balance, color, the general design or idea of the garden — exactly as no French- woman buys a hat unless she sees herself under it in a full-length mirror. This advice may be a bit feminine, but it is sound. But for garden ornament generally, the advice I remember hearing in my young days given by a distinguished clergyman to young as- pirants to his profession, “Keep out of it if you can,” applies, with a bit of transposition, to most ornament for the little gar- den. Keep it out if you can. Your garden will be better if extra- neous objects are few. I have just seen a lovely Southern house, a house whose white-pillared portico and rose-colored brick have as a foil a whole blue-green mountain behind them. Here, across a walk from the steps to this portico, is a shallow marble basin for birds, a tiny marble faun piping on one edge. This carries the white of the marble pillars and steps farther into the foreground of green lawn and trees, and is successful because it is suitable, quite apart from its being in itself a useful and charming object. A basin set against the wall may form an excellent quiet decorative accessory of the introduction of water into the little garden. It may be entirely unobtrusive in line, or in garlanding uapsob 2441) a4} Ur aounjog ACCESSORIES OF THE GARDEN 41 of vines; yet it adds a living interest to a shaded spot; it gives the pleasure of the sound of running water that is refreshing on warm days, and also serves as a good terminal feature for a garden walk or vista. Advice concerning pools for the small garden is difficult to give; where water is available, however, a small sheet of it, for- mally inclosed, and with an edge flush with the ground, never raised, most truly adds life and charm to all about it. In the small pool no planting should bedone: not even asingle lily should interfere with the bright surface, where unbroken light or un- broken reflection is to be attained. Is there anything more agree- able to the eye than little ordered squares of turf, with flower- heads of gay colors held in high relief against them? What I mean by little ordered squares is the rectangular green of any small formal garden. Grass-walks are the perfect ones for the very little garden — they are less interrupting than those of gravel, or even of brick; although in a rainy season they have their practical disadvantages, because of upkeep and dampness, as well as because a true edge here is difficult to secure and to maintain. Several materials present themselves as suitable for walks in the little garden: gravel — which I have used and do not like, because of the weeds, which do like it; slate, or flagging, and in New England there is to be had a greenish slate, which should furnish a fine medium for short and narrow walks; and brick, the best of all; concrete I do not mention because I object to it in gardens. Where brick or stone is used, it should be laid upon sand, gravel, or cinders. Such a foundation should be at least six inches deep, and deeper if possible. The width of garden walks is governed entirely by the size of surrounding spaces, and this your plan will show. Have as few walks as possible, however, on a small property. They take space. Keep them straight, 42 THE LITTLE GARDEN or at right angles to each other. Then they may serve as axes of a general plan, wholly outside of their first reason for being. Where gravel is used, a straight edge of turf for one’s beds or borders of flowers is usually necessary; or a tiny well-trimmed hedge of barberry, or of box where climate permits. An interesting recessing of the lines of very low hedges out- lining beds of flowers is sometimes managed successfully. This is usually planned only where beds bordering walks are long and narrow; and where the interruption of that long line is agreeable. I have seen such hedges, six inches high, turned at right angles back from a walk, to form a recess just large enough for room for a well-designed seat or bench; in every case the same idea was carried out immediately across the walk, so that the occupants of the benches faced each other; the low hedge running around the recess, and going on its steady way adown the path or walk after having made the four necessary turns. Low hedges of this character give an appearance of embossing of a dark color and add greatly to the charm of gardens. The new shrub for dwarf hedges, Privet ibolium, may be a good material for this type of hedge. About grades and levels I feel myself incompetent to write. Authority here particularly requires training. But one excellent: hint I would give to all owners of small lawns that must slope. In grading such lawns, see to it that your grade is in a dipping, or concave line; this is nature’s line, and the effect, though a sub- conscious one on the beholder, is totally different from that created by the convex grade on a slope. Also, it is far more agreeable. Then, a word as to the commonly used grass-terrace. This is one of the curses of the western cities, and of suburbs all over the country. There are a thousand arguments against it, and not one for it; it is an affair of imitation, and surely that must be its only reason for existence in so many localities to-day. ACCESSORIES OF THE GARDEN 43 Among its chief disadvantages are these: first, it is artificial in appearance; second, the grass on these steep four-to-ten-foot drops is extremely difficult to mow and edge; third, in hot cli- mates the grass burns quickly on these slopes and is therefore hard to keep fresh-looking; fourth, the labor, cost of up-keep, of such slopes is high. The substitute for them, of course, is the retaining wall. Such a wall should be built of the material of the house, if that material is brick or stone; if it is wood, the nearest procurable inconspicuous stone, be it only cobbles, should be used. The first cost of the wall is higher than that of the so- called terracing; but in the end it will be less. The wall requires little or no attention. It may well be covered here and there; but only here and there, if its stone or brick is attractive in kind and color, with such beautiful fine creepers as Ampelopsis Lowii, which is not nearly well enough known in America. At the top of such low walls, charming effects may be had by planting, to fall a little over the edge, such things as those hardy, handsome shrubs which have an interest during the entire year, Thunberg’s barberry, or Rosa wichuriana. In Tacoma I recall some rather high retaining walls giving directly upon the sidewalk, where most lovely rock-plants were blooming in the interstices of the stones; and so finely were these Alpines used with regard to color and position, so beautifully were shrubs grouped above the wall, that this small property, on a corner, in a situation that must have been most difficult to treat, from the horticultural stand- point, became to me a point of intense interest and enjoyment. Almost all our hilly cities and towns in America have suc- cumbed, however, to this plague of the grass-terrace. Its com- mon accompaniments are a copious use of a very white or light cement for street and sidewalk and service-drives and walks in the property, and a long stretch of what I may call heavy-lidded small houses, bungalows with weighty roofs, which are neither 44 THE LITTLE GARDEN pretty nor practical. I should enjoy discussing the incongruous ugliness of the bungalow in cities and suburbs of the temperate zone; but this would lead me beyond the province of my title. Let it suffice to say that, until we realize the fitness of type of houses to locality and climate, and build beautifully with regard to these things, we shall not even approach what is lovely in the general and special aspects of our groups of dwellings in America. From the standpoint of one whose habit it is to look at house, planting, and general surroundings, wherever found, as a picture, the prevalence of white cement in this country is a disastrous fact. No brief for its practical value can make it anything but a horror in the general look of things; that is, unless it is so dyed or colored as to relate it in some way to the earth on which it lies, so over-solid and so distracting. The general color of the house and of its surroundings is so easily determined for one by always considering first what is there. We need never search for a color key-note; it is always present: a red earth or clay, a brown, or whitish one; a rock-formation — all these things of the original earth give capital suggestion to him who has eyes to see. Perhaps I should not go so far in the matter of garden color as has the English architect, Baillie-Scott, in his ‘Houses and