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

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Another example.

A back yard is shown in Fig. 39. The owner wanted a tennis court, and
the yard is so small as not to allow of wide planting at the borders.
However, something could be done. On the left is a weedland border,
which formed the basis of the discussion of wild plants on page 35. In
the first place, a good lawn was made. In the second place, no walks or
drives were laid in the area. The drive for grocers' wagons and coal is
seen in the rear, ninety feet from the house. From I to J is the
weedland, separating the area from the neighbor's premises. Near I is a
clump of roses. At K is a large bunch of golden-rods. H marks a clump of
yucca. G is a cabin, covered with vines on the front. From G to F is an
irregular border, about six feet wide, containing barberries,
forsythias, wild elder, and other bushes. D E is a screen of Russian
mulberry, setting off the clothes yard from the front lawn. Near the
back porch, at the end of the screen, is an arbor covered with wild
grapes, making a play-house for the children. A clump of lilacs stands
at A. At B is a vine-covered screen, serving as a hammock support. The
lawn made and the planting done, it was next necessary to lay the walks.
These are wholly informal affairs, made by sinking a plank ten inches
wide into the ground to a level with the sod. The border plantings of
this yard are too straight and regular for the most artistic results,
but such was necessary in order not to encroach upon the central space.
Yet the reader will no doubt agree that this yard is much better than it
could be made by any system of scattered and spotted planting. Let him
imagine how a glowing carpet-bed would look set down in the center of
this lawn!

[Illustration: Fig. 39. Diagram of a back-yard planting. 50 x 90 feet.]

[Illustration: Fig. 40. The beginning of a landscape garden.]

A third example.

The making of a landscape picture is well illustrated in Figs. 40, 41.
The former shows a small clay field (seventy-five feet wide, and three
hundred feet deep), with a barn at the rear. In front of the barn is a
screen of willows. The observer is looking from the dwelling-house. The
area has been plowed and seeded for a lawn. The operator has then marked
out a devious line upon either border with a hoe handle, and all the
space between these borders has been gone over with a garden roller to
mark the area of the desired greensward.

The borders are now planted with a variety of small trees, bushes, and
herbs. Five years later the view shown in Fig. 41 was taken.

[Illustration: Fig. 41. The result in five years.]

A small back yard.

A back yard is shown in Fig. 42. It is approximately sixty feet square.
At present it contains a drive, which is unnecessary, expensive to keep
in repair, and destructive of any attempt to make a picture of the area.
The place could be improved by planting it somewhat after the manner
of Fig. 43.

[Illustration: Fig. 42. A meaningless back-yard planting, and an
unnecessary drive.]

[Illustration: Fig. 43. Suggestions for improving Fig. 42.]

A city lot.

A plan of a city lot is given in Fig. 44. The area is fifty by one
hundred, and the house occupies the greater part of the width. It is
level, but the surrounding land is higher, resulting in a sharp terrace,
three or four feet high, on the rear, E D. This terrace vanishes at C on
the right, but extends nearly the whole length of the other side,
gradually diminishing as it approaches A. There is a terrace two feet
high extending from A to B, along the front. Beyond the line E D is the
rear of an establishment which it is desired to hide. Since the terraces
set definite borders to this little place, it is desirable to plant
the boundaries rather heavily. If the adjoining lawns were on the same
level, or if the neighbors would allow one area to be merged into the
other by pleasant slopes, the three yards might be made into one
picture; but the place must remain isolated.

[Illustration: V. A subtropical bed. Center of cannas, with border of
_Pennisetum longistylum_ (a grass) started in late February or
early March.]

There are three problems of structural planting in the place: to provide
a cover or screen at the rear; to provide lower border masses on the
side terraces; to plant next the foundations of the house. Aside from
these problems, the grower is entitled to have a certain number of
specimen plants, if he has particular liking for given types, but these
specimens must be planted in some relation to the structural masses, and
not in the middle of the lawn.

[Illustration: Fig. 44. Present outline of a city back yard, desired to
be planted.]

The owner desired a mixed planting, for variety. The following shrubs
were actually selected and planted. The place is in central New York:--

_Shrubs for the tall background_

2 Barberry, _Berberis vulgaris_ and var. _purpurea._

1 Cornus Mas.

2 Tall deutzias.

3 Lilacs.

2 Mock oranges, _Philadelphus grandiflorus_ and _P. coronarius._

2 Variegated elders.

2 Eleagnus, _Eloeagnus hortensis_ and _E. longipes._

1 Exochorda.

2 Hibiscuses.

1 Privet.

3 Viburnums.

1 Snowball.

1 Tartarian honeysuckle.

1 Silver Bell, _Halesia tetraptera._

These were planted on the sloping bank of the terrace, from E to D. The
terrace has an incline, or width, of about three feet. Figure 45 shows
this terrace after the planting was completed, looking from the point C.

