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

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[Illustration: Fig. 66. Forms of front walks.]

It is essential that any service walk or drive, however long, should be
continuous in direction and design from end to end. Figure 67
illustrates a long drive that contradicts this principle.

It is a series of meaningless curves. The reason for these curves is
the fact that the drive was extended from time to time as new houses
were added to the villa. The reader will easily perceive how all the
kinks might be taken out of this drive and one direct and bold curve be
substituted.

The question of drainage, curbing, and gutters.

[Illustration: Fig. 67. A patched-up drive, showing meaningless crooks.]

Thorough drainage, natural or artificial, is essential to hard and
permanent walks and drives. This point is too often neglected. On the
draining and grading of residence streets a well-known landscape
gardener, O.C. Simonds, writes as follows in "Park and Cemetery ":

[Illustration: Fig. 68. Treatment of walk and drive in a suburban
region. There are no curbs.]

"The surface drainage is something that interests us whenever it rains
or when the snow melts. It has been customary to locate catch-basins for
receiving the surface water at street intersections. This arrangement
causes most of the surface water from both streets to run past the
crossings, making it necessary to depress the pavement, so that one must
step down and up in going from one side of a street to the other, or
else a passageway for the water must be made through the crossing. It
may be said that a step down to the pavement and up again to the
sidewalk at the street intersections is of no consequence, but it is
really more elegant and satisfactory to have the walk practically
continuous (Fig. 68). With the catch-basin at the corner, the stoppage
of the inlet, or a great fall of rain, sometimes covers the crossing
with water, so one must either wade or go out of his way. With
catch-basins placed in the center of the blocks, or, if the blocks are
long, at some distance from the crossing, the intersections can be kept
relatively high and dry. Roadways are generally made crowning in the
center so that water runs to the sides, but frequently the fall
lengthwise of the roadway is less than it should be. City engineers are
usually inclined to make the grade along the length of a street as
nearly level as possible. Authorities who have given the subject of
roads considerable study recommend a fall lengthwise of not less than
one foot in one hundred and twenty-five, nor more than six feet in one
hundred. Such grades are not always feasible, but a certain amount of
variation in level can usually be made in a residence street which will
make it much more pleasing in appearance, and have certain practical
advantages in keeping the street dry. The water is usually confined to
the edge of the pavement by curbing, which may rise anywhere from four
to fourteen inches above the surface. This causes all the water falling
on the roadway to seek the catch-basin and be wasted, excepting for its
use in flushing the sewer. If the curbing, which is really unnecessary
in most cases, were omitted, much of the surface water would soak into
the ground between the sidewalk and the pavement, doing much good to
trees, shrubs, and grass. The roots of the trees naturally extend as
far, or farther, than their branches, and for their good the ground
under the pavement and sidewalk should be supplied with a certain amount
of moisture.

[Illustration: VI. A tree that gives character to a place.]

[Illustration: Fig. 69. A common form of edge for walk or drive.]

[Illustration: Fig. 70. A better form.]

"The arrangement made for the removal of surface water from the street
must also take care of the surplus water from adjacent lots, so there
is a practical advantage in having the level of the street lower than
that of the ground adjoining. The appearance of houses and home grounds
is also much better when they are higher than the street, and for this
reason it is usually desirable to keep the latter as low as possible and
give the underground pipes sufficient covering to protect them from
frost. Where the ground is high and the sewers very deep, the grades
should, of course, be determined with reference to surface conditions
only. It sometimes happens that this general arrangement of the grades
of home grounds, which is desirable on most accounts, causes water from
melting snow to flow over the sidewalk in the winter time, where it may
freeze and be dangerous to pedestrians. A slight depression of the lot
away from the sidewalk and then an ascent toward the house would usually
remedy this difficulty, and also make the house appear higher.
Sometimes, however, a pipe should be placed underneath the sidewalk to
allow water to reach the street from inside of the lot line. The aim in
surface drainage should always be to keep the traveled portions of the
street in the most perfect condition for use. The quick removal of
surplus water from sidewalks, crossings, and roadways will help insure
this result."

