Situation and Design 23 



angel will save every precious ounce of top soil and sod that comes 

 from the site of the house and the cutting of drives and paths. 

 There will be no wasteful burning of leaves in the autumn. What 

 are not needed as a mulch will form the basis of a rich compost 

 heap piled up with broken sod, cut grass, manure, and wood ashes. 

 The merest novice must know that there can be no success in a 

 garden without a careful study of the soil, and the needs of the 

 various species of plants that are to draw their sustenance from it. 



Some situations there are, a very few, where a house may 

 be placed in the midst of wild scenery, so surpassingly beautiful 

 in itself, that any garden artifice attempted seems a profanation. 

 But even a camp in the wildest Adirondacks, without some planting 

 about it to simulate Nature s garden coming to its very doors, 

 appears to spring impertinently from the soil like a Jack-from-the- 

 box. The very act of building a house anywhere destroys nature s 

 balance, and man s best endeavours are required first of all to 

 restore harmony. Whether the situation demands a wild garden 

 or a formal one, the matter of fundamental importance is to 

 establish the right relationship at the outset between the house 

 and its environment. 



A bit of wild tangled woodland is very beautiful, but it is not 

 a garden, and the moment a man thrusts a spade into the earth 

 or fells a tree, or sets out a plant where one did not grow before, 

 that moment he becomes responsible for the effect of the land 

 he subverts to his will. A garden should be &quot;man s report of 

 earth at her best.&quot; 



There are those ardent lovers of unspoiled nature who consider 

 any house a pimple on her face. Salve it over with vines, veil it 

 heavily with trees and shrubbery, still it is a blemish to be apologised 

 for, if not concealed. Surely a well-designed house, pure in style 



