Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by L. H. Bailey

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My reader will now consider, perhaps, whether he would have his garden
accent and heighten his natural year from spring to fall, or whether he
desires to thrust into his year a feeling of another order of
vegetation. Either is allowable; but the gardener should distinguish at
the outset.

I wish to suggest to my reader, also, that it is possible for the garden
to retain some interest even in the winter months. I sometimes question
whether it is altogether wise to clear out the old garden stems too
completely and too smoothly in the fall, and thereby obliterate every
mark of it for the winter months; but however this may be, there are two
ways by which the garden year may be extended: by planting things that
bloom very late in fall and others that bloom very early in spring; by
using freely, in the backgrounds, of bushes and trees that have
interesting winter characters.

* * * * *

_The plan of the grounds_ (see Plate II).

[Illustration II.: The plan of the place. The arrangement of the
property (which is in New York) is determined by an existing woodland to
the left or southeast of the house and a natural opening to the
southwest of the house. The house is colonial, and the entire treatment
is one of considerable simplicity. Wild or woodland gardens have been
developed to the right and left of the entrance, the latter or entrance
lawns being left severely simple and plain in their treatment. To the
rear of the house a turf terrace raised three steps above the general
grade of the lawn leads to a general lawn terminated by a small garden
exedra or teahouse with a fountain in its center, and to two shrub
gardens forming interesting and closed pockets of lawn. The stable and
vegetable gardens are located to the south of the house in a natural
opening in the woodland. The design is made by a professional landscape
architect.]

One cannot expect satisfaction in the planting and developing of a home
area unless he has a clear conception of what is to be done. This
necessarily follows, since the pleasure that one derives from any
enterprise depends chiefly on the definiteness of his ideals and his
ability to develop them. The homemaker should develop his plan before
he attempts to develop his place. He must study the various subdivisions
in order that the premises may meet all his needs. He should determine
the locations of the leading features of the place and the relative
importance to be given to the various parts of it,--as of the landscape
parts, the ornamental areas, the vegetable-garden, and the fruit
plantation.

The details of the planting may be determined in part as the place
develops; it is only the structural features and purposes that need to
be determined beforehand in most small properties. The incidental
modifications that may be made in the planting from time to time keep
the interest alive and allow the planter to gratify his desire to
experiment with new plants and new methods.

It must be understood that I am now speaking of ordinary home grounds
which the home-maker desires to improve by himself. If the area is large
enough to present distinct landscape features, it is always best to
employ a landscape architect of recognized merit, in the same spirit
that one would employ an architect. The details, however, may even then
be filled in by the owner, if he is so inclined, following out the plan
that the landscape architect makes.

It is desirable to have a definite plan on paper (drawn to scale) for
the location of the leading features of the place. These features are
the residence, the out-houses, the walks and drives, the service areas
(as clothes yards), the border planting, flower-garden,
vegetable-garden, and fruit-garden. It should not be expected that the
map plan can be followed in every detail, but it will serve as a general
guide; and if it is made on a large enough scale, the different kinds of
plants can be located in their proper positions, and a record of the
place be kept. It is nearly always unsatisfactory, for both owner and
designer, if a plan of the place is made without a personal inspection
of the area. Lines that look well on a map may not adjust themselves
readily to the varying contours of the place itself, and the location of
the features inside the grounds will depend also in a very large measure
on the objects that lie outside it. For example, all interesting and
bold views should be brought into the place, and all unsightly objects
in the immediate vicinity should be planted out.

[Illustration: Fig. 2. Diagram of a back yard.]

A plan of a back yard of a narrow city lot is given in Fig. 2, showing
the heavy border planting of trees and shrubs, with the skirting border
of flowers. In the front are two large trees, that are desired for
shade. It will readily be seen from this plan how extensive the area for
flowers becomes when they are placed along such a devious border. More
color effect can be got from such an arrangement of the flowers than
could be secured if the whole area were planted to flower-beds.

[Illustration: Fig. 3. Plan of a rough area.]

