The prairie spirit in landscape gardening; what the people of Illinois have done and can do toward designing and planting public and private grounds for efficiency and beauty . s and Prairie Borders ILLINOISANS are now experimenting withprairie gardens of many kinds. Themost promising type is a protest against theconventional shrubbery border which has be-come effeminate thru over-refinement. Inorder to carry the eye easily from trees tolawn and vice versa, the gardener often makesmany gradations. First, he puts a row of tallshrubs, next a row of mediutp bushes, thenlow shrubs, and finally a c
The prairie spirit in landscape gardening; what the people of Illinois have done and can do toward designing and planting public and private grounds for efficiency and beauty . s and Prairie Borders ILLINOISANS are now experimenting withprairie gardens of many kinds. Themost promising type is a protest against theconventional shrubbery border which has be-come effeminate thru over-refinement. Inorder to carry the eye easily from trees tolawn and vice versa, the gardener often makesmany gradations. First, he puts a row of tallshrubs, next a row of mediutp bushes, thenlow shrubs, and finally a continuous edging ofperennial flowers, which may, be similarlygraduated. In seeking for a more virilekind of border the leader of the prairie schoolwent for inspiration to the place where woodand prairie meet. There, he Says, I foundthe strongest and most satisfactory borderthat nature has ever given man, so far as myobservations go. The full-grown border ofhaws and crabs has been likened by some tomosaic, by others to lace work, while somedeclare it is a tone poem. By comparison theconventional shrubbery border, full of gaudy THE PRAIRIE SPIRIT IN LANDSCAPE GARDENING 17. best sellers,seems a kalei-doscope orcrazy off andview the ordi-nary border ofshrubs, and youwill see howpoor a job itmakes of unit-ing lawn andwoods. Itneeds small trees to bind togetherforest and meadow. The bold leapthat nature often makes fromhaws and crabs down to the prairieflowers reminds me of some power-ful and beautiful animal, slippingsilently from forest shade into asea of grasses. Therefore, in mynew prairie gardens I make no transi-tion between small trees and lawn,except that I have extra-wide, irreg-ular colonies of phlox, using the wildphlox, or a variety with flatfishclusters, like Rynstrom. Those who find the preceding para-graph too poetic may at least havea practical border of prairie flowers—say 3x35 feet, choosing from to 21, and 88 to 106, on page Illinois ci
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectlandsca, bookyear1915
