What did the garden around the "Old Adobe" look like? There are black and white pictures, but the cover of the 1939 catalog is probably how the Roeding family saw it. (The catalog flipped the original painting to make the front door be on the cover!). [2021 update! Movies from California Revealed]
The 1931 catalog says that the owners plan to renovate the old building and that the grounds are being appropriately landscaped.
Why was Johannes Reimers chosen to do the garden? Johannes life is described in this new article, The California Railway Gardener. Johannes had a long association with George C. Roeding. [Letters to George Roeding, Jr. are in the Roeding Archives and shed light on Johannes Reimers' later career.]
Johannes Reimers and George C. Roeding had worked together previously in Fresno at Roeding Park. The Historic American Buildings Survey has a history of the association of Johannes Reimers and George C. Roeding. Read about it there.
In 1911 the Pacific Coast Nurserymen Association met in San Jose. They took a lunch at the California Nursery Company
In the history, we find a short biography of Johannes Reimers "Born in Norway in 1858, Johannes Reimers settled in California as a young man. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and attained fame as an artist. Some of his works are found in the collection at the Oakland Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. He was also a writer, producing an early review ofJack London's Call of the Wild; articles about plants, gardens and gardening; and a novel set in Norway, "Unto the Heights of Simplicity." As the landscape architect for the San Joaquin Division of the Santa Fe Railway, he originated the plan to embellish each depot with small parks. It was through his advocacy that parks were constructed at each station from Ashcroft, Arizona, to Richmond, California."
References:
Why was Johannes Reimers chosen to do the garden? Johannes life is described in this new article, The California Railway Gardener. Johannes had a long association with George C. Roeding. [Letters to George Roeding, Jr. are in the Roeding Archives and shed light on Johannes Reimers' later career.]
Johannes Reimers and George C. Roeding had worked together previously in Fresno at Roeding Park. The Historic American Buildings Survey has a history of the association of Johannes Reimers and George C. Roeding. Read about it there.
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| This was the only photo that I found of Johannes Reimers. From the Overland Monthly. Look below for a better one from David Laws. |
In 1911 the Pacific Coast Nurserymen Association met in San Jose. They took a lunch at the California Nursery Company
In the history, we find a short biography of Johannes Reimers "Born in Norway in 1858, Johannes Reimers settled in California as a young man. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and attained fame as an artist. Some of his works are found in the collection at the Oakland Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. He was also a writer, producing an early review ofJack London's Call of the Wild; articles about plants, gardens and gardening; and a novel set in Norway, "Unto the Heights of Simplicity." As the landscape architect for the San Joaquin Division of the Santa Fe Railway, he originated the plan to embellish each depot with small parks. It was through his advocacy that parks were constructed at each station from Ashcroft, Arizona, to Richmond, California."
Timeline
- Johannes Reimers was landscape gardener for the San Joaquin Division of the Santa Fe Railway. (My note: Railroad gardening requires drought tolerant plantings and low maintenance!) (See Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, "Railroad Gardening".)
- 1898 - Author: "The Guri Witch" Overland Monthly, Volume XXXI - Second Series, January-June 1898. Page 321-344.
- 1898 - Author: "Courting at Grizzly Spring" Overland Monthly, Volume XXXII, Second Series, July-December 1898. Also a biography and his picture are in this issue.
- 1900 - Author: Unto the Heights of Simplicity
- 1901(May) - "Railroad Gardening in California", page 75-81, Proceedings Pacific States Floral Congress. Also presenting at the meeting were Luther Burbank, Miss Alice Eastwood, Charles H. Shinn, John McLaren, L.G. Yates, C.S. Franceschi, E.J. Wickson, and others. (no pictures, except for one of California Academy of Sciences). Also Pacific Rural Press reports 13 April 1901 "FLOWER SHOW PLANS LAID IN JAPANESE TEA GARDEN" and brief reporting "BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF MANY HUES FILL FERRY DEPOT NAVE" on 17 May 1901.
- 1902 - Met Jack London and they subsequently become friends (The Book of Jack London, Chapter 22)
- 1903: Laid out the planting of Fresno’s George C Roeding Park. (The Fresno zoo is currently planning on expanding to portions of Roeding Park. See Save Roeding Park website) also The Valley's Legends & Legacies III.
- 1906 - Designed Hobart Park in Fresno (also The Valley's Legends & Legacies III)
- 1906 - Reimers supervised the planting of fruit trees, vines, and a pyracantha hedge at Jack London's Wolf House (Cultural Resources of Jack London State Park). Note that Charmian says Japanese Hawthorne, not pyracantha.
- 1907 - The Only Way to Yosemite
- 1907 - The Gardens of California, For California, July 1907. See more volumes from December 1906 to November 1907 to read other interesting articles.
- 1910 - Mooney Grove Park ,a 100 acre tract of valley oaks, in Visalia (Tulare?)
- 1920 - American Florist, "The Garden Hobby" at the CAN meeting, Fresno, Nov. 11-13.
- 1928-1929 - Artist: Art Institute of Chicago, Watercolorsb
- about 1931/1932/1933 - Designed the garden around the "Old Adobe" at the California Nursery Company in Niles, California. (Kurt Culbertson has 1923, but I don't know where that date comes from.)
- about 1933 - did he also design the Display Garden in front of the new Retail building?
- Artists in California, 1786-1940, Edan Milton Hughes, supposed to have a bio.
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| Darn those people who do not mention the name of the ablest and most efficient landscape gardeners in the valley! from The Grizzley Bear, April 1912 |
References:
- Blog by Kurt Culbertson: PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN: Johannes Reimers [1856-1953] very useful for putting the timeline together and finding these other references.
- The Cultural Landscape Foundation
- TCLF "Fresno Park Threatend by Master Plan"
- Library on Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey, Engineering Record, Landscapes Survey, Roeding Park, 890 W. Belmont, Fresno, Fresno County, CA. "Roeding Park exemplifies the naturalistic style of parks that was popularized during the late 19th and early 20th centuries." What does that mean to us?
- Historic American Landscapes Survey, HALS CA-59, Roeding Park, PDF of previous link.
- "Railroad Gardening" in the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture by L.H. Bailey. Johannes Reimers and Charles Shinn are quoted.
- The Book of Jack London, by Charmian London mentions Johannes Reimers. "Johannes Reimers tendered the benefit of his professional advice about the trees and vines, and ordered for us a hedge of Japanese hawthorne to flourish between orchard and house-space, which in time grew into a glory of orange and red berries alternating with a season of white blossoming."
- Interview Bruce Roeding (son of George C. Roeding, Jr. and Frances Roeding) and Frances Roeding
- The Only Way to Yosemite
- California Nursery Master Plan Fremont, California Draft Historic Resources Technical Report April 24, 2015
- National Register of Historic Places, “California Nursery Co. Guest House”. Alternate name was “Jose de Jesus Vallejo Adobe”.
ID 71000130. May 5, 1971. - 2002, Parks and Recreation, California Nursery
- Rural Out-of-Door Adornment, talk at the Pacific Coast Nurserymen meeting in 1911 at the California Nursery.
- City Report on Buildings Woody Minor
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