Preparing the Landscape
Two years before the Exposition was to open McLaren built six greenhouses in the Presidia and a huge lath house. There he assembled his shrubs, his plants, and his bulbs. In all he must have used nearly a million bulbs. From Holland he imported seventy thousand rhododendrons. From Japan he brought two thousand azaleas. In Brazil he secured some wonderful specimens of the cineraria. He even sent to Africa for the agrapanthus, that grew close to the Nile. Among native flowers he collected six thousand pansies, ten thousand veronicas and five thousand junipers, to mention only, a few among the multitude a flowers that he intended to use for decoration. The grounds he had carefully mapped and he studied the landscape and the shape and color of the buildings section, by section.
The planting of trees consumed many months. The best effects McLaren found he could get by massing. He was particularly successful with the magnificent Fine Arts Palace, both in his groupings and in his use of individual trees. About the lagoon he did some particularly attractive planting, utilizing the water for reflection. There was a twisted cypress that he placed alone against the colonnade with a skill that showed the insight and the feeling of an, artist. On, the water side, the Marina, he used the trees to break the bareness of the long esplanade. And here and there on the grounds, for pure decoration, he reached some of his finest effects with the eucalyptus, for which he evidently had a particular regard. As no California Exposition would be complete without palm trees, provision was made for the decorative use of palms along of the main walks.
About two weeks before the opening, the first planting of the gardens was completed, the first of the three crops to be displayed during the Exposition. The flowers included most of the spring flowers grown here in California or capable of thriving in the California spring climate. In June they were to be re-placed with geraniums, begonias, asters, gilly-flowers, foxglove, hollyhocks, lilies and rhododendrons. The autumn display, would include cosmos and chrysanthemums and marguerites.