Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1916-08-17
CHAPTER XIV.
The Nice Other Things.

The Nice Other Things.
4 pool of water twenty feet long
shining in the sun, or glimmering deep
~ IN the twilight, that ard nothing
else save a few struggling ANNALS
wrongly placed about it-yet it made
Twin Fires over, it caused us weeks of
toll, it got into our dreams, it got into
our pockets, too.
''Now I know why sunken gardens
are so called" said Stella, as she fig
ured out the cost of the fall bulb plant
ing we had already planned. Its
because you sink so much money in
emp
Of course there was little that we
could do to the margin of the pool that
summer, but there was plenty to do
beyond the margin. The first thing of
all was to place the flower beds diff
ferently. This took considerable eX-
perimenting, and Stella, being ingen-
ious, hit upon a scheme for testing va
riOus possible arrangements. She filled
all sorts of receptacles, from tumblers
high, and stood them in masses here
and there, till the spot was found
where they looked the best. AS the
pool centered on the line between the
front door Of the house and the yet
to-be-built garden bench against the
stone wall, and as the orchard came
down to within forty feet Of the brook
on the slope from the house, it was
something of a problem to lead natu-
rally from grassy orchard slope into
a water feature and a bit of almost
formal gardening, without making the
transition stiff and abrupt. We finally
solved it with the aid of lawn mower,
flower beds and Imagination.
Going over the grass between the
last apple trees and the brook again
and again with the mower, I finally
reduced that section to something like
a lawn, and also kept moved a straight
path from the pool up to the front
door. Then, beginning just beyond the
last shadows, we cut a bed, thirty
inches wide, on each side of the line
of the path, running parallel with it
TO within ten feet Of the pool; then
they swung to left and right, following
the curve of the bank until they
fanked the pool. By planting low flow
ers at the beginning, and gradually in
creasing their height till we had lark
spur and hOllyhocks and mallow in
the fianking beds, we could both make
the transition from orchard to water
feature, and also screen off the pool,
increasing it's intimacy, without, how
ever, hiding it from the front door,
where it was glimpsed down a path
of trees and flowers. Of course we
had no flowers now in mid-July to put
into those beds, save what few we
could dig up from elsewhere, setting
poor little annual phloxes two feet
apart; but we could, and did, use them
for seedbeds for next years perennials,
and to the eye of faith they were
beautiful.
Now we were confronted by the
problem of the other side of the pool,
which included the problem of how to
get to the other side! Stella suggested
tentatively a tiny Japanese moon
bridge above the pool, but I would
have none of it.
1.-THE only way to build a japanese
garden in New England is to utilize
New England features" I insisted.
1--WE won't copy anybody"
"All right" she answered, "then we
want stepping stones above the pool,
and some more down below the dam,
where we can see the waterfall"
more suitable-and much easier" l
agreed.
Once more we robbed the stone wall,
building our two fanking paths of
stepping-stones to the other side of the
brook.
On the other side we decided to elm.
mate all flower beds in the open, mere
~ planting iris and forget-me-not on
the rim of the pool We would clear
out wide semicircle Of lawn, with
the bench at the center Of the circum-
ference, and plant our remaining flow
ers against the shrubbery on the sides,
which was chiefly the wild red osier
dogwood (cornus stolonifera). l got a
brush scythe, a Ratchet, a spade, a
grub hoe and a rake, and we went to
work.
Work is certainly the word. It was
not difficult to clear the brush and the
tall, rank weeds and grasses away
from our semicircle, which was hard
~ more than thirty feet in diameter,
but to spade up the black soil there
after, to eliminate the long, tenacious
roots Of the witch grass and the weeds, |
to clear out the stubborn stumps Of in |
Vulnerable little trees and wild shrubs |
which had overrun the place, to spread |
evenly the big pile of soil we had ex-
cavated from the pool to reduce it all |
to a clean, level condition for sowing |
grass, was more than I had bargained |
for. Stella gave up helping, for it was
beyond her strength; but l kept on, |
through the long, hot July afternoons, |
and at last had it ready. The time /
Of year was anything but propitious |
for sowing grass seed but we planted |