[Illustration: Fig. 45. The planting of the terrace in Fig. 44.]

_Shrubs of medium size, suitable for side plantings and groups in the
foregoing example_

3 Barberries, _Berberis Thunbergii._

3 Osier dogwoods, variegated.

2 Japanese quinces, _Cydonia Japonica_ and _C. Maulei._

4 Tall deutzias.

1 Variegated elder.

7 Weigelas, assorted colors.

1 Rhodotypos.

9 Spireas of medium growth, assorted.

1 Rubus odoratus.

1 Lonicera fragrantissima.

Most of these shrubs were planted in a border two feet wide, extending
from B to C D, the planting beginning about ten feet back from the
street. Some of them were placed on the terrace at the left, extending
from E one-fourth of the distance to A. The plants were set about two
feet apart. A strong clump was placed at N to screen the back yard. In
this back yard a few small fruit trees and a strawberry bed
were planted.

_Low informal shrubs for front of porch and banking against house_

3 Deutzia gracilis.

6 Kerrias, green and variegated.

3 Daphne Mezereum.

3 Lonicera Halliana.

3 Rubus phoenicolasius.

3 Symphoricarpus vulgaris.

4 Mahonias.

1 Ribes aureum.

1 Ribes sanguineum.

1 Rubus crataegifolius.

1 Rubus fruticosus var. laciniatus.

These bushes were planted against the front of the house (a porch on a
high foundation extends to the right from O), from the walk around to P,
and a few of them were placed at the rear of the house.

_Specimen shrubs for mere ornament, for this place_

Azalea.

Rhododendron.

Rose.

2 Hydrangeas.

1 Snowball.

1 each Forsythia suspensa and F. viridissima.

2 Flowering almonds.

These were planted in conspicuous places here and there against the
other masses.

Here are one hundred excellent and interesting bushes planted in a yard
only fifty feet wide and one hundred feet deep, and yet the place has as
much room in it as it had before. There is abundant opportunity along
the borders for dropping in cannas, dahlias, hollyhocks, asters,
geraniums, coleuses, and other brilliant plants. The bushes will soon
begin to crowd, to be sure, but a mass is wanted, and the narrowness of
the plantations will allow each bush to develop itself laterally to
perfection. If the borders become too thick, however, it is an easy
matter to remove some of the bushes; but they probably will not. Picture
the color and variety and life in that little yard. And if a pigweed now
and then gets a start in the border, it would do no harm to let it
alone: it belongs there! Then picture the same area filled with
disconnected, spotty, dyspeptic, and unspirited flower-beds and
rose bushes!

[Illustration: Fig. 46. Said to have been planted.]

[Illustration: Fig. 47. An area well filled. Compare Fig. 46.]

Various examples.

Strong and bare foundations should be relieved by heavy planting. Fill
the corners with snow-drifts of foliage. Plant with a free hand, as if
you meant it (compare Figs. 46 and 47). The corner by the steps is a
perennial source of bad temper. The lawn-mower will not touch it, and
the grass has to be cut with a butcher-knife. If nothing else comes to
hand, let a burdock grow in it (Fig. 1).

[Illustration: Fig. 48. The screening of the tennis-screen.]

The tennis-screen may be relieved by a background (Fig. 48), and a clump
of ribbon-grass or something else is out of the way against a post
(Fig. 49).

[Illustration: Fig. 49. At the bottom of the clothes-post.]

Excellent mass effects may be secured by cutting well-established plants
of sumac, ailanthus, basswood, and other strong-growing things, to the
ground each year, for the purpose of securing the stout shoots. Figure
50 will give the hint.

But if one has no area which he can make into a lawn and upon which he
can plant such verdurous masses, what then may he do? Even then there
may be opportunity for a little neat and artistic planting. Even if one
lives in a rented house, he may bring in a bush or an herb from the
woods, and paint a picture with it. Plant it in the corner by the steps,
in front of the porch, at the corner of the house,--almost anywhere
except in the center of the lawn. Make the ground rich, secure a strong
root, and plant it with care; then wait. The little clump will not only
have a beauty and interest of its own, but it may add immensely to the
furniture of the yard.

[Illustration: Fig. 50. Young shoots of ailanthus (and sunflowers for
variety).]