A contour map plan of a very rough piece of ground is shown in Fig. 3.
The sides of the place are high, and it becomes necessary to carry a
walk through the middle area; and on either side of the front, it skirts
the banks. Such a plan is usually unsightly on paper, but may
nevertheless fit special cases very well. The plan is inserted here for
the purpose of illustrating the fact that a plan that will work on the
ground does not necessarily work on a map.

In charting a place, it is important to locate the points from which the
walks are to start, and at which they are to emerge from the grounds.
These two points are then joined by direct and simple curves; and
alongside the walks, especially in angles or bold curves, planting may
be inserted.

A suggestion for school premises on a four-corners, and which the pupils
enter from three directions, is made in Fig. 4. The two playgrounds are
separated by a broken group of bushes extending from the building to the
rear boundary; but, in general, the spaces are kept open, and the heavy
border-masses clothe the place and make it home-like. The lineal extent
of the group margins is astonishingly large, and along all these margins
flowers may be planted, if desired.

[Illustration: Fig. 4. Suggestion for a school-ground on a
four-corners.]

If there is only six feet between a schoolhouse and the fence, there is
still room for a border of shrubs. This border should be between the
walk and the fence,--on the very boundary,--not between the walk and the
building, for in the latter case the planting divides the premises and
weakens the effect. A space two feet wide will allow of an irregular
wall of bushes, if tall buildings do not cut out the light; and if the
area is one hundred feet long, thirty to fifty kinds of shrubs and
flowers can be grown to perfection, and the school-grounds will be
practically no smaller for the plantation.

One cannot make a plan of a place until he knows what he wants to do
with the property; and therefore we may devote the remainder of this
chapter to developing the idea in the layout of the premises rather than
to the details of map-making and planting.

Because I speak of the free treatment of garden spaces in this book it
must not be inferred that any reflection is intended on the "formal"
garden. There are many places in which the formal or "architect's
garden" is much to be desired; but each of these cases should be treated
wholly by itself and be made a part of the architectural setting of the
place. These questions are outside the sphere of this book. All formal
gardens are properly individual studies.

All very special types of garden design are naturally excluded from a
book of this kind, such types, for example, as Japanese gardening.
Persons who desire to develop these specialties will secure the services
of persons who are skilled in them; and there are also books and
magazine articles to which they may go.

* * * * *

_The picture in the landscape._

The deficiency in most home grounds is not so much that there is too
little planting of trees and shrubs as that this planting is
meaningless. Every yard should be a picture. That is, the area should be
set off from other areas, and it should have such a character that the
observer catches its entire effect and purpose without stopping to
analyze its parts. The yard should be one thing, one area, with every
feature contributing its part to one strong and homogeneous effect.

These remarks will become concrete if the reader turns his eye to Figs.
5 and 6. The former represents a common type of planting of front yards.
The bushes and trees are scattered promiscuously over the area. Such a
yard has no purpose, no central idea. It shows plainly that the planter
had no constructive conception, no grasp of any design, and no
appreciation of the fundamental elements of the beauty of landscape.
Its only merit is the fact that trees and shrubs have been planted; and
this, to most minds, comprises the essence and sum of the ornamentation
of grounds. Every tree and bush is an individual alone, unattended,
disconnected from its environments, and, therefore, meaningless. Such a
yard is only a nursery.

[Illustration: Fig 5. The common or nursery way of planting]

[Illustration: Fig. 6. The proper or pictorial type of planting]

The other plan (Fig. 6) is a picture. The eye catches its meaning at
once. The central idea is the residence, with a free and open greensward
in front of it The same trees and bushes that were scattered haphazard
over Fig. 5 are massed into a framework to give effectiveness to the
picture of home and comfort. This style of planting makes a landscape,
even though the area be no larger than a parlor. The other style is only
a collection of curious plants. The one has an instant and abiding
pictorial effect, which is restful and satisfying: the observer
exclaims, "What a beautiful home this is!" The other piques one's
curiosity, obscures the residence, divides and distracts the attention:
the observer exclaims, "What excellent lilac bushes are these!"

