Title: The Roots of Your Landscape – A Guide to Evaluating and Researching Vintage Landscapes around Historic Properties

Pages: 30 Year Printed: 1993 .PDF Version: Click on image to left. (may take several minutes to download) Availability: Rock Island Public Library, Rock Island City Hall, Quad City Botanical Center Cost: Free

A hundred years ago, lawns and gardens were often as important as the house. Realizing this, many are now turning their attention to these historic landscapes. This booklet provides a frame of reference for that work: What styles were popular? What plants? And how have they changed through time? This booklet is not intended as a complete guide for museum restoration. Rather it is a starting point for those who wish to recapture the feel of an earlier landscape. The emphasis is on middle and working class families, the kind that built so much of Rock Island. Author Daryl G. Watson will show you how to find the roots of your home’s landscape – and in doing so, give you a greater appreciation of the forces that have shaped this historical environment.

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Title: Speaker Transcripts – “Historic Landscaping for the Urban Lot” Workshop

Pages: 36 Year Printed: 1992 .PDF Version: Click on image to left. (may take several minutes to download) Availability: Rock Island Public Library, Rock Island City Hall Cost: Free

“Historic Landscaping for Urban Lot” was a workshop for those interested in preserving and appropriately enhancing the landscape setting around historic homes. The workshop focused on what was on the typical urban lot, the landscape gardening movements that influenced homeowners, and methods to either restore or create a period landscape setting. Landscape architect Dean Sheaffer addressed historic landscape methods. Robert Harvey, professor of landscape architecture at Iowa State University spoke about plant types and settings for historical architectural styles from 1860 to 1920. Historical geographer Daryl Watson discussed the evolution of vernacular landscapes in Illinois. In the final stage of the workshop, participants went to the Fiebig House, a Rock Island Landmark, to design a period landscape. Several group efforts, along with critiques by Sheaffer, Harvey and Watson, are included with the transcripts.

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Title: A Collection of Illinois and Iowa Nursery Catalogs and Price Lists – 1857 to 1927

Catalogs: 12 (320 pages) Year Compiled: 1992 .PDF Version: Not available Reference Availability: Rock Island Public Library, Rock Island City Hall, Augustana College Library, Rock Island County Historical Society Library Cost: 25 cents per page (Rock Island Planning & Redevelopment Division)

This informal compilation of nursery catalogs came about as a direct result of the interest generated by the Historic Landscaping Workshop. Speaker Daryl Watson provided several and others were gathered. In all, twelve separate nursery catalogs were compiled, dating from 1857 to 1927. The catalogs are all from nurseries in Illinois and Iowa, providing a regional flavor for historic plant sources. Peruse these catalogs to see varieties of vegetables, fruit trees, ornamental trees, annuals, perennials, shrubs, evergreens, vines, roses and more that were popular generations ago. You will be amazed at the diversity and the detail!

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Title: Brick Streets Plan

Pages: 30 Year Printed: 1992, Amended 2005 .PDF Version: Click on image to left. (may take several minutes to download) Availability: Rock Island Public Library, Rock Island City Hall Cost: Free

The Brick Streets Plan has been created for the purpose of preserving the best of Rock Island’s brick streets. Brick streets are an asset to the community and provide a very real sense of “time and place” in a residential neighborhood. The Plan includes a preservation prioritization list of all brick streets, maps, methodology by which the plan was created, and background and information about the streets.