About these clumps one may plant bulbs of glowing tulips or dainty
snowdrops and lilies-of-the-valley; and these may be followed with
pansies and phlox and other simple folk. Very soon one finds himself
deeply interested in these random and detached pictures, and almost
before he is aware he finds that he has rounded off the corners of the
house, made snug little arbors of wild grapes and clematis, covered the
rear fence and the outhouse with actinidia and bitter-sweet, and has
thrown in dashes of color with hollyhocks, cannas, and lilies, and has
tied the foundations of the buildings to the greensward by low strands
of vines or deft bits of planting. He soon comes to feel that flowers
are most expressive of the best emotions when they are daintily dropped
in here and there against a background of foliage, or else made a
side-piece in the place. There is no limit to the adaptations; Figs. 51
to 58 suggest some of the backyard possibilities.

[Illustration: Fig. 51. A backyard cabin.]

Presently he rebels at the bold, harsh, and impudent designs of some of
the gardeners, and grows into a resourceful love of plant forms and
verdure. He may still like the weeping and cut-leaved and party-colored
trees of the horticulturist, but he sees that their best effects are to
be had when they are planted sparingly, as borders or promontories of
the structural masses.

[Illustration: Fig. 52. A garden path with hedgerows, trellis, and
bench, in formal treatment.]

The best planting, as the best painting and the best music, is possible
only with the best and tenderest feeling and the closest living with
nature. One's place grows to be a reflection of himself, changing as he
changes, and expressing his life and sympathies to the last.

_Review_

We have now discussed some of the principles and applications of
landscape architecture or landscape gardening, particularly in reference
to the planting. The object of landscape gardening is _to make a
picture._ All the grading, seeding, planting, are incidental and
supplemental to this one central idea. The greensward is the canvas, the
house or some other prominent point is the central figure, the planting
completes the composition and adds the color.

[Illustration: Fig. 53. An enclosure for lawn games.]

The second conception is the principle that _the picture should have a
landscape effect._ That is, it should be nature-like. Carpet-beds are
masses of color, not pictures. They are the little garnishings and
reliefs that are to be used very cautiously, as little eccentricities
and conventionalisms in a building should never be more than very
minor features.

[Illustration: Fig. 54. Sunlight and shadow.]

Every other concept in landscape gardening is subordinate to these two.
Some of the most important of these secondary yet underlying
considerations are as follows:--

The place is to be conceived of as _a unit._ If a building is not
pleasing, ask an architect to improve it. The real architect will study
the building as a whole, grasp its design and meaning, and suggest
improvements that will add to the forcefulness of the entire structure.
A dabbler would add a chimney here, a window there, and apply various
daubs of paint to the building. Each of these features might be good in
itself. The paints might be the best of ochre, ultramarine, or paris
green, but they might have no relation to the building as a whole and
would be only ludicrous. These two examples illustrate the difference
between landscape gardening and the scattering over the place of mere
ornamental features.

[Illustration: Fig. 55. An upland garden, with grass-grown steps,
sundial, and edge of foxgloves.]

[Illustration: Fig. 56. A garden corner.]

There should be _one central and emphatic point in the picture._ A
picture of a battle draws its interest from the action of a central
figure or group. The moment the incidental and lateral figures are made
as prominent as the central figures, the picture loses emphasis, life,
and meaning. The borders of a place are of less importance than its
center. Therefore:

_Keep the center of the place open;_

_Frame and mass the sides; Avoid scattered effects._

[Illustration: Fig. 57. An old-fashioned doorway.]

In a landscape picture _flowers are incidents._ They add emphasis,
supply color, give variety and finish; they are the ornaments, but the
lawn and the mass-plantings make the framework. One flower in the
border, and made an incident of the picture, is more effective than
twenty flowers in the center of the lawn.

More depends on _the positions that plants occupy with reference to each
other and to the structural design of the place,_ than on the intrinsic
merits of the plants themselves.

[Illustration: Fig. 58. An informally treated stream.]

Landscape gardening, then, is the embellishment of grounds in such a way
that they will have a nature-like or landscape effect. The flowers and
accessories may heighten and accelerate the effect, but they should not
contradict it.

CHAPTER III

EXECUTION OF SOME OF THE LANDSCAPE FEATURES

The general lay-out of a small home property having now been considered,
we may discuss the practical operations of executing the plan. It is not
intended in this chapter to discuss the general question of how to
handle the soil: that discussion comes in Chapter IV; nor in detail how
to handle plants: that occurs in Chapters V to X; but the subjects of
grading, laying out of walks and drives, executing the border plantings,
and the making of lawns, may be briefly considered.