These remarks concerning the curbings and hard edges of city streets may
also be applied to walks and drives in small grounds. Figure 69, for
example, shows the common method of treating the edge of a walk, by
making a sharp and sheer elevation. This edge needs constant trimming,
else it becomes unshapely; and this trimming tends to widen the walk.
For general purposes, a border, like that shown in Fig. 70, is better.
The sod rolls over until it meets the walk, and the lawn-mower is able
to keep it in condition. If it becomes more or less rough and irregular,
it is pounded down.

If it is thought necessary to trim the edges of walks and drives, then
one of the various kinds of sod-cutters that are sold by dealers may be
used for the purpose, or an old hoe may have its shank straightened and
the corners of the blade rounded off, as shown in Fig. 71, and this will
answer all purposes of the common sod-cutter; or, a sharp,
straight-edged spade may sometimes be used. The loose overhanging grass
on these edges is ordinarily cut by large shears made for the purpose.

[Illustration: Fig. 71. Sod cutter.]

Walks and drives should be laid in such direction that they will tend to
drain themselves; but if it is necessary to have gutters, these should
be deep and sharp at the bottom, for the water then draws together and
tends to keep the gutter clean. A shallow and rounded brick or cobble
gutter does not clean itself; it is very likely to fill with weeds, and
vehicles often drive in it. The best gutters and curbs are now made of
cement. Figure 72 shows a catch basin at the left of a walk or drive,
and the tile laid underneath for the purpose of carrying away the
surface water.

[Illustration: Fig. 72. Draining the gutter and the drive.]

The materials.

The best materials for the main walks are cement and stone flagging. In
many soils, however, there is enough binding material in the land to
make a good walk without the addition of any other material. Gravel,
cinders, ashes, and the like, are nearly always inadvisable, for they
are liable to be loose in dry weather and sticky in wet weather. In the
laying of cement it is important that the walk be well drained by a
layer of a foot or two of broken stone or brickbats, unless the walk is
on loose and leachy land or in a frostless country.

In back yards it is often best not to have any well-defined walk. A
ramble across the sod may be as good. For a back walk, over which
delivery men are to travel, one of the very best means is to sink a
foot-wide plank into the earth on a level with the surface of the sod;
and it is not necessary that the walk be perfectly straight. These walks
do not interfere with the work of the lawn-mower, and they take care of
themselves. When the plank rots, at the expiration of five to ten years,
the plank is taken up and another one dropped in its place. This
ordinarily makes the best kind of a walk alongside a rear border. (Plate
XI.) In gardens, nothing is better for a walk than tanbark.

[Illustration: Fig. 73. Planting alongside a walk.]

The sides of walks and drives may often be planted with shrubbery. It is
not necessary that they always have prim and definite borders. Figure 73
illustrates a bank of foliage which breaks up the hard line of a walk,
and serves also as a border for the growing of flowers and interesting
specimens. This walk is also characterized by the absence of high and
hard borders. Figure 68 illustrates this fact, and also shows how the
parking between the walk and the street may be effectively planted.

_Making the borders._

The borders and groups of planting are laid out on the paper plan. There
are several ways of transferring them to the ground. Sometimes they are
not made until after the lawn is established, when the inexperienced
operator may more readily lay them out. Usually, however, the planting
and lawn-making proceed more or less simultaneously. After the shaping
of the ground has been completed, the areas are marked off by stakes, by
a limp rope laid on the surface, or by a mark made with a rake handle.
The margin once determined, the lawn may be seeded and rolled (Fig. 40),
and the planting allowed to proceed as it may; or the planting may all
be done inside the borders, and the seeding then be applied to the lawn.
If the main dimensions of the borders and beds are carefully measured
and marked by stakes, it is an easy matter to complete the outline by
making a mark with a stick or rakestale.

[Illustration: Fig. 74. A bowered pathway.]

[Illustration: Fig. 75. Objects for pity.]

