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