The evening times., 1895-08-21
TWO PARK GARDENS.
Tropical Plants in One and OId-Fash.
iOned Furniture in the Other.

Tropical Plants in One and OId-Fash.
iOned Furniture in the Other.
There are, near the northern end of Gem
t'tral Park two gardens too much neglected
by the public. One of these is the tropical
| garden, Just east of McGowan's Pass Tay-
ern, and the other, genuine old-fash-
ioned flower garden, NEAR the foot of the
slope, still further east of the same place
and close to the park nurseries. The trop-
ical garden is housed until nlid-May in the
unpretentious old dollhouse near by The
plants flourish admirably in the open and
they are so situated that they have bundant
protection against cold winds and are not
likely to be reached by late frosts. These
plants include some OF the rarest in the
possession of the city. Many of them are
from Australasia and were the gift of a
wealthy friend OF the park
This year part of these plants have been
set out at the Fifth avenue and Fifty
ninth street entrance. Before that they
had been used to decorate the music pa
viion on the Mall, but they suffered there
from lack of sunlight. A grave aud bearded
German workman has long had charge of
the tropical garden and of the plants in win
ter quarters. Though he has the air of u
simple laborer, he is enough OF a botauist
to know his charges by their long Latin
names, and to tell visitors to what coun-
tries the plants are native. He takes great
pride in the fact that his tropical guests
have entirely escaped frost during recent
severe winters, and that, too, i'll face of the
fact that the arrangements for warming
their quarters are somewhat crude. Other
and smaller tropical greenhouses, near
the one nIainly devoted to the eAustralasian
plants, turn out in summer time handsome
array of palms, ferns, banana trees, and
other curious plants, some of which are
used in decorating the houses OF entertain
ment in the park. There are enough tropical
plants of various kinds to make possible
very charming and altogether unique ex-
hibition, but little has been attempted be-
yond the garden and the decoration of
the restaurants. A scheme for an elabo-
rate greenhouse for winterlng Inese plants
has never been carried out.
The old-fashioned garden near the eastern
foot of Mount st. Vincent has been elabo-
rated this summer as never before. The
head gardener, a man VINO knows and loves
plants, has covered about a half acre with
great variety of oldfashioned flower
ing plants, such as were not needed for
decorating the public squares and the flower
beds of the park Brilliant foliage plants
were taken from the neighboring nursery
and used for bordering the garden, while
tall grass-like plants were scattered through
it. Tiger lilies, geraniurns and half a
dozen less familiar snowy plants are all
blooming in abundance, SO that this retired
corner is one of the most brilliant spots in
any of the parks. In the nurseries near by
are several score of small potted chrysan-
themums that may eventually find their
way into the garden. The chrysanthemum
is not greatly piszed by the park authori-
ties, and no attempt has been made to
propagate the new varieties.
Not far away from the gay old-fashioned
garden is the spot where the grass gar
den was once started. The experiment In
growing grasses so as to- secure uniformity
of quality has been abandoned, and the
stock OF the grass garden was carried off
to be used for sOtiding in East River Park.
The experiment had progressed far enough
to show that 1t was possible to produce
a great variety OF grasses, and to keep
them separate so as to insure uniformity
In each plot 1t was once hoped that the
park authorities would undertake grass
gardening upon a large scale and gradually
replace illcovcred lawns with suitable
grass.