Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-05
GARDEN COMPETITIONS.
Flower Shows Not Stimulative OF
Wholesome Floral Art

| From the New York Commercial Advertiser.
| The Parisians have discovered with in
| telligence and good taste that the ordinary
| flower show has little to do with gardening
| as a branch of the arts. 1t is all very well,
! If one likes that sort of thing. to exhibit
| the largest and heaviest rose that ever
| gardener over-blew, and to take a prize
with it. If his ingenuity Is perverse
| enough, he will next contrive some languid
| and pampered hybrid and take a prize with
| that, too adding a third for some flower
| the color of which he has distorted from
| its natural hue. These are what the circus
| bills call feats of strength and agility, ana
| they bear about the same relation to the
| art Of gardening the athletic stunts at
| the circus to the art of sculpture. The
| crowd the boards are ready with APP
| plause for the one, and the horticultural
societies and florists clubs with prizes for
| the other.
| Real gardening, In the intelligent view.
| has little concern with the rarity or the
cost of flowers. still less with abnormal
| traits in them. Gardening becomes an art
| when it so arranges flowers. shrubs, lawns
| and trees that they please the taste through
| the eye by their effects of line, mass. space
and color. 1t is akin to the art of the
| painter with the ampler colors, the more
| brilliant lights and the broader spaces that
nature gives the gardener. In the ordinary
garden about the suburban or the country
house. it is landscape architecture on lit
| tie scale. Even the very rich stand in awe
of such a big phrase, but the humble COM
| muter applies it when he plans his little
garden in the autumn and lays it out next
spring.
In France there must be prizes for every
thing and as soon as the Parisians dlscoy-
cred that flower shows do not reward real
gardening, they found a way to do it them
selves OF course. they instituted a com
petition among the gardens of Neuilly,
prosperous intelligent suburb like our
Oranges. Thirty householders entered their
gardens. and in an appointed week the jury
visited them. Artists as eminent as Dag
nan Bouveret served on It. and il finally
bestowed the prizes for delicious COM
binations of color. beautifully arranged"
beds, and the like. In one garden even the
despised yellow daisies of our fields were
so artiStically disposed as to win prize.
Here in America our rich occasionally
have their names. with an homogeneous
Latin termination, fastened to some prod
uct of their gardeners ingenuity, and then
boast vaguely of il. They should set their
gardeners to the practice of the real art OF
gardening, and Newport and LenoX should
institute their competitions like Neuilly.
They would want to visit each other gar
dens with the jury and make the occasion
a function to which a discreet public might
be admitted at a high price, as they are at
a horse show to provide a suitable number
of admiring onlookers. The richer and
more ambitious suburbs could do likewise
In their own way, just as they now have
their horse shows, and crafty every rea-
sonable curiosity about each other q
grounds" The mere commuter In his
turn would no longer have to be content
with an Item" in the local paper when
his garden happened to contain an abnor-
nal carnation or an overloaded rose bush.
He might win a weeks competition. as at
Neuilly. and be for seven days In his neigh
bors eyes Meanwhile, and not altogether
incidentally the true gardener might re-
ceive his artistic deserts.