Gardens,” where is shown in charming hues a garden of flowers, to form a harmonious foreground for nearby hills veiled by pur- ple heather! But a moderate, a considered attention to this idea of color-relation in all building and planting is a logical sowing of the seed of beauty, and gives a harvest at once adorable and sure. V FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN As I write the title of this chapter, I think to myself that there could not be a sweeter phrase than this. These five words are instantly five “magic casements,” giving upon beauty. Ideas in endless variety, form, and color leap to the mind, as one nears this subject; so many kinds of arrangements of flowers in groups, and such varied loveliness to be produced by that strong, steady force we call nature, from year’s end to year’s end, flash to the pen that dips into imagination as well as ink. The subject be- wilders a little at first. Therefore, let us take this topic as we would plan the little garden, with a degree of order. The main divisions will, of course, be informal and formal flower-planting; and because I have grown, in a number of years of gardening, to like informal less than formal, let us take the former first and have done with it. Yet this is not to say that I see no virtue in informal planting. Not at all. It is only that, because of the clear dividing of areas in the formal plan, I see waste averted; and to the beginner in gardening I should particularly commend the order, balance, symmetry, and economy given by a design which shall throw his whole ground, his house, and his garden, into the best relation to each other and to what is about the entire property. As we consider the informa! planting of flowers, it is necessary to take for granted an informal planting of shrubs about the house, the borders of the place, and at the back rather heavier masses of shrubbery for purposes of screening-out or inclosing. While all such shrubs are young, flower-planting in front of them will be delightfully simple and reassuring; but as they grow in 46 THE LITTLE GARDEN height, breadth, and greedy stretching-out of roots, there is another story. One thing here should be insisted upon: as little planting as possible of flowers at the front of the house. Keep all colors so far as possible for the back — concentrate there, and give yourselves and your guests the daily, hourly pleasure of surprise, of concentration of effect. In this matter I would not say that a few young things of the spring should be absent from the doorstep, or that flowering shrubs of a quiet order are wrong there; but I have stood so often, after ringing a bell, trying not to see the thick and messy crimson rambler, which ramps about the little posts of a yellow house-porch, that I would spare others my experience. The safest plan is— except where a studied effect of gayety isin place as one approaches a house-door — few or no blooming plants at the front. The scarlet sage has, fortu- nately, not taken hold in the suburbs or towns of the Middle West, as a red flag waved before the approaching guest. Luckily we were born too late for this. But still you may see this mon- strous use of an innocent flower not far from cosmopolitan New York itself; and while it is an extreme warning, it is yet a warning to those who believe in quiet beauty for the small place. Of the canna and caladium for such spots, I will not speak. Let bygones be bygones. For flowers in the main rear part of the little place, one turns first, of course, to perennials — those plants whose very name spells economy and endurance, improvement, all the sturdy vir- tues underlying good looks. For the proper placing of these plants against a background of shrubs, the indicating line of such a border will be the line of the shrub-planting itself. This will probably be an undulating line. There will be little bays and peninsulas of green shrub-foliage planned along fences or walls, or even before hedges, if hedges are used; though it is likely that where the trimmed hedge is used, formal lines for flowers will FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN A have been agreed upon, and only here and there, as accent or accessory, will a fine shrub be introduced to grow free—a delightful effect when it can and should be adopted. While shrubs are growing in these informal borders, the ground between them, as has been noticed, affords a capital planting- place for spring bulbs. Here snow-drops, crocuses, daffodils, make themselves at home, and seed of the best myosotis or for- get-me-not gives a sweet blue harvest, if left undisturbed for a year or two. Tulips are delightful among the little budding spireas, honeysuckles, or lilacs, though it is well to remember the special tone of green of these young leaf-buds. For instance, a pink Darwin tulip is not nearly so charming among the young yellow-green leaves of certain shrubs in May, as a yellow Cottage tulip. These are shades of difference, you may say; but why not have them right at the beginning? A little color harmony here is a valuable thing. Now, to be entirely practical, let us take a space of open ground behind the house for consideration. Suppose the space has its far end at the north, so that exposure to the sun will be of the best; that the entire space, including shrub-borders, is about fifty feet square, and that the centre of this space is to be kept in smooth, well-trimmed grass. In an irregular manner, which should look like nothing so much as a coast-line on a map, this space is skirted by shrubs, none of whose flowers should be obtru- sively bright in color. For this reason I should always exclude the diervillas, except the white-flowered variety, from a very small property where many June flowers are desired. In the bays of the little coast-line, and sometimes even beyond the promontories, but always hugging the shore, should come the flower-groupings. No definite rules in feet or inches can be given for such planting, unless there is a plan on paper (and always there should be): one must feel one’s way along here. The definite principles in 48 THE LITTLE GARDEN such flower-planting are, however, these. Most of the taller growing plants should be at the back of the border. Semi- occasionally a tall grower should break the monotony of low- growing ones at the front, really as if it had escaped from the rear. Plants of middle height naturally take their place half-way between the front and back; while low-growing things make the foregrounds of form and color. For informal planting I have found it best to use an odd num- ber of plants in a group — five, seven, nine, or even three where space is very small and plants large. This gives a quality of ease, of naturalness, due to the absence of all geometric suggestion of the even number. Where room is available, that pretty idea of a “colony,” taught me by Miss Jekyll, is the loveliest for informal planting: a colony of plants suggests the effortless, artless look of flowers in a wood or meadow. A humble instrument, or shall I call it implement? — yet not so humble considered in dollars and cents, — with which to get good outlines for informal borders, is the garden hose. Place stakes in your grass or open ground be- fore shrub-planting, to outline roughly the areas planned for flowering plants; then lay the hose either inside or outside of these stakes. The easiest curves will be before your eyes, so readily rearranged by a pull here, a tug there, that you will wonder that the hose was not always advocated as an assistant in arranging for curves in the garden. I believe the first tall-growing plant that occurs to the mind of those unversed in gardening is the hollyhock: it has been known, grown, and loved so long, and in its habit, form, and range of lovely color it is so desirable. In a young border, however, before very low new shrubs I should not try such tall-growing plants. They would overtop their background. I should set plants of medium height, such as veronicas, tall irises, phloxes, as the rear ranks of this flowery battalion, gradually raising their height as avuaf happunog party] FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 49 the shrubs add feet to their stature. Where the tall background of foliage already exists, however, the hollyhock is adorable in groups against it; but it should be used in small groups in the small garden — three to five in a group. From hollyhocks for- ward, here is a list of perennial plants that may well find place in a little garden’s informal border: Hardy asters, heleniums, heli- anthuses, delphiniums, thermopsis, aconites, for the taller spe- cies; gypsophilas, Shasta