148 PLANS OF RESIDENCES 



will be secured from the bays of the two principal rooms. The 

 walk, as we have previously observed, is made near one side, to 

 leave all the central portion of the lot in open lawn. It is not 

 possible to keep this openness of expression, and at the same time 

 have large trees on the lot. They must be dispensed with ; and in 

 stocking the borders to make a rich environment of verdure for the 

 lawn, the choice must be exclusively among small trees and sfirubs. 

 Let us begin at the gate. Here we would set out to have a hem- 

 lock arch ; though the trees as shown on the plan erroneously 

 symbolize deciduous trees. At the opposite front corner we 

 would plant the two slender weeping firs, Abies excelsa inverta 

 and Picea p. pendula. But as their growth is slow compared 

 with that of many fine deciduous shrubs, a mass of the latter 

 may be planted near the firs, to fill that corner with foliage until 

 the latter are from twelve to twenty years old, when the weeping 

 firs will be large enough to fill it beautifully without support. 

 The border on the left should be made up of evergreen shrubs 

 or trees, as varied in foliage as possible, and of those sorts which 

 do not exceed six or seven feet in height and breadth. The iso- 

 lated small trees or shrubs which stand out from this border are 

 designed to be of deciduous sorts, the most charming for their 

 forms, foliage, or flowers ; the largest of which should not, within 

 ten years, exceed ten feet in breadth. These, and the dwarf shrubs 

 which flank them, can be selected from the lists to be found in the 

 Appendix. As some of those which are in time the most interest- 

 ing are of exceedingly slow growth, bedding plants and annuals 

 which will preserve the same form for the groups by their propor- 

 tioned sizes may be substituted. But there is no question of the 

 superior beauty, in the end, of the place which is largely composed 

 of trees and shrubs that make it charming in winter and early spring 

 as well as in summer. The quick and brilliant effects that may 

 be produced with bedding-plants can, however, be combined some- 

 what with more permanent plantings, if the planter will be watch- 

 ful not to let his vigorous but ephemeral summer-plants smother the 

 slower growing dwarfs. ^ The latter will not long survive being thus 

 deprived of sun and air in summer, and then left bare in the bleak 

 winter, while their summer companions which lorded over them 