Of course the instructions given in a book, however complete, are very
inadequate and unsatisfactory as compared with the advice of a good
experienced person. It is not always possible to find such a person,
however; and it is no little satisfaction to the homemaker if he can
feel that he can handle the work himself, even at the expense of
some mistakes.

_The grading._

The first consideration is to grade the land. Grading is very expensive,
especially if performed at a season when the soil is heavy with water.
Every effort should be made, therefore, to reduce the grading to a
minimum and still secure a pleasing contour. A good time to grade, if
one has the time, is in the fall before the heavy rains come, and then
allow the surface to settle until spring, when the finish may be made.
All filling will settle in time unless thoroughly tamped as it proceeds.

The smaller the area the more pains must be taken with the grading; but
in any plat that is one hundred feet or more square, very considerable
undulations may be left in the surface with excellent effect. In lawns
of this size, or even half this size, it is rarely advisable to have
them perfectly flat and level. They should slope gradually away from the
house; and when the lawn is seventy-five feet or more in width, it may
be slightly crowning with good effect. A lawn should never be
hollow,--that is, lower in the center than at the borders,--and broad
lawns that are perfectly flat and level often appear to be hollow. A
slope of one foot in twenty or thirty is none too much for a pleasant
grade in lawns of some extent.

In small places, the grading may be done by the eye, unless there are
very particular conditions to meet. In large or difficult areas, it is
well to have the place contoured by instruments. This is particularly
desirable if the grading is to be done on contract. A basal or datum
line is established, above or below which all surfaces are to be shaped
at measured distances. Even in small yards, such a datum line is
desirable for the best kind of work.

_The terrace._

In places in which the natural slope is very perceptible, there is a
tendency to terrace the lawn for the purpose of making the various parts
or sections of it more or less level and plane. In nearly all cases,
however, a terrace in a main lawn is objectionable. It cuts the lawn
into two or more portions, and thereby makes it look smaller and spoils
the effect of the picture. A terrace always obtrudes a hard and rigid
line, and fastens the attention upon itself rather than upon the
landscape. Terraces are also expensive to make and to keep in order; and
a shabby terrace is always distracting.

When formal effects are desired, their success depends, however, very
largely on the rigidity of the lines and the care with which they are
maintained. If a terrace is necessary, it should be in the form of a
retaining wall next the street, or else it should lie next the
building, giving as broad and continuous a lawn as possible. It should
be remembered, however, that a terrace next a building should not be a
part of the landscape, but a part of the architecture; that is, it
should serve as a base to the building. It will at once be seen,
therefore, that terraces are most in place against those buildings that
have strong horizontal lines, and they are little suitable against
buildings with very broken lines and mixed or gothic features. In order
to join the terrace to the building, it is usually advisable to place
some architectural feature upon its crown, as a balustrade, and to
ascend it by means of architectural steps. The terrace elevation,
therefore, becomes a part of the base of the building, and the top of it
is an esplanade.

[Illustration: Fig. 59. A terrace in the distance; in the foreground an
ideal "running out" of the bank.]

A simple and gradually sloping bank can nearly always be made to take
the place of a terrace. For example, let the operator make a terrace,
with sharp angles above and below, in the fall of the year; in the
spring, he will find (if he has not sodded it heavily) that nature has
taken the matter in hand and the upper angle of the terrace has been
washed away and deposited in the lower angle, and the result is the
beginning of a good series of curves. Figure 59 shows an ideal slope,
with its double curve, comprising a convex curve on the top of the bank,
and a concave curve at the lower part. This is a slope that would
ordinarily be terraced, but in its present condition it is a part of the
landscape picture. It may be mown as readily as any other part of the
lawn, and it takes care of itself.

[Illustration: Fig. 60. Treatment of a sloping lawn.]

[Illustration: Fig. 61. Treatment of a very steep bank.]

The diagrams in Fig. 60 indicate poor and good treatment of a lawn. The
terraces are not needed in this case; or if they are, they should never
be made as at 1. The same dip could be taken up in a single curved bank,
as at 3, but the better way, in general, is to give the treatment shown
in 2. Figure 61 shows how a very high terrace, 4, can be supplaced by a
sloping bank 5. Figure 62 shows a terrace that falls away too suddenly
from the house.