The planting may be done in spring or fall,--in fall preferably if the
stock is ready (and of hardy species) and the land in perfect condition
of drainage; usually, however, things are not ready early enough in the
fall for any extended planting, and the work is commonly done as soon as
the ground settles in spring (see Chapter V). Head the bushes back. Dig
up the entire area. Spade up the ground, set the bushes thick, hoe them
at intervals, and then let them go. If you do not like the bare earth
between them, sow in the seeds of hardy annual flowers, like phlox,
petunia, alyssum, and pinks. Never set the bushes in holes dug in the
old sod (Fig. 75). The person who plants his shrubs in holes in the
sward does not seriously mean to make any foliage mass, and it is likely
that he does not know what relation the border mass has to artistic
planting. The illustration, Fig. 76, shows the office that a shrubbery
may perform in relation to a building; this particular building was
erected in an open field.

[Illustration: 76. A border group, limiting the space next the residence
and separating it from the fields and the clothes-yards.]

I have said to plant the bushes thick. This is for quick effect. It is
an easy matter to thin the plantation if it becomes too thick. All
common bushes may usually be planted as close as two to three feet apart
each way, especially if one gets many of them from the fields, so that
he does not have to buy them. If there are not sufficient of the
permanent bushes for thick planting, the spaces may be tilled
temporarily by cheaper or commoner bushes: but do not forget to remove
the fillers as rapidly as the others need the room.

_Making the lawn._

The first thing to be done in the making of a lawn is to establish the
proper grade. This should be worked out with the greatest care, from the
fact that when a lawn is once made, its level and contour should never
be changed.

Preparing the ground.

The next important step is to prepare the ground deeply and thoroughly.
The permanence of the sod will depend very largely on the fertility and
preparation of the soil in the beginning. The soil should be deep and
porous, so that the roots will strike far into it, and be enabled
thereby to withstand droughts and cold winters. The best means of
deepening the soil, as explained in Chapter IV, is by tile-draining; but
it can also be accomplished to some extent by the use of the subsoil
plow and by trenching. Since the lawn cannot be refitted, however, the
subsoil is likely to fall back into a hard-pan in a few years if it has
been subsoiled or trenched, whereas a good tile-drain affords a
permanent amelioration of the under soil. Soils that are naturally loose
and porous may not need this extra attention. In fact, lands that are
very loose and sandy may require to be packed or cemented rather than
loosened. One of the best means of doing this is to fill them with
humus, so that the water will not leach through them rapidly. Nearly all
lands that are designed for lawns are greatly benefited by heavy
dressings of manure thoroughly worked into them in the beginning,
although it is possible to get the ground too rich on the surface at
first; it is not necessary that all the added plant-food be immediately
available.

The lawn will profit by an annual application of good chemical
fertilizer. Ground bone is one of the best materials to apply, at the
rate of three hundred to four hundred pounds to the acre. It is usually
sown broadcast, early in spring. Dissolved South Carolina rock may be
used instead, but the application will need to be heavier if similar
results are expected. Yellow and poor grass may often be reinvigorated
by an application of two hundred to three hundred pounds to the acre of
nitrate of soda. Wood ashes are often good, particularly on soils that
tend to be acid. Muriate of potash is not so often used, although it may
produce excellent results in some cases. There is no invariable rule.
The best plan is for the lawn-maker to try the different treatments on a
little piece or corner of the lawn; in this way, he should secure more
valuable information than can be got otherwise.

The first operation after draining and grading is the plowing or spading
of the surface. If the area is large enough to admit a team, the surface
is worked down by means of harrows of various kinds. Afterwards it is
leveled by means of shovels and hoes, and finally by garden rakes. The
more finely and completely the soil is pulverized, the quicker the lawn
may be secured, and the more permanent are the results.

The kind of grass.

The best grass for the body or foundation of lawns in the North is
June-grass or Kentucky blue-grass (_Poa pratensis_), not Canada
blue-grass (_Poa compressa_).

Whether white clover or other seed should be sown with the grass seed is
very largely a personal question. Some persons like it, and others do
not. If it is desired, it may be sown directly after the grass seed is
sown, at the rate of one to four quarts or more to the acre.

For special purposes, other grasses may be used for lawns. Various kinds
of lawn mixtures are on the market, for particular uses, and some of
them are very good.

