CHAPTER II
THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE
Having now discussed the most essential elements of gardening, we may
give attention to such minor features as the actual way in which a
satisfying garden is to be planned and executed.
Speaking broadly, a person will get from a garden what he puts into it;
and it is of the first importance, therefore, that a clear conception of
the work be formulated at the outset. I do not mean to say that the
garden will always turn out what it was desired that it should be; but
the failure to turn out properly is usually some fault in the first plan
or some neglect in execution.
Sometimes the disappointment in an ornamental garden is a result of
confusion of ideas as to what a garden is for. One of my friends was
greatly disappointed on returning to his garden early in September to
find that it was not so full and floriferous as when he left it in July.
He had not learned the simple lesson that even a flower-garden should
exhibit the natural progress of the season. If the garden begins to show
ragged places and to decline in late August or early September, it is
what occurs in all surrounding vegetation. The year is maturing. The
garden ought to express the feeling of the different months. The failing
leaves and expended plants are therefore to be looked on, to some extent
at least, as the natural order and destiny of a good garden.
These attributes are well exhibited in the vegetable-garden. In the
spring, the vegetable-garden is a model of neatness and precision. The
rows are straight. There are no missing plants. The earth is mellow and
fresh. Weeds are absent. One takes his friends to the garden, and he
makes pictures of it. By late June or early July, the plants have begun
to sprawl and to get out of shape. The bugs have taken some of them. The
rows are no longer trim and precise. The earth is hot and dry. The weeds
are making headway. By August and September, the garden has lost its
early regularity and freshness. The camera is put aside. The visitors
are not taken to it: the gardener prefers to go alone to find the melon
or the tomatoes, and he comes away as soon as he has secured his
product. Now, as a matter of fact, the garden has been going through its
regular seasonal growth. It is natural that it become ragged. It is not
necessary that weeds conquer it; but I suspect that it would be a very
poor garden, and certainly an uninteresting one, if it retained the
dress of childhood at the time when it should develop the
personalities of age.
There are two types of outdoor gardening in which the progress of the
season is not definitely expressed,--in the carpet-bedding kind, and in
the subtropical kind. I hope that my reader will get a clear distinction
in these matters, for it is exceedingly important. The carpet-bedding
gardening is the making of figure-beds in house-leeks and achyranthes
and coleus and sanitalia, and other things that can be grown in compact
masses and possibly sheared to keep them within place and bounds; the
reader sees these beds in perfection in some of the parks and about
florists' establishments; he will understand at once that they are not
meant in any way to express the season, for the difference between them
in September and June is only that they may be more perfect in
September. The subtropical gardening (plates IV and V) is the planting
out of house-grown stuff, in order to produce given effects, of such
plants as palms, dracenas, crotons, caladiums, papyrus, together with
such luxuriant things as dahlias and cannas and large ornamental
grasses and castor beans; these plants are to produce effects quite
foreign to the expression of a northern landscape, and they are usually
at their best and are most luxuriant when overtaken by the fall frosts.
Now, the home gardener usually relies on plants that more or less come
and go with the seasons. He pieces out and extends the season, to be
sure; but a garden with pansies, pinks, sweet william, roses, sweet
peas, petunias, marigolds, salpiglossis, sweet sultan, poppies, zinnias,
asters, cosmos, and the rest, is a progress-of-the-season garden,
nevertheless; and if it is a garden of herbaceous perennials, it still
more completely expresses the time-of-year.
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Diagram of a back yard.]
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.
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