daisies, veronicas, columbines, for the middle foreground; while, for the very front of such a border, there are these: hardy alyssums, hardy candytuft, hardy pinks, heucheras; that pretty bell-flower— Campanula carpatica; stachys, nepeta, lavender, where soil and climate permit, and just behind these some of the sedums or stonecrops. Here is a wealth of subjects; but these are but a part, the slightest suggestion, of the things at hand. And my advice would be, not to start as most practical writers suggest, with the best- known types of some of these perennial plants. I should begin with some of the less familiar varieties, whose hardy qualities, of course, shall have been proved for the locality; although in jus- tice to the general subject I must quote some recently published words of Miss Jekyll’s. “A long life of gardening and many years of garden-designing have taught me that the simplest ways are always the best, and the old favorite flowers are the most lovable.” I shall refer again to the topic of newer plants, however, specifying some of my own preferences; meanwhile the manner of use of perennial plants shall be given a little attention. Suppose now that the little garden is to consist of these in- formal borders of hardy plants. Suppose that the very incom- plete list above be taken as an elementary one. Twenty subjects are given in the list. Taking these one by one, in the hardy asters or Michaelmas daisies, for example, it would be simple to say, “T will have here, of course, the New England aster.” This 8 50 THE LITTLE GARDEN should be said if the garden is in New England, for these can be secured from wild land or roadside; but if the aster is not native, then buy climax, Lil Fardell, Aster amellus elegans, Aster acris, or other good named varieties for your garden. A Michaelmas daisy is one of the best investments one can make for a perennial border. Every spring it must be chopped into at least four bits, so that the horticultural interest on the investment is truly lit- eral here. Of helenium I know little; but where gay autumn colors are desired, — rich orange, yellow, and even deeper tones than orange, — this tall free-blooming plant has its place. Its dazzling flowers fall in showers above the lower plants before it, if it is judiciously staked; but all depends on this. Of the delphinium, the tall and dwarf types are both hardy, the latter known as D. sinensis. Such varieties as the tall Del- phinium Amos Perry and Queen Wilhelmina are excellent to begin with. Delphinium belladonna is indispensable as a middle-height subject, with its perfect blues; and Delphinium sinensis also, though a foot lower than D. belladonna, should never be left out. Seeds of all these fine blue flowers should be gathered and sown in rows as soon as ripe. If carefully labeled, a tiny nursery will soon. be ready to draw upon — a bank of beauty upon which a run will instantly be made by all your friends and neighbors, and whose rapid payments will enrich you as well as them in their results. Helianthus brings us again to yellow flowers; and many are the varieties to choose from here. Helianthus orgyalis and its variety, Miss Mellish, are both beauties for form, color, and the fine, tall, stiff stem; Thermopsis caroliniana is with me a July- blooming plant— it has pretty pale-yellow spikes of pea-like flowers, exceedingly good in association with delphinium, and to follow it in time of bloom. Of aconites the one to plant is Aconi- tum Wilsonii; it is of a uniform dark purplish-blue, and its Octo- FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 51 ber blooming and fine substance are attributes possessed by hardly any other perennial. Peonies deserve a volume to themselves; and I shall name here only three, which would be excellent starting-points in this mag- nificent tribe: Baroness Schroeder, Marie Crousse, Primavére; white, pink, pale yellow. In a standard list, these sell, in the order listed, at a dollar and a half, four dollars, and five dollars each. The two last are costly, but well worth the money; and how much better to procure three superb subjects than a dozen mediocre ones. As these peonies grow and flourish, they may be divided, and a larger planting secured from the beautiful origi- nals. These three together are very beautiful, either in the open or for cutting. Artemisia lactiflora, mentioned in one list, is one of the beau- ties in any August border. The two hardy gypsophilas are G. paniculata elegans and one of the same name, with flore pleno added to its title; the first is single, three feet tall, and gives a delicate gray-white effect of bloom; the second has tiny double white flowers, and, when well established in a garden, is an object to marvel at. Of Shasta daisies one of the finest is known as King Edward VII; and in veronicas, for earlier purple, V. spicata is good; yet the variety longifolia subsessilis is one of the very valuable plants for the hardy border. Columbines, in our day, have become such wonders that all one needs to do is to buy a packet of named long-spurred hybrid seed, sow it in spring or midsummer, transplant in September, and in this way secure ultimate large free-blooming plants. These hybrids are by all odds the finest of the aquilegias. In irises the dazzling multitude is such that it is nearly impossible to suggest even a few names; but, mentioning one or two that I know, without regard to type, or to anything but general magnificence of beauty, I would say, get these seven as a begin- 52 THE LITTLE GARDEN ning: Mrs. Alan Gray, Rhein Nixe, Monsignor, pallida dalmatica, Queen of May, Prosper Laugier, flavescens. In phloxes, a good gay choice would be these: Rhynstrom, Von Lassberg, Elizabeth Campbell, Antonin Mercie, Lord Rayleigh; in the lemon lilies or Hemerocallis, Florham and Kwanso flore-pleno are particularly fine. Gaillardias are very good where a continuous flare of orange, red, and yellow is wanted; and of all the other plants named in the following list I hardly need to give varieties. Perhaps one or two of each will suffice: hardy candytuft, Iberis gibraltarica, in hardy pinks; Mrs. Simkins or Her Majesty, both white; for heucheras, the type known as sanguinea, and two hybrids, Rosa- mond and Pluie de Feu; Campanula carpatica stands alone in use- fulness as a low lavender flowering plant for June; Stachys lanata and Nepeta Mussini are gray-leaved plants for the front of the border; lavender is too well known to call for any description; and of the sedums or stonecrops, Sedum spectabile is the most useful to group with other hardy plants. Oriental poppies are superb additions to perennial plantings; especially Mary Stud- holme and Cerise Beauty. In discussing formal flower arrangement for the little garden, the planning of flowers for small rectangular spaces, it is impossi- ble to escape the practice of setting out plants ina regular fashion. This leaves us open at once to the criticism of “bedding-out,” so called. But for certain places bedding-out is more than advis- able: it is the only thing to do. On page 14 of Miss M. Agar’s book, “Garden Design in Theory and Practice,”’ are three excel- lent patterns for beds, which must be treated in this way with flowers; and these designs, though probably meant for larger, more elaborate schemes, may readily be adapted to a very small place. The disadvantage of such beds is that a pattern in flowers, as in wall-paper or in silks, means repeating the forms and colors; and this greatly limits the variety of plants to be used. But if an FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 53 effect of design and of a generally ordered type is wanted, this is one of the channels through which it can be secured. On pages 209 and 210 of the same excellent volume are two of the most charming suggestions I have ever seen for formal borders of hardy plants for succession of bloom and color arrange- ment. In the first, delphinium, Madonna lilies, irises, columbines, parrot tulips, hepaticas, and purple crocuses are the plants and bulbs used; in the second, hardy asters, tree peonies, montbretias, peonies, pinks, and Darwin tulips are the subjects. If either of these borders is taken as a model, and used on opposite sides of a straight walk, the axis of the garden and the house, ending in a good seat, a shelter, the whole framed in grass, with an enclosing belt of well-grown shrubs, nothing could be better for a small garden. Miss Agar’s book contains capital advice on the princi- ples of design. Economies of space, and beauties of pattern and color, to be obtained from a formal arrangement of plants, being then ad- mitted, let us consider annual flowers with which to “ Broider the ground in rich array.” Annual flowers bring with them their own best qualities of quick bloom, gay color, and a willingness to cover speedily bare spots in the perennial border. No compari- son can be drawn between annuals and perennials; each has its own place and function, the one supplementing the other, not supplanting it. Can any flower clothe the foreground of, say, Delphinium belladonna with more charm and pretty contrast of color than Verbena Beauty of Oxford, for example, or one of the deep violet petunias, which cast such graceful branches to the summer winds? To discuss the subject of annual flowers with any degree of completeness would take more pages than are at my disposal here. In a rapid survey of the material just now, a list of fifty-odd kinds of annuals presented itself to my mind, and this without including some of the less well-known kinds begin- 54 THE LITTLE GARDEN ning now to beknown in American gardens. This wealth of flowers, all to be bought so cheaply in seeds, is argument sufficient against barrenness anywhere. A short tabulated list follows. Among the best white annuals for the garden are these: Candytuft, Gypsophila, Sweet Alyssum, Nigella, Verbena, Balsam, Centaurea, Cos- mos, Petunia, Stock, Nicotiana, Aster, Phlox, and Larkspur. Red annuals, which will always be wanted by someone, are: Poppy, Gaillardia, Salpiglossis, Balsam, Nasturtium, Scarlet Salvia, Phlox. Purple, lavender, and mauve annuals: Clarkia, Salpiglossis, Verbena, Sweet Pea, Cornflower, Godetia, Petunia, Scabiosa, Schizanthus, Stock, Ageratum, Larkspur. Yellow and orange: Calliopsis, Gaillardia, Nasturtium, Pansy (fall- sown), Mignonette, Portulaca (yellow only), Zinnia, Escholtzia, Mari- gold, Sunflower, Summer Chrysanthemum. Pink and Rose: Clarkia, Silene, Poppy, Balsam, Cosmos, Sweet Pea, Dianthus (annual), Aster, Lavatera, Larkspur. Blue annuals: Myosotis, Lobelia, Nigella, Salvia patens, Cornflower, Asperula, Let it suffice to take a few of these, and, as with perennials, mention my preference as to varieties of certain kinds. An alpha- betical sequence would give us ageratum first; and here I cannot think there is much choice of varieties, except for the great dif- ference between dwarf and tall-growing plants. Ageratum seed seems to me to be absurdly mixed. The variety Stella Gurnee was a, favorite with me for many years. But one cannot now be sure of getting Stella Gurnee. A lovely one from Dreer last season was Cope’s Pet, to which I shall return later; but even here, among these plants, were others quite different in height and type and color of flower. However, this is a capital agera- tum to invest in where a plant a foot high is desired. There are garden writers who declare that white is the great peace- maker in the garden. In fact, I believe that I once thought as they do; but I now think that nothing so subtly weaves together the flower-color of a garden as blue and its related tones. This blue ageratum plays such a réle most delicately and FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 55 well. It is not true blue. It is a true lavender, with sometimes more blue in its flowers, sometimes less. Antirrhiniums, or snapdragons, are in endless multitude and in three heights — dwarf, tall, medium. Buy the clear tones of yellow, rose, and crimson here, and those too that verge upon orange, or that strangely named color which has come to real distinctness under the words chamois-rose, a combination of yellow and rose- pink. And, in a northern climate, start these seeds indoors if possible. Asters are a world of glory in themselves. My advice would be to indulge in the single varieties, known as Aster sinensis, now very familiar to us, possessed of a certain grace of form which the doubles lack. In balsams the so-called camellia-flowered varie- ties surpass all others; and for calendulas, to use with flowers of delicate color, the paler hues listed in the catalogues are the ones to buy. Candytuft, the large white, and that delightful newer tall mauve, lend a peculiar interest where they are grown, in successive sowings, two weeks apart in practically the same ground, and will give long periods of bloom. In Celosias, the Castle Gould hydrids, with their pale-gold and flame colors, are valuable; not so the heavy crimsons, so difficult to use in the average border. Lobelias for low blues, especially Sutton’s, which I have found delightful; lupines for later laven- ders; scabiosas later, for lavender and mauve; nemophila, a lovely blue for mild climates; nigella Miss Jekyll, an enchanting blue for the border — these are perhaps the only lavender or bluish flowers to mention now, among annuals. Purple, the close associate of this color, finds its expression among them, in the verbena (Dolores is a beauty), the petunia, the statice, stock, and Phlox Drummondii. Salpiglossis furnishes a rich purple, too, and a tall lightly blowing variation of form as well as the good color. Also here are the scabiosas, or mourning brides. 56 THE LITTLE GARDEN Salvia patens, a lovely true blue, but not very effective in the garden, and Salvia farinacea, are flowers that add much to one’s summer pleasure; the last-named is particularly lovely and easily grown. Zinnias are our faithful friends, and a new one from Vaughan’s, Isabellina by name, has a charming hue, buff, which gives it a special place in all good flower-plantings to-day. Clarkias and godetias are wonderfully fine annual flowers; these are to be had in splendid tones of rose-color and in white. Annuals are endless in variety and loveliness. Lavatera splen- dens, Sunset, is a magnificent flower. This mallow is one of the finest of all garden subjects, but it must have two or three feet to spread in. Of annual poppies one hardly needs to speak; the Shirley poppies, and the great double varieties with blue-green foliage, are capital in their time. Sweet peas in rainbow hues may float about other flowers, if plants grown to a foot in pots are set among perennials and annuals; and this is no experiment, but a tried and lovely plant- ing. Imagination fails before the pictures which may here be arranged, the enchanting relations of color to be established through this one placing of a delicate, effective annual. Nemesia, schizanthus, phacelia, are all commonly used in English gardens, and are beginning to be rather generally grown in our own. The list of yellows may well begin with Iceland poppy and end, as the season does, with marigold and zinnia; between these dates comes a long golden procession: calendula, dimorphotheca, gail- lardia, nasturtium, cenothera (the evening primrose), salpiglos- sis in its yellow variety; Sanvitalia procumbens, a lovely little plant with orange-colored flowers in constant bloom; Statice stnuata Bonduelli with its pale-yellow straw-like flowers; the annual chrysanthemums, Morning Star and their kind; the an- nual dwarf sunflowers, such as Primrose Queen; and, finally, the marigold and the zinnia. Whites are represented in this list by isies 3 3 8 > aD = S NR FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 57 cosmos, — the early dwarf is the best for cool climates, — sweet alyssum (Little Gem), candytuft, stocks, the nicotines, both Nicotiana affinis and the larger Nicotiana sylvestris — both excel- lent white-flowered things. Annual gypsophila, or chalk-plant, and Phlox Drummondii, in white again; white verbena has a place of its own among these. Do not think that those mentioned above complete the list of annuals available for the little garden. It is only a rough, general list, most casual; meant to serve only as a reminder of things quickly obtainable and practically sure to do well anywhere. A small garden may easily be well managed with the annuals alone; but it is when the three — annuals, perennials, and bulbs, spring, summer, and autumn flowering — are happily used together, that the triumph comes. And for an unbroken succession of bloom no one has laid down a clearer or better rule than has Miss Shelton in her book, “Continuous Bloom in America.” The alter- nation of plants of several periods of bloom planted in lines or circular groups, in broken though regular order, is the secret of well-balanced flowering. This is a thing to remember for small formal spaces; in fact, it could be practised readily in the small informal border, by forgetting that part of the injunction con- cerning lines. It is my own habit to do this, though it has per- haps become an instinct too, as such habits will. I have not touched upon the subject of summer-flowering bulbs, and there is a fairly long list of these. What a resource is in them, too, for the garden! First of all, because