A superintendent of parks in one of the Eastern cities gives the
following experience on kinds of grass: "For the meadows on the large
parks we generally use extra recleaned Kentucky blue-grass, red-top,
and white clover, in the proportion of thirty pounds of blue-grass,
thirty pounds of red-top, and ten pounds of white clover to the acre.
Sometimes we use for smaller lawns the blue-grass and red-top without
the white clover. We have used blue-grass, red-top, and Rhode Island
bent in the proportion of twenty pounds each, and ten pounds of white
clover to the acre, but the Rhode Island bent is so expensive that we
rarely buy it. For grass in shady places, as in a grove, we use Kentucky
blue-grass and rough-stalked meadow-grass (_Poa trivialis_) in equal
parts at the rate of seventy pounds to the acre. On the golf links we
use blue-grass without any mixture on some of the putting greens;
sometimes we use Rhode Island bent, and on sandy greens we use red-top.
We always buy each kind of seed separately and mix them, and are
particular to get the best extra recleaned of each kind. Frequently we
get the seed of three different dealers to secure the best."

In most cases, the June-grass germinates and grows somewhat slowly, and
it is usually advisable to sow four or five quarts of timothy grass to
the acre with the June-grass seed. The timothy comes on quickly and
makes a green the first year, and the June-grass soon crowds it out. It
is not advisable to sow grain in the lawn as a nurse to the grass. If
the land is well prepared and the seed is sown in the cool part of the
year, the grass ought to grow much better without the other crops than
with them. Lands that are hard and lacking in nitrogen may be benefited
if crimson clover (four or five quarts) is sown with the grass seed.
This will make a green the first year, and will break up the subsoil by
its deep roots and supply nitrogen, and being an annual plant it does
not become troublesome, if mown frequently enough to prevent seeding.

In the southern states, where June-grass does not thrive, Bermuda-grass
is the leading species used for lawns; although there are two or three
others, as the goose-grass of Florida, that may be used in special
localities. Bermuda-grass is usually propagated by roots, but imported
seed (said to be from Australia) is now available. The Bermuda-grass
becomes reddish after frost; and English rye-grass may be sown on the
Bermuda sod in August or September far south for winter green; in spring
the Bermuda crowds it out.

When and how to sow the seed.

The lawn should be seeded when the land is moist and the weather
comparatively cool. It is ordinarily most advisable to grade the lawn in
late summer or early fall, because the land is then comparatively dry
and can be moved cheaply. The surface can also be got in condition,
perhaps, for sowing late in September or early in October in the North;
or, if the surface has required much filling, it is well to leave it in
a somewhat unfinished state until spring, in order that the soft places
may settle and then be refilled before the seeding is done. If the seed
can be sown early in the fall, before the rains come, the grass should
be large enough, except in northernmost localities, to withstand the
winter; but it is generally most desirable to sow in very early spring.
If the land has been thoroughly prepared in the fall, the seed may be
sown on one of the late light snows in spring and as the snow melts the
seed is carried into the land, and germinates very quickly. If the seed
is sown when the land is loose and workable, it should be raked in; and
if the weather promises to be dry or the sowing is late, the surface
should be rolled.

The seeding is usually done broadcast by hand on all small areas, the
sower going both ways (at right angles) across the area to lessen the
likelihood of missing any part. Steep banks are sometimes sown with seed
that is mixed in mold or earth to which water is added until the
material will just run through the spout of a watering-can; the material
is then poured on the surface, which is first made loose.

Inasmuch as we desire to secure many very fine stalks of grass rather
than a few large ones, it is essential that the seed be sown very
thick. Three to five bushels to the acre is the ordinary application of
grass seed (page 79).

Securing a firm sod.

The lawn will ordinarily produce a heavy crop of weeds the first year,
especially if much stable manure has been used. The weeds need not be
pulled, unless such vicious intruders as docks or other perennial plants
gain a foothold; but the area should be mown frequently with a
lawn-mower. The annual weeds die at the approach of cold, and they are
kept down by the use of the lawn-mower, while the grass is not injured.