An inquiry into the causes of the unlike impressions that one receives
from a given landscape and from a painting of it explains the subject
admirably. One reason why the picture appeals to us more than the
landscape is because the picture is condensed, and the mind becomes
acquainted with its entire purpose at once, while the landscape is so
broad that the individual objects at first fix the attention, and it is
only by a process of synthesis that the unity of the landscape finally
becomes apparent. This is admirably illustrated in photographs. One of
the first surprises that the novice experiences in the use of the camera
is the discovery that very tame scenes become interesting and often even
spirited in the photograph. But there is something more than mere
condensation in this vitalizing and beautifying effect of the photograph
or the painting: individual objects are so much reduced that they no
longer appeal to us as distinct subjects, and however uncouth they may
be in the reality, they make no impression in the picture; the thin and
sere sward may appear rather like a closely shaven lawn or a new-mown
meadow. And again, the picture sets a limit to the scene; it frames it,
and thereby cuts off all extraneous and confusing or irrelevant
landscapes.

These remarks are illustrated in the aesthetics of landscape gardening.
It is the artist's one desire to make pictures in the landscape. This is
done in two ways: by the form of plantations, and by the use of vistas.
He will throw his plantations into such positions that open and yet more
or less confined areas of greensward are presented to the observer at
various points. This picture-like opening is nearly or quite devoid of
small or individual objects, which usually destroy the unity of such
areas and are meaningless in themselves. A vista is a narrow opening or
view between plantations to a distant landscape. It cuts up the broad
horizon into portions that are readily cognizable. It frames parts of
the country-side. The verdurous sides of the planting are the sides of
the frame; the foreground is the bottom, and the sky is the top. It is
of the utmost importance that good views be left or secured from the
best windows of the house (not forgetting the kitchen window); in fact,
the placing of the house may often be determined by the views that may
be appropriated.

If a landscape is a picture, it must have a canvas. This canvas is the
greensward. Upon this, the artist paints with tree and bush and flower
as the painter does upon his canvas with brush and pigments. The
opportunity for artistic composition and design is nowhere so great as
in the landscape garden, because no other art has such a limitless field
for the expression of its emotions. It is not strange, if this be true,
that there have been few great landscape gardeners, and that, falling
short of art, the landscape gardener too often works in the sphere of
the artisan. There can be no rules for landscape gardening, any more
than there can be for painting or sculpture. The operator may be taught
how to hold the brush or strike the chisel or plant the tree, but he
remains an operator; the art is intellectual and emotional and will not
confine itself in precepts.

The making of a good and spacious lawn, then, is the very first
practical consideration in a landscape garden.

The lawn provided, the gardener conceives what is the dominant and
central feature in the place, and then throws the entire premises into
subordination to this feature. In home grounds this central feature is
the house. To scatter trees and bushes over the area defeats the
fundamental purpose of the place,--the purpose to make every part of
the grounds lead up to the home and to accentuate its homelikeness.

A house must have a background if it is to become a home. A house that
stands on a bare plain or hill is a part of the universe, not a part of
a home. Recall the cozy little farm-house that is backed by a wood or an
orchard; then compare some pretentious structure that stands apart from
all planting. Yet how many are the farm-houses that stand as stark and
cold against the sky as if they were competing with the moon! We would
not believe it possible for a man to live in a house twenty-five years
and not, by accident, allow some tree to grow, were it not that it
is so!

Of course these remarks about the lawn are meant for those countries
where greensward is the natural ground cover. In the South and in arid
countries, greensward is not the prevailing feature of the landscape,
and in these regions the landscape design may take on a wholly different
character, if the work is to be nature-like. We have not yet developed
other conceptions of landscape work to any perfect extent, and we inject
the English greensward treatment even into deserts. We may look for the
time when a brown landscape garden may be made in a brown country, and
it may be good art not to attempt a broad open center in regions in
which undergrowth rather than sod is the natural ground cover. In parts
of the United States we are developing a good Spanish-American
architecture, perhaps we may develop a recognized comparable landscape
treatment as an artistic expression.

