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).
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.