"Melody Farm": A Combination of Versailles and Illinois

***Text and photos from Melody Farm: A Combination of Versailles and Illinois by R. H. Moulton, published in 1919*** 

The gardens of 'Melody Farm" as may be seen by the accompanying photographs show in some parts a distinct Versailles influence while others are unmistakably American. The formal walks and borders and the hillside terraces are characteristic of France and the wealth of color is American, yet they have all been assembled with the rare art that make them friendly and harmonious. The water garden at the rear of the main house is approximately three hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred and fifty feet in width and is reached from the house by a broad terrace extending between the two loggias on this side of the building. This garden is laid out with formal groups of shrubs and wide graveled paths running between. In the center are two pools, each seventy-five feet wide and one hundred and twenty-five feet long, with a broad stretch of velvety lawn between them. The edges of the pool are planted with fuchsias, crotons, iris, arbutilons, and tuberous begonias  Beyond these pools is another one slightly smaller which is used for swimming. On each side of this pool is a terrace which leads up to a still higher terrace crowned with a garden house of remarkable beauty. This structure is of stone and terra cotta surmounted by tile roof with wide over-hanging edges. Gravel walks shaded with Wheatley elms grafted on English elms surround the entire garden in which one can walk in peace and seclusion and yet get the effect of spaciousness.

 From this stone-garden house the view is across an artificial lake of some twenty acres dotted with several small islands, and on beyond are wide stretches of rolling meadow lands. On the waters of the lake stocked with game fish, live numerous wild fowls and all around it are walks shaded by willow, larch, alder, mountain ash trees intermingled with spirea and with viburnum. The planting about the lake is peculiarly beautiful and shows how man working wisely with nature can create a landscape in which his work does not detach itself inharmoniously.

 Retracing one's steps to the house, on the west side of the water garden, one of the several entrances to the rose garden is reached. Ascending a flight of stone steps adorned at each end with a pedestal and marble figures a rose garden in all its beauty and fragrance is revealed. This lovely plot is approximately one hundred and fifty by one hundred feet in size and is planted with all the best varieties of teas and hibrid teas, including Los Angeles, Killarney, Aaron Ward, Ophelia, British Queen, Madame Herriott, Clothilde Soupert and Irish Flory while other varieties such as Geoge Elder, Cecile Brunner are used for the edges. The walls are covered with Dorothy Perkins and Lady Gay roses. Standard roses grafted on Wichuriana are planted all through the beds to relieve the flatness, and gladiolus are planted between roses in order to have color after the rose season is over. Pink, yellow and white are the predominating colors. This rose plot is edged with green sod about twenty inches wide and the paths are of white gravel which give a brilliant contrast.

STEPPING STONE PATH LEADING FROM THE ROSE GARDEN TO THE DUTCH GARDEN BENEATH A FLOWER-TWINED ARBOR 

 On the south side of the rose garden is a flight of steps leading to a walk under a rustic arbor into the Dutch Garden. On one side of this walk is a terrace court and on the other croquet grounds. The Dutch Garden is two hundred and fifty by one hundred  feet inside and is laid out along the lines of the old Dutch Gardens, with set pieces, squares, triangles, circles and oblongs, lined with tile, cement or box wood. The flowers used here are petunias shading from white to dark reddish purple. The borders of the flower beds are of juniper close cut and dwarfed. Around the outside walls are climbing roses, Dorothy Perkins, Silver Moon, Dr. Van Fleet and Lady Gay. The circular center bed is planted with cannas of a mauve color. An arbor at the extreme southern end of the garden is covered with Japanese grapes. These vines are grown for foliage and fruit effects. The fruit is not palatable, but turns black when ripe, contrasting strikingly with the foliage, which turns red at about the same time.

From the Dutch Garden a gravel walk lined with magnificent cut-leaved maples leads to the vegetable garden. This garden contains about two acres, and produces all the vegetables and fruits used by the family as well as by employees of the estate. The surrounding brick walls are lined with espalier on which a variety of fruit trees grow. In the fall of the year the garden is planted with tulips, each bed being of solid colors ranging from white to dark red purples. These tulips always produce two shows every year, for after the spring blooming in the vegetable garden, they are taken up, ripened off in sand and then planted out along the edges of the beds of shrubbery on the place.

 From the west side of the rose garden, the orchard garden is entered which is only a trifle smaller than the vegetable garden and is planted for the color of the blossoms in the spring and for the colors of fruits in the fall. 

PERGOLA AT THE WEST END OF THE ORCHARD GARDEN WHICH IS PLANTED FOR THE COLORS OF BLOSSOM IN THE SPRING AND COLORS OF FRUIT IN THE FALL

THE WALL AT THE BACK OF ORCHARD GARDEN PERGOLA IS ALMOST COVERED WITH VINES AND TALL FLOWERS CHOSEN FOR THEIR BRILLIANT COLORING

 At the extreme west end is a remarkably beautiful pergola of brick and lattice work. On the walls grow a variety of clematis and in the center of the floor is a circular pool in which rare gold fish swim about beneath water plants. The water flowing into this pool comes from a lead tank made in France in the time of Louis XIV. The tank is so arranged that the water comes in at the top, flows through a pipe and comes out of a Dolphin's head at the bottom of the tank, turning down a cement trench into the pool.

 Beyond the orchard garden are the greenhouses and the orangery. Back of the latter is the head gardener's cottage and the gardens of flowers for cutting. Adjoining the flower garden is a space devoted to various kinds of fruits and next to this is a grove of nut trees. The gardener's cottage as well as stables and garage, which are placed at some distance from the main house, are similar to the latter in design and construction. In addition to the features already mentioned there is a large enclosure used as a deer park while the rest of the estate comprises lawns, natural parks, orchards and farm lands. The end.

Daughter, Lolita Armour, 1916

  Mrs. Armour was noted for her award-winning roses, which she cultivated in Mellody Farm's extensive gardens; one of the roses grown there, an orange-and-red variety, was named for her daughter Lolita. The house was constantly filled with flowers(roses, zinnias, snapdragons, stock, and marigolds). 

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