of their form. Nearly all of this tribe are upright in habit, their leaves are straight, swordlike, from the ground, or narrow from an upright stem; the flowers are borne upon tall, straight, slender stems, yet the range of color in these same flowers is immense. The value of the stiff habit of growth of lily, of gladiolus, is the value of con- trast in the garden. Almost all flowering masses of other plants 58 THE LITTLE GARDEN are rounding in effect; these bulbous things cut through such masses, raise them in an effective way. And when standing apart, too, give a distinct pleasure through their difference in lines. Let us take the lily first, one of the greatest of all garden favorites. Probably the Madonna lily is the best beloved of this group. But many gardeners have found, to their sorrow, that this is a fickle and uncertain lily. There are no all-embracing rules for its success; but there is one constantly reiterated by Mr. E. H. Wilson, the great explorer, which should be ever before us: no manure near a lily; never any manure even to approach its bulb. Good drainage; a rich (made rich a year or too before setting the bulb), well-tilled soil, preferably a good loam; the bulb buried full deep, according to seed-list instruction; a hand- ful of sand for it to lie upon, and, as an extra precaution, the lily bulb to be partly on its side, that water may not stay in its upper end of crown — these are the standard instructions for the plac- ing and planting of lilies. And except for tiny bulbs, such as St. Bruno’s lily (Anthericum liliastrum), which is not a lily at all, and the beautiful little scarlet Lilium tenuifolium, they should be planted eight inches apart in groups. As for the best varieties, Lilium candidum, the Madonna Lily, is fixed in our affections; in our own garden, in a well-drained position, it multiplies rapidly; in a wetter one, it often disappears. Lilium regale is, I truly think, the most satisfactory, and, take it all in all, the finest of all the lilies for our northern climate. No flower is finer, no stalk more graceful, no fragrance sweeter. It blooms with us, in Michigan, in early August, increases rapidly when once established, and is a glorious introduction of Mr. Wil- ‘son’s from Western China. A very warm, wet winter will cause any lily bulb to rot and disappear. Wet is just as much an enemy of the lily bulb as manure — that is, too much wet; some moisture it needs. In fact, in very dry soils and climates, a few stones are FLOWERS IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 59 often laid about the ground over or near lilies, to help retain the needed moisture there. To continue: other good ones are Lilium Sargentii, a very beautiful, distinguished flower, with finely cut leaves up the stem; Lilium Batemanit, which I have not grown, but which is said to be very fine in its apricot color; Lilium aura- tum, the gold-banded Lily of Japan, so tall, so magnificent in its white petals with golden stripes; Lilium Henryii, another fine Chinese variety, very tall and graceful, of a pale orange; and Lilium superbum, a bright orange, which will, I think, grow and multiply everywhere. These bloom in July, and I have some, very fine, in front of the common elder, when that is in flower. The group of lilies known as Speciosum is delightful in color, form, and graceful growth, especially the nodding pink lily, so com- monly forced to-day by florists. With this hardy lily lovely combinations may be made in the border; indeed, with the white one, too. Imagine the pink lily, L. Speciosum rubrum, blooming among ageratum, or behind pale lavender asters, with violet petunia and some foliage of a thalictrum near! Here is a little garden picture, which will not be despised when seen. As the word white flashes to the mind with lily, so, at the mere mention of the word gladiolus, the whole range of the prism glows before us. I doubt if in any flower family the chords of color have been struck so fully, harmoniously, and vividly. For garden purposes there are several distinct types of gladioli, among them, Lemoineit, Childsit and the race known as Primulinus hybrids. It is hardly possible to name any of the varieties of this lovely group of flowers, whose time of bloom may be regulated by the time of planting, whose flowers are unfailing and as vigor- ous as they are bright; it is hardly possible to give specific names. The number of commercial growers of this flower is probably greater now in America than in any other country. I shall then mention only two or three each of a given color as fine types in 60 THE LITTLE GARDEN that color; and in doing this, I am aware that many of the most beautiful gladioli are left out. For a cool pink, America is by far the loveliest; for lavender and purple, Louise, Baron Hulot, Heliotrope (which I have not seen), Blue Jay; for salmon, or flame-pink, Halley, Prince of Wales, Pride of Goshen, Mrs. Francis King; for yellow and orange, Schwaben, Niagara, Orange Glory, Victory; three good whites, Lily Lehmann, Chicago White, Peace; for mauve, Rosella, Heralda; for warm pink, Evelyn Kirtland, Panama, Tracy’s Dawn; and for scarlet and dark red, Princeps, Brenchleyeusis, Mrs. Watt, and War. Mrs. Wilder, with her graceful pen, has a paragraph so excel- lent on the use of scarlet gladioli with other flowers, that it is here repeated: “‘For myself I like cool setting for such brilliant beauties among lavender and dim blue flowers — campanulas, aconites, goat’s rue, clary and meadow sage; and nothing could be more effective than sheaves of late-planted red and scarlet gladioli thrusting through a haze of September-flowering Michael- mas daisies — lavender, white, and purple. White musk mallows, with scarlet gladioli planted among them, give a gay effect and the splendid War, massed against white phlox, shows at its best.” What brilliant pictures in these lines, and what excellent sug- gestions for those whose gardens are starting, and who need the most practical as well as intelligent suggestions. Keep the pink- flowered hardy aster out of these groupings — root it out, if necessary. Notice that it is omitted from the list of three in Mrs. Wilder’s groupings. Try not only the varieties of gladioli mentioned in my list, but as many as you can buy of the newer and improved varieties. No flower, of all those at command, catches and holds more interest than the gladiolus in its nearly endless types, varieties, and colors. VI COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN AND now we reach a delicate point in the discussion of garden problems. It is here that individual taste will and must assert itself, though a line may be drawn consisting of a few principles for occasional reference. Do many people, as they see a house and its surroundings, think of the picture created? I am thinking now of the average house, the house on the small lot. There is a picture; a picture always results, a composition of some kind, from whatever we do in building and planting. If the house is merely one of a row, there is still the general effect, to which each house, each tree or shrub contributes; if the house is detached, set in its own small bit of ground, the chance comes to make it an attractive individual composition, and thus to serve as an uplifting in- fluence in its locality. The color of houses has so much to do with this agreeable or disagreeable effect; and as all that is beautiful is logical, as all that is successful is related, the loveliest houses are those of a material drawn from the neighboring earth or woods; the nearest material is almost always the best, partly because of nature’s harmony of color. A stone or brick quarried or made near-by is usually best; or, if lumber is used, a wooden house painted quietly to harmonize with its surrounding color. Tradition of a locality, as in New England, often determines the type of house and its color as well. I have seen so often the horror of color out of place in certain house-exteriors — for instance, the roof of red tile on a bungalow in a wood, a roof of red that smites one in the eye, where all about are the soft browns and grays of winter 6% THE LITTLE GARDEN woodland; in summer this roof, with the fresh green of oak and other trees about it, is still more unbearable. Let us now consider the matter of color in foliage; and here I shall give my own opinion as to golden-leaved privet, elder, phil- adelphus, and as to the use of all shrubs or plants with variegated foliage. These are difficult, in fact dangerous, to use. Yellow leaves give an impression of sick shrubs; or, if not that, they im- part to the small place an interrupted, a spotty look, resulting