The Native Landscape Reader

“Making a Small Garden Look Large” (1924)

183 From Garden Magazine 28, no. 6 (February 1924): 332–35. aRThUR g. eLdRedge making a small Garden look large Where many types of wild beauty find themselves at home on a 100 x 300 ft. lot only five minutes by trolley from the business center of an illinois city (1924) This is the story of how an unpromising city lot was developed into a unique garden and landscape. The property is 100 x 300 ft. extending from the city street to the Rock River. The contours are what many people would call undesirable. Sometime after Mr. Howell purchased the land someone said to him: “I always gave you credit for having sense, but now I know you have none. It will cost more to fill than the lot is worth.” The new owner proceeded to make a “bad” lot “worse,” by digging the ravine deeper. In the workings of his imagination he decided that the types of wild beauty that he had found and loved on camping and fishing trips should be brought home to his dooryard. Here in hours of respite from business cares he could gain recreation and the enjoyment of intimate acquaintance with flowers, plants, and wild scenery which may come only from daily contact through the seasons. By going to a competent landscape architect (Mr. O. C. Simonds) with his general ideas, a working plan was obtained. Mr. Howell says: “After going over the place we were so well agreed that practically no changes were made in the preliminary sketch. I then proceeded to carry out this plan to the letter with my own hands.” He feels that most of the credit for success belongs to the architect while some is due himself for having the good sense to follow his advisor’s plans and principles. The first ideas called for a ravine with water, a White Pine grove, a sunny bank and a shady one and development of the river view. The location and plan of the house were decided with great care, particularly its relation to the river and a large Elm already on the property. A little nursery was started on the lot, using seeds, cuttings, and nurseryman’s transplants to supply the plant material. This required a considerable digging into methods of plant propagation which in itself became a recreation, the by-products of which passed to neighbors’ gardens. Mr. Howell says: “This has been of the very 184 natuRal PaRks and GaRdEns greatest benefit to me in acquiring knowledge of plants, their cultivation, their place in a landscape, and as a healthy interesting occupation.” There were six years of work on the landscape before the house was started. This gave time for careful consideration of all the problems. The result is a very successful one—from every aspect the house seems to be an intimate part of the landscape . The entrance door is inconspicuous , but your mind is so occupied with the thing as a whole that lack of entrance display is not felt. Intrusion of the garden on the river views is prevented by the contours supported by shrubs. Views of the river are well framed by trees and, although only five minutes by trolley from the business center of the city, too much of the city is shut off by friendly branches. You may sit on the ground-level porch at night enjoying the dancing reflections of the bridge lights yet most of the bridge is hidden. Looking up stream, a well framed portion of the river reflects the rising moon with an almost wilderness setting. The brow and side of the twenty foot bank is clothed with shrubs and vines while below a canoe waits in the Willows by the river path. The garden is one that attracts the casual visitor and is doubly attractive to those who are fond of our native plants whose quiet beauty does not flaunt itself, yet speaks loudly to some. Here there is a subtle charm due to compositions loose in texture, flowing lines, quiet colors. Without the irregular shaped pool, much would be lost. It makes a perfect scale of plant material from aquatics to that of woodland shade and to dry rocks, with the intermediate plants which we usually think of as growing in watered regions. The pool also brings by reflection that blue of the sky for which there is no substitute, it also brings life, water life, with the song and flutter of bathing birds. There is...