90 HOW TO PLAN THE HOME GROUNDS 



effect. If the vines — climbing roses, honeysuckles, and 

 Virginia creepers — are cut back or thinned out a little 

 once or twice a year, to prevent disorder and encroach- 

 ment on the footpath or roadway, the effect will prove 

 both natural looking and agreeable. 



On highly cultivated and more evidently artificial 

 grounds, the effect of vines and small shrubs bordering 

 the roadside seems to the author to look somewhat 

 forced and out of place. It scarcely needs to be re- 

 peated that herbaceous plants find their best and most 

 congenial home in the regular old-fashioned garden set 

 aside for the purpose. 



Bedding or foliage plants are not hardy, and are con- 

 sequently set out freshly every year in formal beds spe- 

 cially designed for the purpose. They consist of such 

 plants as the coleus, geranium, and canna, and are alien, 

 exotic productions w^hen they appear on the lawn, where 

 they consequently do not seem to be at home except 

 immediately adjoining the house, where they become, 

 very properly, part of the domain of the architecture. 

 For the same reason, they become an appropriate adorn- 

 ment of the city square or public or private courtyard. 



It is not at all the wish of the author to in any way 

 discredit the beauty and value of bedding plants appro- 

 priately placed, but simply to ask that they shall be duly 

 coordinated with other plants and the surroundings of 

 the picture, and, above all, to seek for them the applica- 

 tion of the same broad artistic principles of design that we 

 have advocated for the arrangement of trees and shrubs. 

 In a miniature way, there should be just the same prin- 

 ciples applied whereby, in place of tall trees, will appear 

 cannas, palms, musas; in place of large shrubs, acaly- 

 phas and geraniums; and finally, in place of the low 



