PLANTING DESIGN 



the appropriate tree to form a part of a setting of a low building of 

 level skyline ; there are also cases, however, where a group of Lombardy 

 poplars would better serve this purpose in the composition. 



The span of a bridge* is necessarily somewhat bounded and en- 

 framed by its abutments when it is looked at along the reach of water 

 which it crosses, but the compositional strength of the masses on 

 each side between which the bridge springs can be much increased 

 by planting which rises well above the level of the bridge. (See 

 Plate 32.) Such planting serves also, of course, as pictorial enframe- 

 ment for the bridge itself. The best outlook from the bridge is pre- 

 sumably up or down the stream from well out upon the bridge-span, 

 and these same plantations will give some sense of enframement to this 

 view as well. 



Planting may concentrate the attention upon a structure by converg- Planting as 

 ing lines in perspective, as where an allee of trees leads to a building or Transition be- 

 to its entrance ; in this case there is also enframement of the principal a nd Structure 

 object in the view. (See Drawing XI, opp. p. 82.) In the relation of 

 minor planting masses to a building, two effects are commonly sought : 

 first, to fix the attention upon some important part of the building, as 

 where a shrub mass is placed on each side of and leading up to a door, a 

 French window, or perhaps a gabled end or pavilion of the house ; and 

 second, to make a sequential connection between the horizontal lines 

 of the ground and the vertical surface of the building. (See Drawing 

 XXIII, opp. p. 190, and Drawing XXVI, opp. p. 198.) Where planting 

 is carried out from the corners of a house, such an arrangement serves 

 also in a way as enframement and foreground for the facade of the house 

 between the two corner plantings. The appearance of the house may 

 be greatly improved by a simple shrub planting, but in modern American 

 practice, particularly on smaller places where often little skill is em- 

 ployed in the design, the planting of shrubs about the bases of buildings, 

 for these purposes, for decoration, or merely from a restless desire to 

 take away every effect of bareness, has been considerably overdone. 

 Some buildings, notably perhaps the Tudor country houses, are at their 

 best when their walls rise clear from the clipped turf or the paved terrace. 

 (See Drawing VI, opp. p. 48.) A woodland cottage might look well if 



* Cf. Chapter X, p. 216. 



