Municipal parks planned as memorials should be started at once. Each of these can, in a way, be an arboretum. They should be large enough to afford spacious lawns set with shade trees of many kinds, and the backgrounds should be planted with broadleaved evergreens and conifers for accent. In the borders in front of these evergreens the flowering trees will give color in season. Rose and white dogwoods, redbuds, crabapples of various kinds, flowering cherries and scarlet leaved maples will all add their charm to the scene.

There should be room for the stately Magnolia grandiflora, for the hollies of many kinds, with low borders where azaleas of all types and camellias can grow in loveliness. Indeed, there are infinite possibilities in such a beauty spot. Perennial borders beneath the large trees and in front of the shrubs can be filled with iris and all the standard bulbs and perennials that will grow in this section to give bloom from season to season, as well as annuals to cover the bulb beds.

Roses are ideal for a formal harder, with the beds cut in the turf and filled with masses of fine Hybrid Teas, Floribundas and Polyanthas. Old fashioned roses can be used with the flowering shrubs in the borders to give their harvest of blooms during many months of the year, and climbers can be trained on a pergola and on the wires which form the backstops and surround the tennis courts.

The open space in the center should be free of plantings except for the larger shade trees. This is where the children’s playground will be located, and the seesaws and swings will form the central gathering place for the mothers as well as the children.

A wading pool is a summer necessity. Filled with fresh water daily, the children will come to it from near and far clad in their bathing suits and spend happy hours frolicking in the cool bath. How they will love it and how many pounds they will gain during the vacation months as they spend their hours in play that is protected and supervised!

Such a memorial park would be an asset of great economic value to a community. New homes would be built and new gardens planted which would be the direct outcome of the park plantings. Back yards would be passe and gardens would grow where before there was only ugliness.

If patriotic citizens would get together and donate a site for such a park to a city in perpetuity they would have the satisfaction of starting a memorial to their sons and at the same time of making their city a better place in which to live. Now is the time to start!