88 The Landscape Gardening Book 



a building — the thing which makes the planting around it a 

 success or otherwise— presents itself very often to the gardener. 

 Certainly I have never found any mention of it in any work on 

 planting, though hints leading in its direction are given in one 

 or two very ancient tomes on the subject. Some gardens, 

 especially those of India and other tropical countries where the 

 art has been greatly perfected, seem to show a development of 

 the idea; but it may or may not be conscious. Yet this one 

 thing is to my mind the most important thing in the whole 

 matter of shade tree planting. 



Trees should be placed so that their shadows fall upon the 

 ground around a building, rather than upon the building itself. 

 No structure is ever one whit cooler for having the sun kept 

 away from it on any side, if it shines directly and hot upon the 

 earth immediately about it. It may look cooler from without, 

 but that is all. Even a lawn reflects light and heat up and back, 

 into windows and doors and porches; and awnings afford no 

 relief from this reflection, for it rises imder them. 



A house is itself complete shelter from the sun. Into its 

 windows, however, the sun ought to shine. Every room should 

 have light, and unobstructed outlook — which means of course 

 that trees must not stand very near. But this unobstructed 

 outlook from windows and doors and verandas should be cool 

 and inviting, should rest upon shade instead of a dazzling ex- 

 panse that glimmers with heat. 



Shade aroxmd a house means cooler air around it, therefore 

 cooler air coming in at its open windows ; whereas shade that is 

 only upon it cannot affect the surrounding atmosphere in the 

 least. Shade at a considerable distance from it is of course 

 offset by the intervening sunny area, whence come blistering 

 little puffs of heat that are the last straw on a hot summer day. 



