gardener can give more attention to the practical details of planting appeals. 

 Also, the charges of the local gardener are more consistent with the reasonable 

 expenditures for work about the small home. 



Persons of somewhat broader experience and who perhaps have seen good land- 

 scape work, say they "want the best advice," and they engage some recognized 

 landscape architect. Not unlike Americans of all classes, they spend a little 

 more on their house and its furnishings than they had originally planned, and as the 

 whole business approaches completion it becomes necessary to lessen expenses in 

 every possible way. They want all the attractive features proposed by the 

 landscape architect; but as the work progresses, due either to under-estimating 

 on the part of the landscape architect or to their own over-estimating of their 

 resources, curtailment of the work becomes necessary. In the eyes of the archi- 

 tect, his work, thus terminated, is unsuccessful. 



In other instances of small residences done by landscape architects, the cost of 

 maintaining them, after all is finished, has proved to be too great a financial 

 burden. If landscape work is neglected for want of means or for want of skilled 

 gardeners, especially while such work is new and immature, it is natural for the 

 landscape architect to be disappointed; and surely such examples of his work do 

 him no credit. It is safe to say, furthermore, that most landscape architects 

 have found that it is more difficult to procure good gardeners for small places 

 than for large ones. 



In other cases in which the landscape architect has been engaged for such small 

 jobs, there have arisen difficulties over professional charges, which, to the small- 

 home owner, seem unreasonably large, especially when, toward the end of things, 

 circumstances become somewhat colored by his worry over his bills. Yet the 

 landscape architect may not have charged so much for these small plans as for 

 larger ones , although his visits took just as much time as did those for his larger 

 jobs, and although most likely he had already made considerate reductions from 

 hi? customary charges. In the past he had met with clients of ample means who 

 did not appreciate his work, and with others who required a great deal of redraw- 

 ing of their plans. Even some of his larger and most successful jobs had deteriorat- 

 ed for want of good gardening. But in the case of these large jobs he had at least 

 been well paid for his services. Thur it has come about that, all things considered, 

 the landscape architect is likely to regard the little job as only "much ado about 

 nothing." 



There are examples of small homes well done, but they are few and far between. 

 Unfortunately, not homes of the same size and cost, but rather the larger and more 

 elaborate residences are selected as models for the smaller ones. And if these 

 larger "landscaped" homes are flashy with yellow-, blue-, and purple-foliage plants 

 and resplendent with evergreens, it is these which are more likely to be used as 

 models for some poor little front yard, resulting in a very much overdressed effect. 

 Small homes are new problems to most landscape architects; likewise, the land- 

 scape architect is still somewhat of a stranger to the suburbanite and the com- 

 muter. 



After all, how many persons understand the advantages of good landscape 

 planning? It is much to be feared that, to the average home builder, "landscap- 

 ing" is but a part of the beautifying of his home; hence to him it is still but a 

 luxury. But nothing is too good for him, and the only questions are "how much 



