152 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



The Time Ele- 

 ment in 

 Planting 

 Design 



individuals ; and in many landscape designs individual plants are 

 necessarily the essential elements of the composition, and must be so 

 treated. Plants are living things : they grow from year to year, come 

 to the height of their development, and die ; they change their appear- 

 ance with the seasons ; the form of each expresses its particular racial 

 inheritance and the accidents of its individual life. Plants have in- 

 evitably certain conditions of existence, certain requirements of soil, 

 climate, and so on, and certain associations in our minds with other 

 plants, with various uses, and with the places where they naturally are 

 found. The landscape designer is not free, therefore, either economi- 

 cally or esthetically, to disregard the individuality of the plant material 

 with which he deals. 



Through the growth of plants, the landscape designer has an oppor- 

 tunity which other designers have not : for although he may by sufficient 

 expenditure produce in a short time approximately the effect which he 

 desires, he may, on the other hand, with comparatively little expense 

 set out small plants and trust to their growth to bring about in time the 

 effect which he originally had in mind. Granted this element of time, 

 the landscape architect has in vegetation a very plastic material with 

 which he can produce masses of manifold shapes, and if necessary of 

 great size. This advantage of the landscape designer brings with it a 

 corresponding disadvantage : he cannot judge and change and perfect 

 his design before it leaves his hand, as the sculptor does, — often indeed 

 his work comes to its perfection long after he is dead. He must there- 

 fore, with little aid from drawings and often with little aid from the 

 present condition of the ground, be able to imagine his completed design 

 and to foresee and take account of the changes through which his 

 planting must go from its present state to its full expression. 



The landscape architect must consider the changes in the appear- 

 ance of his plants during their whole growth as well as their cycle of 

 seasonal changes, and he must either so arrange his design that it is 

 consistently practical and beautiful at all times, or he must choose some 

 particular time, some season of the year or some future year, when his 

 design is to be at its best, and in designing have in mind the appear- 

 ance of the plants at that time, neglecting to some extent their appear- 

 ance before and after. 