[Illustration: Fig. 7 A house]

* * * * *

_Birds, and cats_

The picture in the landscape is not complete without birds, and the
birds should comprise more species than English sparrows. If one is to
have birds on his premises, he must (1) attract them and (2)
protect them.

One attracts birds by providing places in which they may nest. The free
border plantings have distinct advantages in attracting chipping
sparrows, catbirds, and other species. The bluebirds, house wrens, and
martins may be attracted by boxes in which they can build.

One may attract birds by feeding them and supplying water. Suet for
woodpeckers and others, grain and crumbs for other kinds, and taking
care not to frighten or molest them, will soon win the confidence of the
birds. A slowly running or dripping fountain, with a good rim on which
they may perch, will also attract them, and it is no mean enjoyment to
watch the birds at bathing. Or, if one does not care to go to the
expense of a bird fountain, he may supply their wants by means of a
shallow dish of water set on the lawn.

[Illustration: Fig. 8 A home]

The birds will need protection from cats. There is no more reason why
cats should roam at will and uncontrolled than that dogs or horses or
poultry should be allowed unlimited license. A cat away from home is a
trespasser and should be so treated. A person has no more right to
inflict a cat on a neighborhood than to inflict a goat or rabbits or any
other nuisance. All persons who keep cats should feel the same
responsibility for them that they feel for other property; and they
should be willing to forfeit their property right when they forfeit
their control. The cats not only destroy birds, but they break the
peace. The caterwauling at night will not be permitted in well-governed
communities any more than the shooting of fire-arms or vicious talking
will be allowed: all night-roaming cats should be gathered in, just as
stray dogs and tramps are provided for.

I do not dislike cats, but I desire to see them kept at home and within
control. If persons say that they cannot keep them on their own
premises, then these persons should not be allowed to have them. A bell
on the cat will prevent it from capturing old birds, and this may answer
a good purpose late in the season; but it will not stop the robbing of
nests or the taking of young birds, and here is where the greatest havoc
is wrought.

It is often asserted that cats must roam in order that rats and mice may
be reduced; but probably few house mice and few rats are got by
wandering cats; and, again, many cats are not mousers. There are other
ways of controlling rats and mice; or if cats are employed for this
purpose, see that they are restricted to the places where the house rats
and mice are to be found.

Many persons like squirrels about the place, but they cannot expect to
have both birds and squirrels unless very special precautions are taken.

The English or house sparrow drives away the native birds, although he
is himself an attractive inhabitant in winter, particularly where native
birds are not resident. The English sparrow should be kept in reduced
numbers. This can be easily accomplished by poisoning them in winter
(when other birds are not endangered) with wheat soaked in strychnine
water. The contents of one of the eighth-ounce vials of strychnine that
may be secured at a drug store is added to sufficient water to cover a
quart of wheat. Let the wheat stand in the poison water twenty-four to
forty-eight hours (but not long enough for the grains to sprout), then
dry the wheat thoroughly. It cannot be distinguished from ordinary
wheat, and sparrows usually eat it freely, particularly if they are in
the habit of eating scattered grain and crumbs. Of course, the greatest
caution must be exercised that in the use of such highly poisonous
materials, accidents do not occur with other animals or with
human beings.

* * * * *

_The planting is part of the design or picture._

If the reader catches the full meaning of these pages, he has acquired
some of the primary conceptions in landscape gardening. The suggestion
will grow upon him day by day; and if he is of an observing turn of
mind, he will find that this simple lesson will revolutionize his habit
of thought respecting the planting of grounds and the beauty of
landscapes. He will see that a bush or flower-bed that is no part of any
general purpose or design--that is, which does not contribute to the
making of a picture--might better never have been planted. For myself, I
would rather have a bare and open pasture than such a yard as that shown
in Fig. 9, even though it contained the choicest plants of every land.
The pasture would at least be plain and restful and unpretentious; but
the yard would be full of effort and fidget.

