86 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Planting in 

 Relation to 

 Architectural 

 Structures 



Planting as 

 Enframement 



Often the designer may judiciously somewhat accent all the effects 

 of his shore treatment because the observer is kept at a distance by the 

 foreground water-surface, but if there is boating on the water the condi- 

 tions may well be reversed, and the planting may then be arranged to 

 be inspected close at hand. 



In its relation to architectural structures,* planting bears its part 

 in landscape composition in these ways : it enframes, limiting the 

 composition of which the structure is the dominant object and concen- 

 trating attention upon the structure ; it leads up to the structure as a 

 subordinate mass to a dominant one, — "tying the structure to the 

 ground," as the phrase goes; and it decorates, perhaps paneling the 

 face of a structure with chosen patterns of green, perhaps changing the 

 texture of parts of the facade from that of stone to that of leaves. 



A building may be entirely embowered in trees or ensconced among 

 them (see Drawing XXV, opp. p. 196, and Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198) ; 

 a small house may be actually completely canopied by a great tree ; 

 but more commonly the enframement of a building by trees is an effect 

 best seen from some one point of view, a point of view usually in which 

 the trees are nearer to the spectator than is the house. (See Drawing 

 XXIV, opp. p. 192.) An overarching tree like an elm is particularly 

 effective for this purpose, because it not only bounds the composition 

 on the sides but to a considerable extent upon the top, and its spreading 

 shadow upon the ground may inclose the view at the bottom as well. 

 But enframement only upon the sides is often effective in landscape 

 composition, and even trees like Lombardy poplars may serve as satis- 

 factory enframement for a building. 



Though a tree may form the boundary of a definite and recognizable 

 composition of which a house is the dominant object, still the whole 

 shape of the tree will be seen in relation to the shape of the house in the 

 broader landscape, and the shape harmony of these two objects in the 

 composition cannot be ignored. A building however is so utterly differ- 

 ent an object from a tree in form, in texture, in association, that it is 

 quite idle to attempt to predict for an unknown case whether the rela- 

 tion between house and tree should be that of similarity or that of con- 

 trast. There are cases, that is, where a round-headed oak would be 



* Planting in relation to roads is discussed under Roads, in Chapter X, p. 223. 



