California GArden Archives

FROM THE ARCHIVES

© SAN DIEGO FLORAL ASSOCIATION

These stories may not be published in any form or copied onto another media without written permission from San Diego Floral Association.

Reprinted From: May/June 2019, Volume 110 No. 3

President Kay Harry in this issue’s message mentions an early form of garden tour: Floral Association meetings occasionally would be held in a private garden so that all members could get new gardening ideas by seeing someone else’s plants choices and landscaping. In this 1927 article, Kate Sessions describes an outing to two Bankers Hill gardens. Even the experienced Miss Sessions found something new and different during the visit.
~ Nancy Carol Carter

October 1927 Volume 19 Number 4

Floral Association Visits Dorland and Kahn Gardens

Kate O. Sessions

. . . Mrs. Dorland on Brant Street has developed the rough hillsides to the east and south with strong walls and made terraces where Italian cypress are well arranged with bougainvillea covering the ground. . . . Low growing Junipers in variety about the entrance steps were well placed and will be a very fine feature in another two years. Conspicuous and individual plants well worth duplicating were the climbing syringa [lilac] in full bloom and a collection of agaves of which Agave ferox was a very fine specimen—probably the best in the city.

Upon the front terrace, Mrs. Dorland has begonias of the rubra type growing in pots, so tall that she has trained them on wires and strings over the ceiling of the porch and has done what no one else has ever thought of doing.

[On Curlew Street, Mr. and Mrs. H. S. Kahn have what] is indeed a unique garden, one-half of the entire block is a strip of hillside ending in a deep canyon and a gentle level slopes to the south. . . . The steep hillside has been laid out with several cobble stone walls and good paths; this makes a narrow terrace for planting.

The bottom of the canyon is set to bananas, palms, bamboos, and tropical looking plants watered by a large, tall whirling sprinkler. There is a very luxurious growth everywhere in the canyon. The steep hillside is a mass of foliage and proves what rough soil and water will produce. On the more level land many large citrus and avocado and other fruits are in fine growth. . . . The many terraces, rock walls and flights of cement steps signify much work and expense, but the rough hillside and canyon have been made into a place of beauty and these hillside gardens have a charm that a level garden can never produce...

© SAN DIEGO FLORAL ASSOCIATION and © Nancy Carol Carter.
These stories may not be published in any form or copied onto another media without written permission from San Diego Floral Association.