in distinct disadvantage. The leaves of variegated vinca, for exam- ple, or of evonymous, confuse the eye; a clearness particularly necessary where area is small is lost by the use of these things. Wherefore plan for the small-place groups of shrubs and plants, in clear, but varying tones of green. And by these I mean the black green of cedar and spruce; the yellow greens of spirea in spring, ageing to grass greens; the bush honeysuckles, with their later bluish tinge; in plants, the peony’s strong green of leaves; that of the aconite, much like the peony; the blue-green of iris foliage; and the yellow-greens of that of hemerocallis, not to mention the loveliness of all the gray-foliaged things, such as stachys, pinks, nepeta, and lavender. Backgrounds of a fairly clear green are best for your flower-masses, and for lower plant- ings, of the same tones, for your individual flowers themselves. In shrub-borders beautiful effects are got through judicious use of these varying tones of green; the suggestion of five to seven shrubs in a group, where space permits, applies here, too, as to perennial plants; only in this way may broad and effective pic- tures be secured. Especially too, must this grouping or massing of shrubs for color be borne in mind as we think of their bloom: what is its character and color? and when do our shrubs bloom? Will the form, color, and period of bloom of one shrub-group en- hance or injure the beauty of another? and how will this flower- ing affect the looks of the plants below and stretching out before COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 63 the shrubbery-belt? So much to consider; and the seasons hurry past. The principles hold good with flower-grouping, and lead us now to discuss the latter, a subject than which there is none more entirely fascinating in the world of floriculture — I had al- most said, of art. The questions now before us, ina large way, are: do you prefer in a little garden as much variety in form and color of flowers as can be got into the space at hand? Do you aim at special color-effects in flowers at one of the three seasons, spring, summer, autumn? Is your taste all for brilliant color, or are you for a certain subtle delicacy of hue in the harmonies of your bor- ders or beds? Or, again, you may like best a so-called garden of one color, where, for instance, yellow is the prevailing hue — yel- low in all its dazzling range? It is a practically foregone con- clusion, and but human, to want the most we can get in our small spaces; therefore succession and harmony of color in the little garden shall be our subjects here. Welcome the spring, then, with a few snow-drops or crocuses; in the former, Galanthus Elwesti is wonderfully fine; in the latter may I suggest some of the newer florists’ types as they are called, and never, never a mixture. To keep one’s garden choice, avoid mixtures. Avoid agents, golden-leaved things, and mixtures. Mixtures have tempting prices. They are excellent to sow broad- cast in the woodlands of some large estate, where the best of them will take hold and multiply; but, for the tiny garden, they are a leap into the unknown. For crocuses I suggest, Largest Golden Yellow, Purpurea grandiflora, Mikado or Cesar (striped), and Kathleen Parlow, a delicious white. Now comes to mind all that host of beautiful little things that we are forbidden to import at present, by the Federal Horticultural Board — scillas, chion- odoxas, grape hyacinths, those flowers with their sweet blues, rich purples, and interesting flower-forms, with whick, running 64 THE LITTLE GARDEN gayly in and out of crocuses as the latter are in flower, one may throw down on the earth such beauty as only the earth itself can produce. With more than a tinge of regret, then, we must look to daffodils to follow our crocuses. These we may have in plenty, and three good ones are the Tenby daffodil, earliest of all, King Alfred, and Flora Wilson, or White Lady. Turn to your bulb- list; you will find each year an ever-larger choice. Rock cress (Arabis albida), may well run among these daffodils, and some of the aubrietias, mauve, or purple bloom; also the low Phlox sub- ulata, in very great moderation, for it soon becomes a weed, and its bright tone of mauve is too vivid to contemplate without some uneasiness, in the hands of the gardener whose color-sense is not sure. Little intergroupings of these bulbs among the perennial plants may easily be managed where saving space is an essential. Tu- lips for instance, the last of our spring-flowering bulbs to bloom, may be set between plants of delphinium or peony. Two objects are then achieved. The tulips bloom in encircling clusters of fresh foliage, and this foliage, as it rises and grows strong, covers the tulip leaves as they brown to ripeness in the border or bed. For the sake of economy we shall not mention the single early tulips, but will give the names of the excellent Darwins and three Cottage tulips, all not of the commonest, but al lovely, grouped in these threes together. The Darwins are Dream, Margaret, Ronald Gunn; the Cottage, Fairy Queen, John Ruskin, Miss Willmott. Below these grow Phlox divaricata, Mertensia virginica, a good strain of forget-me-not, such as Perfection, or the hardy alyssum in its palest yellow form — argentewm, or sulphureum, as it is called in different lists. Arabis alpina, the single rock- cress and its double form, far finer, are beautiful on the ground in such a place. And so the flowers carry one gently forward to COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 65 early summer when sweet William, early columbines, violas, — bleeding heart is a contemporary of tulips, — pyrethrums, Ger- man irises, the early Campanula persicifolia, and cornflowers, bloom. Following these come anchusa, lupine, Canterbury bell, foxglove, quickly succeeded by more blue in delphinium (Achillea for white, Anthemis tinctoria for yellow), gaillardia, annual candytuft, and lychnis, if scarlet is desired. As these flowers wax and wane, another group succeeds, of which hollyhocks are the most notable; with early phloxes of the kind known as Arendsii to start the train of fine phlox bloom. Many annual flowers will now be appearing, to fill spaces and to give strength and variety to the color of the whole. There are at various periods, opening their buds among perennials, these: Gypsophila paniculata, the two misty blue subjects, so good for every garden, Echinops ritro and Eryngium amethystinum; Veronica longifolia subsessilis, a very effective purple; Statice latifolia, a darker purple; and that whole magnificent tribe of Phlox decussata, the tall, medium, and dwarf hardy phloxes, which Joseph might have envied, though owning his marvelous coat. And now the garden grows like autumn itself, more golden and more purple; for with the annual asters come the hardy ones in all their splendor: rudbeckia, helianthus, helenium, boltonia (tall, delicate white); for mauve, Sedum spectabile; and for a blue, Salvia azurea, which blooms for me delightfully in early Sep- tember. Later than this, where frost does not reach them, bloom the fine Japanese anemones, Géant des Blanches, surely the finest; and still later, the aconites, that good Wilsonii being the best form to buy. While these excellent hardy plants produce their glow of flowers, their humbler companions, the annuals, are, if proper treatment has been given them, also doing their duty. The pink verbena, Beauty of Oxford, has been softly flow- ering below a violet petunia — Carlsruhe Balcony, for example; 6 66 THE LITTLE GARDEN the charming Salvia farinacea neighbors the soft pink stock, Beauty of Nice; lavender ageratum is lovely, beside earlier Phlox Drummondi Isabellina, or the new Zinnia Isabellina, as well as near the hardy Phlox Braga, or beside such a nice dwarf rambler rose as Ellen Poulsen. Yet where is the ageratum not in place? Also the sweet alyssum, whose clear white spread of flowers and whose delicious fragrance are never finer than after a cool Sep- tember night. The lilac alyssum, too, is a fine novelty, except that it seems not to be worthy of its color-name, except in cooler seasons, or in late autumn, when a lovely tone of palest purple suffuses all its flowers. May I give now a simple planting suggestion for a garden- walk? This is in our upper garden. A walk of gravel, four feet wide, traverses this from end to end, with an eighteen-inch bor- der of turf on either side, between it and the open spaces used for trying out plants. The walk is perhaps fifty feet long, and drops three feet as it enters the main garden on another level. It is only with that on the upper level that we