Those who make public parks are apt to attempt too much and to injure
not only the beauty, but the practical value of their creations by
loading them with unnecessary and costly details. From the time when
landscape gardening was first practiced as a fine art to the present
day, park makers have been ambitious to change the face of nature--to
dig lakes where lakes did not exist and to fill up lakes where they
did exist, to cut down natural hills and to raise artificial ones, to
plant in one place and to clear in another, and generally to spend
money in construction entirely out of proportion to the value of the
results obtained.
The best art is simple in its expression, and the highest form of art
in gardening is perhaps that which, taking advantage of such natural
conditions as it finds, makes the best of them with the smallest
expenditure of labor and money. Simplicity of design means not only
economy of construction, but, what is of even more importance, economy
of maintenance. The importance of making it possible to keep a great
park in good condition without excessive annual expenditures for
maintenance is a simple business proposition which would not seem to
require much demonstration. Yet park makers, with their unnecessary
walks and drives; with their expensive buildings which are always
getting out of repair; their ponds, in which there is rarely water
enough to keep them fresh; their brooks, which are frequently dry;
their elaborate planting schemes, often ill suited to the positions
where they are wanted, make parks expensive to construct and
impossible to maintain in good condition, especially in this country,
where the cost of labor is heavy and there is difficulty in obtaining
under existing municipal methods skilled and faithful gardeners to
keep anything like an elaborate garden in good condition. The most
superficial examination of any of our large urban parks will show that
wherever elaborate construction and planting have been attempted they
have failed from subsequent neglect to produce the effects expected
from them, and that broad, quiet, pastoral and sylvan features are the
only permanent and really valuable ones we can hope to attain in our
great city parks.
It is needless, perhaps, to repeat what has been said so often in the
columns of this journal, that in our judgment the greatest value and
only justification of great urban parks exist in the fact that they
can bring the country into the city and give to people who are obliged
to pass their lives in cities the opportunity to enjoy the refreshment
of mind and body which can only be found in communion with nature and
the contemplation of beautiful natural objects harmoniously arranged.
Parks have other and very important uses, but this is their highest
claim to recognition. If it is the highest duty of the park maker to
bring the country into the city, every road and every walk not
absolutely needed to make the points of greatest interest and beauty
easily accessible is an injury to his scheme, and every building and
unnecessary construction of every kind reduces the value of his
creation, as do trees and shrubs and other flowering plants which are
out of harmony with their surroundings. Such things injure the
artistic value of a park; they unnecessarily increase its cost and
make the burden of annual maintenance more difficult to bear.
Simplicity of design often means a saving of unnecessary expenditure,
but it should not mean cheapness of construction. The most expensive
parks to maintain are those which have been the most cheaply
constructed, for cheap construction means expensive maintenance. Roads
and walks should not be made where they are not needed, and they
should not be made unnecessarily wide to accommodate possible crowds
of another century, but those that are built should be constructed in
the most thorough and durable manner possible, in order to reduce the
cost of future care. When lawns are made, the work should be done
thoroughly; and no tree or shrub should be planted in any manner but
the best and in the most carefully prepared soil. Only as little work
as possible should be done, but it should be done in the most
permanent manner. The best investment a park maker can make is in good
soil, for without an abundance of good soil it is impossible to
produce large and permanent trees and good grass, and the chief value
of any park is in its trees and grass; and if the money which has been
spent in disfiguring American parks with unnecessary buildings and
miscellaneous architectural terrors had been used in buying loam, they
would not now present the dreary ranks of starved and stunted trees
and the great patches of wornout turf which too often disfigure them.
Only the hardiest trees and shrubs should be used in park planting;
for there is no economy in planting trees or shrubs which are liable
to be killed any year, partially, if not entirely, by frost or heat or
drought, which annually ruin many exotic garden plants, nor is it wise
to use in public parks plants which, unless carefully watched, are
disfigured every year by insects. It costs a great deal of money to
cut out dead and dying branches from trees and shrubs, to remove dead
trees and fight insects, but work of this sort must be done, unless
the selection of plants used to decorate our parks is made with the
greatest care. Fortunately, the trees and shrubs which need the least
attention, and are therefore the most economical ones to plant, are
the best from an artistic point of view; and to produce large effects
and such scenery as painters like to transfer to canvas, no great
variety of material is needed. The most restful park scenery, and,
therefore, the best, can be obtained by using judiciously a small
number of varieties of the hardiest trees and shrubs, and the wise
park maker will confine his choice to those species which Nature helps
him to select, and which, therefore, stand the best chance of
permanent success. No park can be beautiful unless the trees which
adorn it are healthy, and no tree is healthy which suffers from
uncongenial climatic conditions and insufficient nourishment. Even if
they are not inharmonious in a natural combination, the trees and
shrubs which need constant pruning to keep them from looking shabby
are too expensive for park use and should, therefore, be rejected when
broad, natural effects in construction and economy of maintenance are
aimed for by the park maker.
The sum of the matter of park construction is to make rural city parks
less pretentious and artificial in design and to so construct them
that the cost of maintenance will be reduced to the minimum. This will
save money and lessen the danger of exhibitions of bad taste and
encourage that simplicity which should be the controlling motive of
sincere art.--Garden and Forest.
* * * * *