THE HOME GEOUNDS 



A FRIEND, who has spent some 

 money and much time on his home 

 grounds, is not satisfied with the 

 result, as the effect is not what he supposed' 

 it would be. He supposed that a lawn pri- 

 marily meant an expanse of grass sur- 

 rounded and partially covered with trees and 

 shrubs. We say, " we will walk on the 

 lawn," and the thought of soft, velvety, 

 close-shorn grass is immediately present. 

 William Robinson, the noted English land- 

 scape gardener, speaks of it as a garden, 

 while to give the true idea of- it to people on 

 this side of the ocean we must call it the 

 home grounds. A good lawn includes 

 trees, flowers, shrubs, rocks in some locali- 

 ties, etc., and the value and effect of a lawn 

 consist in the arrangement of these things. 

 Mr. Robinson advocates, in the garden, the 

 treatment of the " garden " in a manner 

 which will harmoniously unite it with the 

 landscape beyond, thus making a beautiful 

 whole of the near and distant surroundings 

 of the house. The house must be architec- 

 turally in harmony with the locality, and 

 then the grounds, before and behind the 

 house, if there be room, must correspond 

 with the architecture of the buildings, and 

 with the topographical and other points of 

 the landscape to be seen from that point. 

 If everything is in harmony, according to 

 nature's work there, the lawn effects will be 

 satisfactory to the artist and to the unskilled 

 as well. The front doorstep is a good point 

 ground. And if there be any landscape be- 

 from which to study the lawn, and its back- 

 hind the buildings it must be studied from 

 the back stoop, if there be one. 



VIEWED FROM THE FRONT DOOR. 



The planting of the lawn, therefore, must 

 be planned from the view at the front door. 

 In general terms, it may be stated that, as a 



rule, the front lawn must be an area of 

 grass, bordered by trees, shrubs, and some- 

 times flowers. The friend mentioned 

 planted his trees and shrub's mathematically 

 distant from each other, and in regular lines. 

 ,The trees have grown to a good size, and 

 now all distant points are shut out from 

 view, and the turf of the lawn has become 

 spotted and uneven in color. He forgot 

 when he planted his choice trees that they 

 would some time grow to large size, some of 

 them at least, and so now he is "cabined, 

 cribbed, confined " in a shady grove, with 

 no outward look. The ground was made 

 fertile and deeply worked, and the plants 

 were well and carefully set, where himself 

 and his hired man decided they would best 

 be placed. The future prosperity of the 

 trees was well provided for, but no account 

 was made for ultimate size. Any good 

 landscape gardener would probably have 

 suggested to him that with care such trees 

 would grow tall and wide, and that they 

 should have been so planted that the beauti- 

 ful distant views should never be completely 

 hidden. The popular notion that a lawn is 

 a place for us to treasure beautiful trees, 

 flowers and shrubs, is entirely misleading, 

 being too narrow, so that in attempting to 

 get and preserve beautiful things we deform 

 our grounds, whether they be large or small. 

 We are apt to plant too much, and to spoil 

 beautiful pictures which would be far more 

 attractive than the possession of rare plants,, 

 often too crowded to preserve their natural 

 beauty and real value. Open outlooks are 

 frequently lost through the ambition to have 

 a fine specimen of some rare tree or shrub. 



TO BROADEN THE OUTLOOK. 



. As far as practicable, the lawn should be 

 so planted 'that it may seem as wide as pos- 

 sible to be made. Planting the borders in 

 clumps with peninsulas of grass running 