are now concerned. Here for some years the borders were entirely of Beauty of Ox- ford verbena, before roses. But lately a decided change was made. Two years ago, as the only trees or shrubs now along the walks are four dwarf standard apple trees (the Delicious) at the intersection of the cross-walks in the upper garden — two years ago we set out eight French lilacs on either side of the walk from the tea-house to the steps to the lower garden. To each young lilac we moved a fine peony from other borders. Around these peonies in spring, and blooming with the lilacs, are trial groups of May-flowering tulips, and now, and since July, two rows of love- liest annuals, flame-pink zinnias from Vaughn’s seed, and agera- tum, Cope’s Pet, from Dreer — the latter placed nearest the turf- border. The little apple trees cast rounding shadows across smooth gravel, grass, and flowers. The flowers themselves give COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 67 exceeding brilliance to the little vista, looking in either direction. They have developed from four packets of seed sown in the open ground. In some cases the zinnias bloom forward almost to the ground, agreeably interrupting the flow of lavender color of the lower subjects. In others the ageratum seems to hold the field against all comers, rising with a pretty defiance to almost a foot. Thus the flowers have arranged themselves as flowers will, with grace and charm unspeakable. Nothing simpler is there in gardening than such a border as this; nothing cheaper or less labor-taking — literally no upkeep except now and then a woman’s hand with scissors for a dead- head among the rich-hued zinnias or the browning ageratum clusters, or perhaps a shearing back of the out-cropping lower flowers, to leave grass open to the sun. Yet, as I sit in the little shelter and gaze down my short walk, watching the sun and shade upon these colors, I wonder if England itself could show me anything in simple borders more satisfying for late summer than this one, in a town snatched only fifty years ago from the original forests of the region. The value of this description lies here: what has been done in an unfinished locality can be done anywhere, and often with so much better effect, and with more beautiful results, than have been had with us. For a good effect of color in annuals I must repeat here a very practical and beautiful suggestion for a border of these flowers made lately in a gardening periodical by Miss Jekyll, the great English authority. “The plan,” writes Miss Jekyll, “shows a border of annuals arranged for good color, with blue and white and pale yellow at one end, passing to stronger yellow, orange, and red in the middle, and then on to pink and purple at the farther end.” For the planting from left to right these special flowers are suggested: yellow nasturtium, primrose, sunflower, blue cornflower, nigella, nemophila, escholtzia (buff), primrose, 68 THE LITTLE GARDEN African marigold, Lupine Hartwegii, Lamarck’s evening prim- rose, mignonette, blue lobelia (tall and dwarf), French marigolds, Coreopsis Drummondii, calendula, red hollyhock, orange African marigold, dwarf French marigold again, Malope grandifiora, crimson snapdragon, mignonette, pink snapdragon, pink holly- hocks, China aster (tall white), dwarf ageratum, white holly- hocks, Lavatera trimestris, scabiosa (azure variety), godetia (double rose), Koeniga and Collinsia bicolor. Koeniga is an an- nual, unknown to me; so is Collinsia; and where the word Tropeolum occurs, I have substituted yellow nasturtium. The lupine used here, Hartwegii, has so-called blue-and-white flowers and is said to be very superior to the ordinary lupine. The position of the flowers in such a border as this may be decided by their height as given on the seed-packet. Holly- hocks, of course, stand at the back of such a border, while mi- gnonette, calendula, lobelia, very low-growing plants, occupy space at the front, cornflowers and lavatera, or mallow, coming midway between back and front. While this list may not be in its entirety suited to our gardens, it is one of the best possible to work from. It gives a delightful flower-grouping, which may be easily worked out in the first season of a border, and may be varied to suit the taste of the individual, always keeping, how- ever, to the general color arrangement. And now suppose gardens of one color are wanted: lists of flowers of one color — or nearly of one color, for, truth to tell, we are now skating on thin ice; here are airholes in the way of varying opinions as to what is blue, what is pink, and what is mauve; in fact, very few see eye to eye in these things. For my own opinion —I have seen not more than eight or ten blue flowers anywhere, and have myself often been deceived about this hue. The undeceiving agency is a good color chart. A chart like Dr. Robert Ridgway’s quickly shows the lover of color COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 69 which is blue and which is lavender in flowers. Let us consider, however, what subjects may suitably be used in a little gar- den of so-called blue flowers; and in naming these, I shall first say which I think blue, then give others which most people, including most seedsmen, call blue, but all of which are really lavender, mauve, or violet. For true blues use myosotis or forget-me-not; delphinium of blue tones, particularly, Del- phinium belladonna; some of the taller named varieties, such as Capri, and King of the Blues; the lower perennial Delphinium sinensis; cornflowers, including Dreer’s Double; Salvia patens, a pretty clear blue annual; Nemophila insignis, successful in warm climates; certain lobelias easily found in seed-catalogues; Anchusa tialica, the Dropmore variety; Nigella Miss Jekyll, another an- nual. These are blue. To associate with them are hosts of other flowers of related tones: violas, Canterbury bells, in lavender and purple, Campanula lactiflora, Campanula latifolia, Cam- panulas persicifolia and carpatica, all fine occupants of a border; annual larkspur in lavender and mauve; ageratum, annual asters, aconites, petunias, verbenas, and the great families of hardy asters and phloxes in the colors under consideration. These are some of the flowers bearing the name of blue that may be used in gardens. But no garden of one color, it seems to me, can ever be really effective without some added use of creamy or clear white flowers. In the case of a pink garden, fit substi- tutes for white might be found in the misty blues of eryngium and echinops, and in the lovely lavenders of ageratum; but in the blue garden the cream-white zinnia, gypsophilas, single and double, white lilacs — all are aids to beauty. There is no doubt that a garden of blue flowers is particularly good when it can be placed against the blue of a distant landscape. A pretty illus- tration of this is seen on the cover of Sutton and Sons’ seed-list for 1921. Here in this small picture is as good a suggestion as 70 THE LITTLE GARDEN one could find for mixed borders flanking a paved walk — borders in which blues and pale violets are the predominating hues. It may be that, where the owner of the little garden desires his beds or little borders to be of one general color, he will select from such a list as this; but he will find elsewhere many to add. I have lately read of a garden effect which strongly took my fancy. This is a garden in England, one of several upon the same estate, a garden framed by dark trees, entered from a rather sombre space; a garden all of whose flowers are yellow, and whose charming name is the Garden of the Sun. Beyond this garden, again enclosed in tall dark hedges, appears a further one, the Gar- den of the Moon, in which, as one may suppose, the flowers are white, though faint blues might well be admitted to such a place. The second garden is said to be less successful than the first; but it may be that the Garden of the Moon should be visited only at that hour at which the traveler in Scotland is charged to see fair Melrose aright. Is it fancy, or am I right in thinking that most of the first ex- periences with flowers are experiences with yellow ones? Not so with my own. I remember as if it were yesterday buying, some twenty years ago, a package of seed of Delphinium sinensis, sowing it on virgin soil, and achieving such flowers, and plants of such a height, that the picture of these excited the envy of a great English authority, who begged for seed. At that moment, al- though I did not know it, my permanent preoccupation was set- tled. Blue flowers were my beginning. For yellow flowers what a field there is, beginning in earliest spring with the