The Native Landscape Reader

“I Like Our Prairie Landscape” (1920)

103 From The Park International 1, no. 1 (July 1920): 63–65. JeNs JeNseN i like our Prairie landscape (1920) My first impression of the prairie country was of its richness in flowers. It was one grand carpet of exquisite colors such as is fit for a Forest Cathedral, and such as nature only knows how to weave. Some of the color expressions were as dramatic as the afterglow of the setting sun. And above this carpet, like a flare of trumpets, rose the hawthorn and the western crabapple— the hawthorn garlanded with myriads of white roses, and the crabapple painting the edge of the prairie with its delicate virgin pink. Only on a flat, level plain is it possible to notice the character and beauty of these small trees. Strong and daring, with a feeling of freedom and nobility, they lift their heads above the surface of the land. They are always the first to greet us, and they are interesting and beautiful at all seasons of the year, whether in flower, in leaf or in fruit. In winter, the bare, gray outstretched branches of the hawthorn, that symbolizes the horizontal lines of the prairie, light up the purple borders of the forest, and the violet branches of the crabapple, playing in the different lights of the day, add a poetic charm to the woodlands, and especially to the purple ridges of oaks—those centuries old monarchs of noble birth. These were my first impressions. As years have passed by, they have grown both in number and depth. There is no season of the year that this Illinois landscape does not possess its charm for me. At times it has intimate notes of great delicacy. One early spring, strolling through a bit of woods that were but a ruin of their former grandeur , I met a group of gray dogwood showing the first signs of life. The delicate rose of their spreading buds put a refinement into these scarred and despoiled woods that brought back some of their primitive wealth. Nearby a gray haw, with lace-like branches wove itself into the dark timber of the decaying trees. It was refreshing to find these slender notes here where all was tragedy, and what a promise they gave for the future. There is a tenderness in the deciduous forest that the conifer forest does not possess. One realizes this when 104 ouR amERiCan floRa one passes through the dividing line of the Wisconsin woods and the Illinois woods. I used to wonder why our parks and gardens were so poor in their fall colors, but gradually I came to understand that it was because they were in discord with the native landscape. With their foreign plants, they were nothing but out-of-doors museums ; they represented a conglomeration of things purchased over the counter. Except for a few plants, their growing things had no coloring, or were not ripe for the change of foliage when the first frost threw it withered to the ground. They were an importation , unfitted to meet the struggle for life here, and hence doomed to destruction. Their expression was material, not spiritual ; one of possession rather than of art. They did not belong. They were not what the Great Master had meant for this place. If America shall ever pride itself for any art of its own, that art must grow out of the native soil. We shall never receive credit for things that we steal or copy from others. Landscape gardening is the one art that is dependent upon soil and climatic conditions. How can it ever become native and thrive if we have utter disregard for the materials of which it is composed? Those gardens that have survived in ancient Europe grew out of materials that gave that particular section of the country its character and its charm. So must ours, if we are ever to build parks and gardens which express the best that our country can give. However, there will never be only one type of American landscape gardening, but there will be as many types as there are differences in climate and differences in topographical character of the various Prairie and oak savanna, dexter, mich. (Photograph by robert e. Grese.) i likE ouR PRaRiE landsCaPE 105 sections. How wonderfully rich then will this country become, when the noble art of landscape gardening has been fully understood and appreciated...