_The bounding lines._

In grading to the borders of the place, it is not always necessary, nor
even desirable, that a continuous contour should be maintained,
especially if the border is higher or lower than the lawn. A somewhat
irregular line of grade will appear to be most natural, and lend itself
best to effective planting. This is specially true in the grade to
watercourses, which, as a rule, should be more or less devious or
winding; and the adjacent land should, therefore, present various
heights and contours. It is not always necessary, however, to make
distinct banks along water-courses, particularly if the place is small
and the natural lay of the land is more or less plane or flat. A very
slight depression, as shown in Fig. 63, may answer all the purposes of a
water grade in such places.

[Illustration: Fig. 62. A terrace or slope that falls too suddenly away
from a building. There should be a level place or esplanade next the
building, if possible.]

[Illustration: 63. Shaping the land down to a water-course.]

If it is desirable that the lawn be as large and spacious as possible,
then the boundary of it should be removed. Take away the fences,
curbing, and other right lines. In rural places, a sunken fence may
sometimes be placed athwart the lawn at its farther edge for the
purpose of keeping cattle off the place, and thereby bring in the
adjacent landscape. Figure 64 suggests how this may be done. The
depression near the foot of the lawn, which is really a ditch and
scarcely visible from the upper part of the place because of the slight
elevation on its inner rim, answers all the purposes of a fence.

[Illustration: Fig. 64. A sunken fence athwart a foreground.]

[Illustration: Fig. 65. Protecting a tree in filled land.]

Nearly all trees are injured if the dirt is filled about the base to the
depth of a foot or more. The natural base of the plant should be exposed
so far as possible, not only for protection of the tree, but because the
base of a tree trunk is one of its most distinctive features. Oaks,
maples, and in fact most trees will lose their bark near the crown if
the dirt is piled against them; and this is especially true if the water
tends to settle about the trunks. Figure 65 shows how this difficulty
may be obviated. A well is stoned up, allowing a space of a foot or two
on all sides, and tile drains are laid about the base of the well, as
shown in the diagram at the right. A grating to cover a well is also
shown. It is often possible to make a sloping bank just above the tree,
and to allow the ground to fall away from the roots on the lower side,
so that there is no well or hole; but this is practicable only when the
land below, the tree is considerably lower than that above it.

If much of the surface is to be removed, the good top earth should be
saved, and placed back on the area, in which to sow the grass seed and
to make the plantings. This top soil may be piled at one side out of the
way while the grading is proceeding.

_Walks and drives._

So far as the picture in the landscape is concerned, walks and drives
are blemishes. Since they are necessary, however, they must form a part
of the landscape design. They should be as few as possible, not only
because they interfere with the artistic composition, but also because
they are expensive to make and to maintain.

Most places have too many, rather than too few, walks and drives. Small
city areas rarely need a driveway entrance, not even to the back door.
The back yard in Fig. 39 illustrates this point. The distance from the
house to the street on the back is about ninety feet, yet there is no
driveway in the place. The coal and provisions are carried in; and,
although the deliverymen may complain at first, they very soon accept
the inevitable. It is not worth the while to maintain a drive in such a
place for the convenience of truckmen and grocers. Neither is it often
necessary to have a drive in the front yard if the house is within
seventy-five or one hundred feet of the street. When a drive is
necessary, it should enter, if possible, at the side of the residence,
and not make a circle in the front lawn. This remark may not apply to
areas of a half acre or more.

The drives and walks should be direct. They should go where they appear
to go, and should be practically the shortest distances between the
points to be reached. Figure 66 illustrates some of the problems
connected with walks to the front door. A common type of walk is _a,_
and it is a nuisance. The time that one loses in going around the
cameo-set in the center would be sufficient, if conserved, to lengthen a
man's life by several months or a year. Such a device has no merit in
art or convenience. Walk _b_ is better, but still is not ideal, inasmuch
as it makes too much of a right-angled curve, and the pedestrian desires
to cut across the corner. Such a walk, also, usually extends too far
beyond the corner of the house to make it appear to be direct. It has
the merit, however, of leaving the center of the lawn practically
untouched. The curve in walk _d_ is ordinarily unnecessary unless the
ground is rolling. In small places, like this, it is better to have a
straight walk directly from the sidewalk to the house. In fact, this is
true in nearly all cases in which the lawn is not more than forty to
seventy-five feet deep. Plan _c_ is also inexcusable. A straight walk
would answer every purpose better. Any walk that passes the house, and
returns to it, _e,_ is inexcusable unless it is necessary to make a very
steep ascent. If most of the traveling is in one direction from the
house, a walk like _f_ may be the most direct and efficient. It is known
as a direct curve, and is a compound of a concave and a convex curve.

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