The Monmouth inquirer. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1865-1933, 1924-07-17
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Landscape Gardening


The girl who likes to talk took an
other tea sandwich. "Yes," she said,
dreamily. "Tve gone in for landscape
gardening"
Really" inquired her startled host
ess. where are you studying and
with whom?"
ooh, my brand lis entirely original"
explained the girl who likes to talk.
IL do it at home. / wanted to add to
the grace and beauty of our menage,
SO bought some things to start one
of those little japanese gardens that
every one has gone crazy about! l
formerly thought golf fascinating
and absorbing pursuit, but I've found
that If you desire a lifelong occupa-
ton the Japanese garden is the thing
to take up.
at seems simple on the Surface to
take couple of horseradish roots,
pint of pebbles and some tiny figures
of men and women and houses and
bridges and ducks and quart of lake
water and arrange them in fiat dish
to look like the real thing. But the
possibilities drive you crazy! At first
/ decided to have the land all on one
side and a lake, with the bridge ex-
tending from the shore to chunk OF
horseradish island with a pagoda on
1t. Eventually, green shoots of horse
radish were to arise like graceful
palms and wave over the pagoda.
"Just as l got the pebbles banked
up like land Mildred dropped In.
"'My goodness!' said she. Why did
you do it that way? She had seen a
perfectly beautiful one the other day
and it had land on both sides and a
river down the middle-and goodness
gracious, didn't / have one of those
tiny boats to set afloat on the waterf
OIL must get one of those! This
made me vaguely dissatisfied with my
lake, so / fixed the pebbles over, In.
cidentally having to go out and buy
another supply of them to make the
land on both sides. The horseradish
roots made parallel banks to the river.
Il had the bridge over 1t and the
pagoda and a house established on
the pebbly shore and an imitation tree
stuck up on the bank, when Dudley
Binkins was announced. He was de-
lighted when he found what / was do
ing. Only, he said, / must have
fountain, the sacred mountain, Fujfya-
ma, and he'd run around the corner
to that little Japanese store and get
one. When he returned with Full,
he also carried a green frog. He put
the green frog jauntily on horserad-
ish bank and scooped some pebbles
up into a mound and stuck the noun
tain on that. The only drawback was
that the pagoda was exactly as tall as
the mountain, and the frog stood as
high as the farmland crossing the
bridge with a shoulder bundle of
straw.
Dudley also said the house should
face the other way, toward the noun
tain-and when he moved it he knock
ed into the river the lady riding in
the jinrikisha. And when / got her
out her face was all washed off. Dud-
ley said that this was all right, be-
cause she could be the headless ghost
that haunted the mountain slopes of
Japan, and if there wasn't any such
ghost we'd invent the legend. AS he
pointed out, it was perfectly good
legend and should be made use of.
1.-THE Knob boys came over at about
this time, and Tom whooped with de-
light and began fishing in his pockets.
He said he wanted to give me the
stuff he'd bought for his sisters gard
en- because she could wait for hers
she was so selfish she wouldn't let
him fuss with it, anyhow He posi-
lively purred as he began sticking lit
tie figures of men and women and
chickens and storks and shrubs and
things in my scenery. Bob tore out
to the Japanese store to get monkey
to hang from tree limb, and Dudley
called after him that they had cute
little imitation fish there, too, for the
river
beating a drum to stand outside the
pagoda, and a sacred lily bulb to grow
up behind the mountain. Then they
recalled that if you sowed grass seed
among the pebbles the result would
be something marvellous, and Dudley,
who went for the grass seed, also
brought along a sponge to cut up in
chunks and imbed in the land with
grass seed flourishing on them.
"They had joyous evening, those
three men, playing with their new toy,
and when they departed l wish you
could have seen my artistic Japanese
gardeni 1t looked like counter at
some bazaar or convention. Just as
l was about to burst into sad tears
my poodle jumped up and knocked the
whole thing overland told the maid
to sweep it out! It's just as WELL be-
cause those men will bring million
more toys to add to it when they next
come and there wouldn't be room in
the house! And they had begun to
squabble over the proper artistic ar
rangement of 1t as it was"