260 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



and be accessible through it, if no better location offers, but the inter- 

 position of public traffic between house and garden is not in itself de- 

 sirable. When visible from the house, then, the garden should com- 

 monly be neither on the approach side nor on the view side, but rather 

 forming a composition of its own, visible and accessible from some one 

 room, or axial arrangement of rooms, in the house, and backed by 

 some inclosing mass. If this relation is formal, it may occur in one 

 or both of two ways. The mass of the garden may relate to the mass 

 of the garden-facade of the house, either by the continuation of the lines 

 of the house to inclose the garden, or simply by a general symmetrical 

 arrangement of the house and garden on the same axis without any 

 marking or accenting of this axis. Where the garden has axial mass 

 relation with the house facade, the very simple relation of form ob- 

 tained by prolonging the lines of the sides of the house as the 

 boundaries of the garden is apt to be obvious and monotonous. It 

 is commonly better to have the garden wider than the house, and to 

 relate the outer lines of the garden to house terraces, porches, or 

 similar extensions of the house. On the other hand, the main axis of 

 the garden may be strongly marked and may terminate on a strongly 

 marked feature in the house without having the mass of the house 

 symmetrical about this axis. In some cases, too, a satisfactory formal 

 relation between house and garden may be obtained by treating both 

 as portions of one formal scheme, to the main axis of which the gar- 

 den bears no very close relation, for instance, the house may 

 terminate a long upper terrace and the garden may lie below and to 

 one side of this terrace. 



In our climate, where a house is to be used throughout the year, 

 the winter appearance of the garden visible from the house becomes very 

 important, and this militates against the use, in such a garden, of statuary 

 or of plants which must be protected in winter, and makes unwise the 

 exclusive use of plants which disappear entirely or present only with- 

 ered stalks in the winter. Such a garden should contain enough ele- 

 ments beautiful in winter to make a complete and sufficiently furnished 

 design, at that season. This means the use of architectural features, 

 of trees and shrubs, and particularly of evergreens. It is quite possible 

 to mark the dominant points in a design with evergreens and archi- 



