The Livable Ho u s e 



The aquatics in the average pool should consist of hardy varie- 

 ties which may be bedded in the pool bottom itself, rather than the 

 tender sorts which for cultural reasons have to be planted in pots. 

 The pots are too apt to show through the water, and introduce an 

 artificial quality which detracts from the grace of the pool. 



Fitness, which is only a synonym for appropriateness, depends 

 in pool planting, as in all other kinds, upon attention to details 

 which will emphasize the character of the area to be planted- 

 details which will contribute to the effect to be produced. In a 

 rock garden alpines are appropriate, plants which naturally make 

 their homes in the scant pockets of earth between rocks, and if the 

 stones are not large one uses the smaller flowering and smaller 

 foliaged plants, reserving those with coarse leaves and large flow- 

 ers for the garden which can boast boulders. Similarly, about a 

 pool, however formal its character, those things should grow 

 which emphasize the feeling of water, and if the pool is a large 

 one the flowers and shrubs may be correspondingly big, whereas, 

 if it is small, they must not reduce its size still more by too great 

 contrast. 



The location of a pool in the design of a garden is something 

 about which it is hard to generalize. Lying out in an open space 

 of turf or gravel, the pool is apt to lose scale, to flow away on all 

 sides and become insignificant. Moreover, such a position is 

 likely to preclude any planting about the pool — and half the inter- 

 est of water in the garden is due to the things which grow near it. 

 Bending over it and dipping down into it, they give it warmth and 

 friendliness and life. At the same time it is pleasant to be able to 



[108] 