It rarely happens that every part of the lawn will have an equal catch
of grass. The bare or sparsely seeded places should be sown again every
fall and spring until the lawn is finally complete. In fact, it requires
constant attention to keep a lawn in good sod, and it must be
continuously in the process of making. It is not every lawn area, or
every part of the area, that is adapted to grass; and it may require
long study to find out why it is not. Bare or poor places should be
hetcheled up strongly with an iron-toothed rake, perhaps fertilized
again, and then reseeded. It is unusual that a lawn does not need
repairing every year. Lawns of several acres which become thin and mossy
may be treated in essentially the same way by dragging them with a
spike-tooth harrow in early spring as soon as the land is dry enough to
hold a team. Chemical fertilizers and grass seed are now sown liberally,
and the area is perhaps dragged again, although this is not always
essential; and then the roller is applied to bring the surface into a
smooth condition. To plow up these poor lawns is to renew all the battle
with weeds, and really to make no progress; for, so long as the contour
is correct, the lawn may be repaired by these surface applications.

The stronger the sward, the less the trouble with weeds; yet it is
practically impossible to keep dandelions and some other weeds out of
lawns except by cutting them out with a knife thrust underground (there
are good spuds manufactured for this purpose, Figs. 108 to 111). If the
sod is very thin after the weeds are removed, sow more grass seed.

The mowing.

The mowing of the lawn should begin as soon as the grass is tall enough
in the spring and continue at the necessary intervals throughout the
summer. The most frequent mowings are needed early in the season, when
the grass is growing rapidly. If it is mown frequently--say once or
twice a week--in the periods of most vigorous growth, it will not be
necessary to rake off the mowings. In fact, it is preferable to leave
the grass on the lawn, to be driven into the surface by the rains and to
afford a mulch. It is only when the lawn has been neglected and the
grass has got so high that it becomes unsightly on the lawn, or when the
growth is unusually luxurious, that it is necessary to take it off. In
dry weather care should be taken not to mow the lawn any more than
absolutely necessary. The grass should be rather long when it goes into
the winter. In the last two months of open weather the grass makes small
growth, and it tends to lop down and to cover the surface densely, which
it should be allowed to do.

Fall treatment.

As a rule, it is not necessary to rake all the leaves off lawns in the
fall. They afford an excellent mulch, and in the autumn months the
leaves on the lawn are among the most attractive features of the
landscape. The leaves generally blow off after a time, and if the place
has been constructed with an open center and heavily planted sides, the
leaves will be caught in these masses of trees and shrubs and there
afford an excellent mulch. The ideal landscape planting, therefore,
takes care of itself to a very large extent. It is bad economy to burn
the leaves, especially if one has herbaceous borders, roses, and other
plants that need a mulch. When the leaves are taken off the borders in
the spring, they should be piled with the manure or other refuse and
there allowed to pass into compost (pages 110, 111).

If the land has been well prepared in the beginning, and its life is not
sapped by large trees, it is ordinarily unnecessary to cover the lawn
with manure in the fall. The common practice of covering grass with raw
manure should be discouraged because the material is unsightly and
unsavory, and the same results can be got with the use of commercial
fertilizers combined with dressings of very fine and well-rotted compost
or manure, and by not raking the lawn too clean of the mowings of
the grass.

Spring treatment.

Every spring the lawn should be firmed by means of a roller, or, if the
area is small, by means of a pounder, or the back of a spade in the
hands of a vigorous man. The lawn-mower itself tends to pack the
surface. If there are little irregularities in the surface, caused by
depressions of an inch or so, and the highest places are not above the
contour-line of the lawn, the surface may be brought to level by
spreading fine, mellow soil over it, thereby filling up the depressions.
The grass will quickly grow through this soil. Little hummocks may be
cut off, some of the earth removed, and the sod replaced.

Watering lawns.

The common watering of lawns by means of lawn sprinklers usually does
more harm than good. This results from the fact that the watering is
generally done in clear weather, and the water is thrown through the air
in very fine spray, so that a considerable part of it is lost in vapor.
The ground is also hot, and the water does not pass deep into the soil.
If the lawn is watered at all, it should be soaked; turn on the hose at
nightfall and let it run until the land is wet as deep as it is dry,
then move the hose to another place. A thorough soaking like this, a
few times in a dry summer, will do more good than sprinkling every day.
If the land is deeply prepared in the first place, so that the roots
strike far into the soil, there is rarely need of watering unless the
place is arid, the season unusually dry, or the moisture sucked out by
trees. The surface sprinkling engenders a tendency of roots to start
near the surface, and therefore the more the lawn is lightly watered,
the greater is the necessity for watering it.

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