Landscape gardening has frequently been likened to the painting of a picture. Your art-work tutor has undoubtedly stated that a good picture should have a place of chief interest, and the rest of the places merely go to create more beautiful the central idea, or to form a fine setting for it. So in landscape gardening there must be in the gardener's head a scene of what he wants the whole to be when he finishes his work.
From this study we shall be able to work out a small theory of landscape gardening.
Let's go to the lawn. A good extent of open lawn space is always pleasant. It is restful. It brings a feeling of space to even limited grounds. So we might generalize and say that it is best to keep open lawn spaces. If you cover your lawn space with lots of trees, with small flower beds here and there, the general result is choppy and fussy. It's a bit like an over-dressed person. Your grounds lose all identity treated like this. A single tree or a small grouping is not a bad system on the lawn. Do not centre the tree or trees. Leave them to fall a bit into the background. Make a delightful side feature of them.
In selecting trees one must bear in mind a number of affairs. You should not choose an overpowering tree; the tree should be one of good shape, with something interesting about its bark, leaves, flowers or fruit. While the poplar is a quick grower, it drops its leaves early and so is left standing, bare and ugly, before the fall is old. Mind you, there are places where a row or double row of Lombardy poplar trees is very effective. But I think you'll agree with me that one lone poplar is not. The Indian bean is quite fine-looking by itself. Its foliages are large, its flowers attractive, the seed pods that cling to the tree until away into the wintertime, add a bit of picturesque. The bright berries of the ash, the brilliant leafage of the sugar maple, the blossoms of the tulip tree, the bark of the white birch tree, and the foliages of the copper beech all these are beauty items to look at.
Place makes a difference in the choice of a tree. Suppose the lower portion of the grounds are a bit low and wet, then the position is ideal for a willow. Don't group trees together which look awkward. A long-looking poplar tree does not go with a nice rather rounded little tulip tree. A juniper, so neat and prim, would look silly along side a spreading chestnut. You have to sustain ratio and suitability in mind.
I'd never recommend the planting of a group of evergreens close to a house, and in the front garden. The impression is very depressed indeed. Houses thus enclosed are overcapped by such trees and are not only dreary to live in, but in truth unhealthful. The important necessity inside a house is sunlight and plenty of it.
As trees are chose because of certain good points, so shrubs should be. In a clump I would want some which blossomed earlier, some which flowered later, some for the beauty of their fall leafage, some for the color of their bark and others for the fruit. Some spireas and the forsythia blossom early. The red bark of the dogwood tree makes a bit of colour all wintertime, and the red berries of the barberry adhere to the bush well into the winter.
Particular shrubs are good to use for hedge purposes. A hedge is rather prettier usually than a fence. The Californian privet is super for this use. Osage orange, Japan barberry, buckthorn, Japan quince bush, and Van Houtte's spiraea are other shrubs which create charming hedgerows.
I forgot to state that in tree and bush selection it is usually best to select those of the neighbourhood you live in. Unique and foreign plants do less well, and oftentimes harmonize badly with their new placing.
Landscape gardening might follow on really formal lines or along informal lines. The first would have straight paths, straight rows in stiff beds, everything, as the name says, perfectly formal. The other method is, of course, the exact opposite. There are danger points in each.
The formal organisation is likely to look too stiff; the informal, too fussy, too wiggly. As far as paths go, keep this in mind, that a path should always lead someplace. That is its job, to take one to a certain place. Now, straight, even paths are not unpleasing if the impression is to be that of a formal garden. The risk in the curved path is an abrupt curve, a whirligig effect. It is far best for you to stick to straight ways unless you can make a really good-looking curve. No one can tell you how to do this.
Garden paths may be of gravel, of soil, or of grass. One sees grass ways in some really exquisite gardens. I doubt, however, if they would serve as good in your little gardens. Your garden areas are so limited that they should be re-spaded each season, and the grass courses are a big bother in this process. Of course, a gravel path creates a fine appearance, but again you might not have gravel at your command. It is accomplishable for any of you to dig away the track for two feet. Then put in six inches of stone or clinker. Over this, pile in the soil, rounding it slightly toward the centre of the route. There should never be depressions through the middle part of ways, since these create convenient homes for water to settle. The under level of stone creates a natural drainage system.
A construction oftentimes needs the aid of vines or flowers or both to link it to the grounds in such a fashion as to form a sympathetic whole. Vines lend themselves well to this function. It is best to plant a perennial vine, and so let it form a permanent part of your landscape scheme. The Virginia crawler, wistaria, honeysuckle, a climbing rose, the clematis and trumpet vine are all most adequate.
Close your eyes and imagine a house of natural colour, that mellow grey of the weathered shingles. Now add to this old house a purple wisteria. Can you consider the beauty of it? I shall not forget soon a quite terrible corner of my childhood place, where the dining room and kitchen met. Just on that point climbing over, and falling over a trellis was a trumpet vine. It made enjoyable an awkward angle, an ugly spot of carpentry work.
Of course, the morning-glory is an annual vine, as is the moon-vine and wild cucumber vine. Now, these have their particular function. E.g., it is necessary to cover an ugly thing for merely a time, until the better things and better times come. The annual is 'the chap' for this work.
Along an old fencing, a hop vine is a thing of beauty. You may seek to rival the woods' landscape work. You often see festooned from one rotted tree to another the ampelopsis vine.
Flowers may well go along the side of the construction, or bordering a pass. In general, though, keep the front lawn area open and unbroken by beds. What more pretty in early spring than a bed of daffodils close to the home? Hyacinths and tulips, too, make a blaze of glory. These are small or no bother, and start the spring right. One may make of some bulbs an exception to the rule of uninterrupted front lawn. Snowdrops and crocuses planted through the lawn are handsome. They do not interrupt the whole result, but just merge with the total. One accomplished bulb gardener states to take a basketful of bulbs in the fall, walk about your grounds, and just throw bulbs out here and there. Wheresoever the bulbs fall, plant them. Such little bulbs as those we plant in lawns should be in groupings of four to six. Daffodils may be thus planted, also. You all remember the grape hyacinths that grow all through Katharine's side yard.
The site for a flower garden is in general at the side or rear of the house. The backyard garden is a lovely idea, is it not? Who wishes to leave a beautiful looking front yard, turn the corner of a house, and find a wasteyard? Not I. The flower garden might be laid out formally in neat little beds, or it may be more of a careless, hit-or-miss sort. Both have their good points. Great masses of bloom are attractive.
You should have in mind some idea of the blend of color. Nature seems not to consider this at all, and still gets wondrous effects. This is because of the wonderful amount of her perfect background of green, and the boundlessness of her space, while we are restrained at the best to comparatively small areas. So we should attempt not to blind people's eyes with crashes of colours which do not at close range fuse well. In order to break up extremes of colours you can always use masses of white flowers, or something like mignonette, which is in outcome green.
Last, let us sum up our landscape lesson. The grounds are a setting for the house or buildings. Open, free lawn spaces, a tree or a proper grouping well positioned, flowers that do not clutter up the front yard, groups of shrubbery, these are tips to be remembered. The paths should go someplace, and be either straight or well curved. If you start with a formal garden, one should not merge the informal with it before the work is done.
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