crocus, and ending with some such lovely thing as Rudbeckia triloba, with gorgeous yellow pansies, Iceland poppies, trollius, for May; col- umbines for June; gaillardias, lemon lilies, Anthemis tinctoria, for July, when all the yellow spring-sown annuals begin — zinnias, COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 71 marigolds, tagetes, and, later, dahlias, calendulas, the whole family of the small sunflowers, also heleniums, both low and tall- growing. A Garden of the Sun is easily created. Here, too, white and cream-colored bloom would immensely help the general. effect. Artemisia lactiflora, with its pearl-like florets, would be at its best among yellow flowers. White phloxes also, such as Tapis Blanc, Von Lassberg, and Frau Antoine Buchner. As already suggested, my observation is that beginners in gardening choose yellow flowers. It does not matter what they choose; it does mat- ter that they should begin. Annual flowers, too, are likely to form part of this horticultural introduction. The inexperienced gar- dener is usually in a hurry, and annuals give quick reward for labor. The rose-pink garden is easy : from fruit-blossoms and tulips of May, through June roses, to the phloxes and mallows of August, all supplemented by annuals of entrancing tones of rose, pink sweet Williams, — biennials, of course, these, — English daisies, godetias, clarkias, silenes, annual phloxes, verbenas — a lovely array. How much lovelier all the expanse of color, if groups of lavender ageratum appear occasionally amid the rose-colored blooms. For a formal arrangement of color, where pale yellow, lav- ender, and pale pink were used, I give the following, which was carried out not long since under my direction. The garden lies on a flat terrace shaped like an open fan; the terrace sur- rounds a bay of the house, and this terrace is outlined by low clipped hedges of Thunberg’s barberry, with little eight-inch hedges of the same around each bed. Two grass walks radiate from two glass doors of the bay, dividing three long, curving beds at the outside of the fan, as well as smaller beds nearer the house. The planting of the three outer beds was this, in rectangular lines 72 THE LITTLE GARDEN following the outline of the bed. Next the low hedge, sweet alys- sum, Little Gem, Ageratum Stella Gurnee, dwarf pale-yellow antirrhinum, or snapdragon, and in the centre a short line of white geranium, Mme. Récamier. The smaller beds next the house were then arranged: lines of pale-yellow dwarf snapdragon nearest the bordering hedges, the centres masses of the pale-pink geranium, Berthe de Presilly. It is true that this is actual “bed- ding out”; but where space is very small and color wanted con- stantly, a formal idea is the one to call into use. In the case of the snapdragon, here there was a gardener who understood replacing those about to end their bloom by others, that the bands of pale -yellow, needed as a soft contrast to the pinks, lavenders, and whites, might never be lacking. A garden in Massachusetts lately brought to my attention is -well worth describing in these pages, for the great variety and gayety of its contents, as well as for the devotion and skill of its mistress. This is a formal garden of forty-five by thirty-five feet. The central feature is a bird-bath, around which are planted white Iris siberica, and then purple ones in ordered circles, with cannas to follow, which, if the cannas were of pale yellow or pale pink, and not tall enough to hide the bird-bath, must have been very good. The bird-bath, with its encircling flowers, is on the axis of a walk two feet wide, which runs straight through the garden. Bounding the whole garden are borders three feet in width, and separated from the central part by another walk; and be- tween these and the circle in the centre (around which, by the way, the main walk divides) are beds solidly planted with flow- ers, their inner lines following the curves of the central feature. Midway between the circle and the rectangular walk facing the outer borders, at each end of the garden lengthwise, the central COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 73 walk runs into these large beds, to right and left, for a distance of about three feet. This last is a very practical arrangement, as in any wide flower-plantings an open space for use when working among flowers is essential. In the two beds forming semi-circles around the central one are these plant subjects: nearest the walk, Phlox divaricata and columbines, with tulips, Le Réve, to form a picture with the lavender phlox. Back of all these flowers comes Iris florentina alba, mauve, then pyrethrums. In the corners of these rectangles (which have curved inner sides, as I have said) are groups of tulips, Clara Butt and Agneta, with bluish and pale yellow irises to follow — Mrs. Horace Darwin, Iris pallida dalmatica; Mer- tensia virginica is freely used, also Irises Wyomissing and White Knight. Columns of the tall yellow Thermopsis caroliniana mark the entrances to the garden at both ends; and in the long three- foot borders surrounding the whole there is a profusion of hardy plants, with such pretty color-effects noted as, for instance, these: late purple iris, purple columbines, yellow pansies, white oriental poppy, with lupines near. Arabis and narcissi edge the walks in spring, and for midsummer a profusion of single gyp- sophila, annual white, gives a light grace to the borders. As the season advances, the rich colors of late summer appear in heleniums and aconites, and asters follow irises, a really fine succession of bloom. Here follows a sentence from a letter of this garden’s owner, which shows that thrift as well as beauty is a part of her plan:— “The sale of my vegetables every year pays the tax on the land on which they are raised, gives us all we need to eat and can; and then the hens help with the fertilizer. The sale of flowers and plants, especially around Memorial Day, helps me to 74 THE LITTLE GARDEN secure more plants and handsomer ones, and those I do not want are given to my neighbors.” Closing the chapter, I place here the delightful table of color- arrangement in flowers made by Miss Isabella Pendleton of Cincinnati. POSSIBLE CHARMING COMBINATIONS 75 Season of Chief subject loons Color Combined with Buddleia variabilis superba July-Sept. | Lavender pink Japanese Iris Daphne Cneorum May Rose pink Mertensia virginica Iberis sempervirens Narcissus Barrit conspicuus Gladiolus Primulinus Hybrids Six weeks Yellow Gypsophila panicu= after t lata planting | Pink Ageratum Old rose Zinnias, copper and yellow Helianthemum Salmon Queen | June Salmon pink Portulaca (pink and yellow Lobelia. (annual deep blue) Iris Chester Hunt June Dark and pale blue | Columbine, Paeo- ‘ nia, Juniata — Clear blue Heuchera, Linum Albert Victor — Blue and lavender perrene Pallida dalmatica Clear pale blue Isolene Orchid pink Mt. Penn Pink and deep pink Lent A. Williamson Lavender aul Mildred Presby Plum and pale plum Anna Farr White, veined blue Minnehaha White, shaded yellow Wyomissing White, suffused pink LAthospermum poco Heavenly B May-June | Turquoise blue Cerastium Stachys lanata Aubirieta Lycoris squamigera August Pink shaded blue Amsonia salicifolia Paeonia La Perle May-June | Lavender pink Mauve Iris ady Duff Flesh pink Lupine Lafayette Lavender pink Foxglove Jules Dessert Pale rose Columbine jantea Rose pink Adonise Superba Cerise Festiva Maxima White Mons. Martin Cahusac Red Phlox Elizabeth Campbell July-August) Salmon pink Mme. Paul Dutrie Blue pi Peachblow Mauve pink America Pink with Tyrian eye Rynstroom Rose pink ae panicu- Miss Lingard White fear) Eryngium Jeanne D’Aro White (mid-season) Echinops Tapis Blane White dwarf Blue Salvia Antoine Buchner White (mid-season) Mrs. Jenkins White (late) Crepuscule Silver mauve abdi Dark bluish violet Tris Bluish violet Pharon Mauve with white eye Salvia farinacea June-Sept. | Mauve Antirrhinum Zinnia Ageratum Thalictrum glaucum May-June | Yellow Delphinium Viola Apricot May Apricot yellow Primrose Aubrietia Anchusa myosotids- flora “Dawe THE LITTLE GARDEN 76 S1aprog pus spaq "1 wd FOIT WOdMaNy TO} OATIOVHO St 4BY} [BIUUEIq V peeg eune (snyoqung snyjuniq) WIT 104g % e801 AIOATIG BLOT “39 §z Ud AQoq USTYT 4% a Ieqs OIN 4% quid e780119q ‘STOTT ; SIOMOB yo 10: Sut} 7 4Z Ug ( meen ane myjasn ‘yusyd sepioq sepndo, -4no ‘ors! 1aqo}0Q—Jequie}da We oe peter - pee PS eee -ayjunshiy) wunmeyyuessIyDQ Jeplog BuryyNo Joy yUa][90 -xo sIoMOg ‘que[d Jepioq eur UWOIStAIG, qsn3ny—ounr z sid yseyr (DaUsLD2 “IBA DUD} -u0u Dainnjua)) IaMOpBUIoD [vraue1eg yfos qstour Aavoy wmnipeu 8 ut 4seq . 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