The Amateur Garden

The Amateur Garden, by George
W. Cable

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Title: The Amateur Garden
Author: George W. Cable
Release Date: September 29, 2006 [EBook #19408]
Language: English
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[Illustration: "That gardening is best ... which best ministers to man's
felicity with least disturbance of nature's freedom."
This is my study. The tree in the middle of the picture is Barrie's elm. I

once lifted it between my thumb and finger, but I was younger and the
tree was smaller. The dark tree in the foreground on the right is Felix
Adler's hemlock. [Page 82]]

THE AMATEUR GARDEN
BY
GEORGE W. CABLE
ILLUSTRATED
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK: MCMXIV
Copyright, 1914, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published October, 1914

CONTENTS
PAGE
MY OWN ACRE 1
THE AMERICAN GARDEN 41
WHERE TO PLANT WHAT 79
THE COTTAGE GARDENS OF NORTHAMPTON 107
THE PRIVATE GARDEN'S PUBLIC VALUE 129

THE MIDWINTER GARDENS OF NEW ORLEANS 163

ILLUSTRATIONS
"That gardening is best ... which best ministers to man's felicity with
least disturbance of nature's freedom" Frontis
"... that suddenly falling wooded and broken ground where Mill River
loiters through Paradise" 6
"On this green of the dryads ... lies My Own Acre" 8
"The beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the river full back
to the rapids just above My Own Acre" 12
"A fountain ... where one,--or two,--can sit and hear it whisper" 22
"The bringing of the grove out on the lawn and the pushing of the lawn
in under the grove was one of the early tasks of My Own Acre" 24
"Souvenir trees had from time to time been planted on the lawn by
visiting friends" 26
"How the words were said which some of the planters spoke" 28
"'Where are you going?' says the eye. 'Come and see,' says the roaming
line" 34
"The lane is open to view from end to end. It has two deep bays on the
side nearest the lawn" 36
"... until the house itself seems as naturally ... to grow up out of the
garden as the high keynote rises at the end of a lady's song" 48
"Beautiful results may be got on smallest grounds" 52
"Muffle your architectural angles in foliage and bloom" 52

Fences masked by shrubbery 64
After the first frost annual plantings cease to be attractive 72
Shrubbery versus annuals 72
Shrubs are better than annuals for masking right angles. South Hall,
Williston Seminary 74
"... a line of shrubbery swinging in and out in strong, graceful
undulations" 74
"However enraptured of wild nature you may be, you do and must
require of her some subserviency about your own dwelling" 84
"Plant it where it will best enjoy itself" 86
"... climaxes to be got by superiority of stature, by darkness and breadth
of foliage and by splendor of bloom belong at its far end" 94
"Some clear disclosure of charm still remote may beckon and lure" 96
"... tall, rectangular, three-story piles ... full of windows all of one size,
pigeon-house style" 100
"You can make gardening a concerted public movement" 112
"Plant on all your lot's boundaries, plant out the foundation-lines of all
its buildings" 122
"Not chiefly to reward the highest art in gardening, but to procure its
widest and most general dissemination" 122
"Having wages bigger than their bodily wants, and having spiritual
wants numerous and elastic enough to use up the surplus" 138
"One such competing garden was so beautiful last year that strangers
driving by stopped and asked leave to dismount and enjoy a nearer
view" 138

"Beauty can be called into life about the most unpretentious domicile"
148
"Those who pay no one to die, plant or prune for them" 148
"In New Orleans the home is bounded by its fences, not by its doors--so
they clothe them with shrubberies and vines" 174
"The lawn ... lies clean-breasted, green-breasted, from one
shrub-and-flower-planted side to the other, along and across" 174
"There eight distinct encumbrances narrow the sward.... In a half-day's
work, the fair scene might be enhanced in lovely dignity by the
elimination of these excesses" 176
"The rear walk ... follows the dwelling's ground contour with business
precision--being a business path" 178
"Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even ... where it does not conceal,
the house's