Types of Gardens

Public Parks & Cemeteries: Warren Manning (who apprenticed with Olmstead Bros. & did planting plans for the 1893 Columbian World's Exposition) designs Ambrose Swasey Parkway in Exeter.[Noble & dignified Stream p90 Brockway]

Kew Gardens, England begins employment of women, some of whom have trained at Swanley Horticultural College.

Large Private Gardens: The man who has his gardener do all the work but cutting the roses or leading admiring friends through his conservatories or gardens has not taken even the first degree as a rose-lover…Rich men and women who open rose-gardens so everyone can visit them are public benefactors, and by so doing they can considerably encourage rose-growing…The rich man can afford to make experiments through his gardener” [ARA p.103-4]

“Amateur” Gardens: In England, council garden plots spread gardening beyond class and the number of plots increase to 1.5 million. [gardens of Invention p224]

Dr. Mills, President of the Syracuse Rose Society, says “it is far more important that 500 people in a city have rose-gardens with from twenty-five to a few hundred bushes in each of them than that there should be only a few large show gardens…the man whose time and money is limited cannot afford to make many mistakes. ”[ARA p.104]

Indoor: Greenhouse, Conservatory or Window

Garden Contents

Trees

Flowers: “practically all yellow flowers have been eliminated, and all scarlet as well.  The early columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha) and the pale-yellow Thermopis Caroiniana are the only yellows now permitted, and these only to make blues or purples finer by juxtaposition. All yellow, orange, and scarlet flowers are relegated to shrubbery borders...grow gladiolus among the lower ornamental grasses.” [p27-8 F.King] For zinnias she recommends only those seeds labeled “flesh-color” & to beware the seed marked “rose” as it will not “come true to color” and “its bad colors are so hideously wrong with most other flowers that they will be a real menace to the beginner.” Walks of dark brick are shown in a herringbone pattern. [p42 F.King] as influenced by Gertrude Jekell, Mrs. King recommends the use of white flowers in “rich shadow.” [p50 F King] She also discuses having a trial garden to grow plants to see what they look like before they are placed in the garden and she mentions “Forbes, the great Scotch grower.” In discussing balance in the garden she refers to “a recent picture in “The Century Magazine: of Mrs. Tyson’s beautiful garden a Berwick, Maine…with its delightful posts in the foreground, repeating the lines of the slim poplar in the middle distance, it would have given me much more pleasure could those heavy-headed white or pale-colored phloxes on the right have had a perfect repetition of their reflective masses exactly opposite – directly across the grass walk.’[67 F King] The “magnificent mulleins…I read of a new pink one of fine color, which, though mentioned as a novelty in Miss Ellen Willmott’s famous garden at Warley, England, will be sure to cross the water soon if invited by our enterprising nurserymen.”[p72 F King]. In Saginaw, Michigan garden “designed by Mr. Charles A. Platt” balance is preserved and emphasized in striking fashion by the use of the plantain lily (Funkia Sieboldi, or grandiflora). [p73 F King] “The love of flowers brings surely with it the love of all the green world. For love of flowers in every blooming square of cottage gardens seen from the flying windows of the train has its true and touching message for the traveler…When I see a rhubarb plant in a small rural garden, I respect the man, or more generally the woman who placed it there, If my eye lights upon the carefully tended peony held up by a barrel hoop, the round group of an old dicentra, the fine upstanding single plant of a songle iris, at once I experience the warmest feeling of friendliness for that householder, and wish to know and talk with them about their flowers. For at the bottom there is a bond which breaks down every other difference between us. We are ‘Garden Souls.’” [p113-4 F King]

Soil compost fertilizers: In the war effort, gardener volunteers are gathering sphagnum moss throughout Great Britain.  A factory to press the mercuric chloride treated moss is established in Scotland.

Tools & Furnishings

Forums for Ideas

Books & Magazines

Fairs, Expositions & Shows

Clubs & Organizations: The Syracuse Rose Society has 266 members this year under President Rev. E.M. Mills. Dr. Mills will write “Rose-gardening cultivates the taste, promotes acquaintance with refined people, and is favorable to health. It furnishes moderate outdoor exercise; it calms and quiets the nerves. One of average means may have a rose-garden; though it cannot be denied that much money can be spent, but need not be, in rose growing.  People of wealth, if they are lovers of the beautiful. Will grow roses and have rose-gardens whether there is any amateur rose society in their community or not; but often their gardeners choose the varieties they have – they do not themselves even know the names of the most common kinds. Such need to become members of an amateur society to know the rose-lover’s joy…The amateur rose society of a community can syndicate the information and enthusiasm of all its members, and make them available to all who love roses and who wish to learn how to grow them.  The beginner is thus saved from costly and disheartening failures. An amateur rose society can encourage the beginner…” [ARA p.103-4]

Postal Service

Education

Richard Martin Willstätter was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with plant pigments, particularly chlorophyll

National Context

World Context

World War I continues. Turkey, allied with Germany, begins to deport Armenians to Syrian desert concentration camps.[p75-5 Islands of Hope]