Reduced to a single expression, all this means that the greatest
artistic value in planting lies in the effect of the mass, and not in
the individual plant. A mass has the greater value because it presents a
much greater range and variety of forms, colors, shades, and textures,
because it has sufficient extent or dimensions to add structural
character to a place, and because its features are so continuous and so
well blended that the mind is not distracted by incidental and
irrelevant ideas. Two pictures will illustrate all this. Figures 10, 11
are pictures of natural copses. The former stretches along a field and
makes a lawn of a bit of meadow which lies in front of it. The landscape
has become so small and so well defined by this bank of verdure that it
has a familiar and personal feeling. The great, bare, open meadows are
too ill-defined and too extended to give any domestic feeling; but here
is a part of the meadow set off into an area that one can compass with
his affections.

[Illustration: Fig. 10 A native fence-row]

[Ilustration: Fig. 11 Birds build their nests here]

[Illustration: Fig. 12. A free-and-easy planting of things wild and
tame.]

These masses in Figs. 10, 11, and 12 have their own intrinsic merits, as
well as their office in defining a bit of nature. One is attracted by
the freedom of arrangement, the irregularity of sky-line, the bold
bays and promontories, and the infinite play of light and shade. The
observer is interested in each because it has character, or features,
that no other mass in all the world possesses. He knows that the birds
build their nests in the tangle and the rabbits find it a covert.

[Illustration: Fig. 13. An open treatment of a school-ground. More trees
might be placed in the area, if desired.]

Now let the reader turn to Fig. 9, which is a picture of an "improved"
city yard. Here there is no structural outline to the planting, no
defining of the area, no continuous flow of the form and color. Every
bush is what every other one is or may be, and there are hundreds like
them in the same town. The birds shun them. Only the bugs find any
happiness in them. The place has no fundamental design or idea, no lawn
upon which a picture may be constructed. This yard is like a sentence or
a conversation in which every word is equally emphasized.

In bold contrast with this yard is the open-center treatment in Fig. 13.
Here there is pictorial effect; and there is opportunity along the
borders to distribute trees and shrubs that may be desired as individual
specimens.

The motive that shears the trees also razes the copse, in order that the
gardener or "improver" may show his art. Compare Figs. 14 and 15. Many
persons seem to fear that they will never be known to the world unless
they expend a great amount of muscle or do something emphatic or
spectacular; and their fears are usually well founded.

[Illustration: Fig. 14. A rill much as nature made it.]

[Illustration: Fig. 15. A rill "improved," so that it will not look
"ragged" and unkempt.]

It is not enough that trees and bushes be planted in masses. They must
be kept in masses by letting them grow freely in a natural way. The
pruning-knife is the most inveterate enemy of shrubbery. Pictures 16 and
17 illustrate what I mean. The former represents a good group of bushes
so far as arrangement is concerned; but it has been ruined by the
shears. The attention of the observer is instantly arrested by the
individual bushes. Instead of one free and expressive object, there are
several stiff and expressionless ones. If the observer stops to
consider his own thoughts when he comes upon such a collection, he will
likely find himself counting the bushes; or, at least, he will be making
mental comparisons of the various bushes, and wondering why they are not
all sheared to be exactly alike. Figure 17 shows how the same "artist"
has treated two deutzias and a juniper. Much the same effect could have
been secured, and with much less trouble, by laying two flour barrels
end to end and standing a third one between them.

[Illustration: 16. The making of a good group, but spoiled by the
pruning shears.]

[Illustration: 17. The three guardsmen.]

I must hasten to say that I have not the slightest objection to the
shearing of trees. The only trouble is in calling the practice art and
in putting the trees where people must see them (unless they are part of
a recognized formal-garden design). If the operator simply calls the
business shearing, and puts the things where he and others who like them
may see them, objection could not be raised. Some persons like painted
stones, others iron bulldogs in the front yard and the word "welcome"
worked into the door-mat, and others like barbered trees. So long as
these likes are purely personal, it would seem to be better taste to put
such curiosities in the back yard, where the owner may admire them
without molestation.

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