File:American homes and gardens (1908) (17967473319).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar51908newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS March, 190S March, 1908 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS the possession of a hanging garden may not sound like an Arabian Night's dream and when indeed the name Roof Garden will no longer carry associations merely of music- hail and vaudeville but will imply a place of pleasaunce for home-loving, quiet people alive at last to the joys of sunshine and the out-of-doors. 11.—A Successful House-top Garden By Adelia Belle Beard In Seattle, the city of enthusiasm and progress, there is a house-top garden, a garden on a roof. A real garden with flowers and plants growing in earth beds and a lawn of soft grass in the midst of which stands the hall mark of the garden lover—a sun dial. It is just such a garden as one might have on the ground, only prettier in a way, and decidedly more novel, for the very difficulties to be overcome in planning a garden of this kind result in schemes of arrange- ment one would otherwise never think of. This house-top garden, although on the roof of the "Lincoln," one of Seat- tle's best hotels, is like the grounds of a private residence. There is nothing stiff, nothing stereotyped, for it was not planned by a professional for a public roof garden, but by a woman who conceived and carried out the idea because of her great love for Dowers. Her home was to be a large hotel without grounds or verandas; with no place where one could sit out in the fresh air to read or sew, and her idea was to make a garden that could be enjoyed without one's realizing that it was on a house-top. With the help of her two gardeners, Mrs. Blackwell, part owner and manager of the "Lincoln," created this country garden in the midst of a hustling city far above the rush and noise of the busy streets. Up where the air is purest and the sunshine brightest, in this veritable hanging garden her flowers blossom and her fruit ripens. Yes, fruit, for there are trees in the garden, the tallest of which arc the mountain ash and the birch. These arc twelve feet high, and one very small apple tree bears enormously large apples. There arc six or eight maple trees, six holly, four hawthorn, a few evergreens, two laburnums and sev- eral Arabia trees. Then there are large shrubs like the lilac, and roses, quantities of roses, three hundred or more bushes. Many of them are of the kind that can be grown only in hothouses In the vicinity of New York. There are a thousand pansy plants in a bed a hundred feet long, there are sixty dahlias, a number of rhododendrons, two hundred carnations, fifteen hundred Dutch bulbs and numberless annuals that grow and blossom in profusion. The vines that add softness and grace, and give the flow- ing lines needed to complete the picture are jasmine, Virginia creeper, grape, three varieties of clematis, wistaria, ivy, and climbing roses. Many of the rose vines run over the rose trellis which fences in the roof on two sides. But to begin at the beginning, the "Lincoln" was built and Mrs. Blackwell took charge, then a few years ago she com- menced to make her garden. It was not all done at once, and is not yet entirely finished, for, like the garden on the ground, Mrs. Blackwell enlarges her garden from time to time and adds new beauties every year. There is still some room for further expansion, for the garden space is a hun- dred and twenty feet square. The roof is covered with concrete and slopes slightly from the center on all sides, and the first step was to test its strength by architect, building inspector, and fire marshal. After that cedar boards were laid for the flower beds and lawn with a little space left beneath for drainage. This was effected by placing two inch pieces of wood beneath the boards at regu- lar intervals, the opening at the sides being hidden by strips of wood. The boards in place, the work of carrying the soil 103 began. It was sifted to remove stones of any size and carried to the roof in sacks holding about a hundred pounds each. The flower beds were made four feet wide, the soil being eighteen inches deep at the back and sloping down to eight inches in front, and the beds were kept from spreading out ot bounds by narrow boards placed on edge which box in the front. The boards are painted a dull green and, being cov- ered with vines and overhanging flowers, are not noticeable. For the lawn, which was started with sod, the soil is three Inches deep, and there was not the slightest difficulty in mak- ing it grow. There arc a number of bay windows in the building which reach to the roof, and the tops of these were covered to the depth of eighteen inches or more with soil, and in these beds are planted trees and large shrubs. The effect of trees growing outside and beyond the rose trellis i^ one of the remarkable features of the garden. All the first summer the owner of the garden worked with her two gardeners and everything planted sprang into instant growth. It may have been because of the looseness of the soil, the quantity of sunshine or the loving care they were given, but whatever the cause the result was a wilderness of the most beautiful flowers and plants where formerly there had been but the arid roof, unadorned and uninviting. Nothing has failed to grow in this garden of the sun, but
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