In general, the earliest cultivated gardens in the Midwest grew out of a simple need for food and involved little aesthetic or recreational interest. The harsh realities of a variable and rigorous climate on the plains seemed to make it mandatory to the pioneers that there be a practical return for any expenditure of time and effort in cultivation. To be tolerated, plants should be useful, should produce food, medicine, or even clothing.
If one uses the definition of a garden as any intentionally cultivated area, the first gardens were probably fruit orchards planted in the area as soon as settlers were able to do so.
Early census of the Abbuehls and Reicharts lists trees in the orchards. The Abbuehls had apples and cherries and the Reicharts had apples. These orchards contained all the way from 80 to 150 trees. Uncle Kasper Abbuehl would take apples to church to give to the people there as Christmas gifts to the congregation.
The first gardens exclusively of flowers were the dooryard gardens. They were planted near the front door. Kitchen gardens, and herb gardens were located at the side of the house or close to the kitchen door.
In many instances wild plant materials which were native to the area and already used by the Indians were adopted, and sometimes adapted by the settlers. Jack-in-the-pulpit was known as Indian turnip and was cooked for food. Wild crabapples, grapes, plums, elderberries, gooseberries and strawberries were dried or made into jams and jellies. Thus adding interest to the other plain food they had to eat.
Parts of plants were used by frontier women to dye their hand-woven fabric, using pinecones to produce a tan dye, wild geranium petals to yield pink, and hickory nut hulls to make a beautiful green-brown dye. Walnut bark and hulls made a deep brown.
Many ideas from the various countries were brought to the plains states. England used hedges around their gardens and yards. One adaptation of this practice was the planting of Osage orange hedge fences around the farms. The use of the Osage orange spread throughout the Eastern half of Kansas. In both the Abbuehl and Reichart census the reporting of the number of rods of hedge fencing was made-- 80 rods, and 120 rods.
The yellow rose was one of the flowers that pioneer women took with them when they moved and from which cuttings were widely exchanged among gardeners. Grandmother Margaret Abbuehl Reichart’s yard and garden contained, eventually, moss, common flex, yellow rose, snowball, lilacs and flowering quince. The yard was surrounded by a stone wall, on the lower slopes of the yard, with a white picket fence atop.
After the log cabin, the house was stone. Trees were planted and with the yard and flowers this indeed was a beautiful setting that they called home.