1788 LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



Where the ground is so deeply covered with snow 

 through the winter as to prevent deep freezing, as 

 about the Great Lakes, more coniferous trees and ever- 

 green shrubs can be grown, even rhododendrons and 

 azaleas in protected localities, unless the soil be lime- 

 stone. 



In poor gravel and sand some plants, such as the 

 bearberry, crowberry and hudsonia, that will not do 

 well in good soil, will make an attractive and permanent 

 ground-cover, but they are not offered in quantities 

 by nurseries. Soils that are wet much of the year sup- 

 port a few plants such as buttonball, red maple and 

 willow, arbor- vitse and tamarack in the North; in the 

 South white cedar, cypress and palmetto. On seashores 

 exposed to constant winds and the spray of high tides, 

 bayberry, huckleberry, and wild roses predominate in 

 the North, and in salt-marshes, baccharis and iva. In 

 the South the mangrove grows at the edge of salt- 

 water. 



The wet-land limitations may make distinctive and 

 attractive landscapes, even though they are not so 

 accessible, that are quite as worthy of preservation and 

 development as the upland woods, fields and lawns. 



2079. A type of house that needs much intimate planting. Page 1781. 



There are limitations in the supply of material in 

 nurseries that must be considered in making landscape 

 planting plans. The plants most desired to carry out 

 the designer's ideal may be too expensive or offered 

 in top small quantities by the dealers. Therefore, a 

 working knowledge must be had of the available 

 material as well as a knowledge of the habits and cul- 

 tural requirements of plants. 



The grading and mechanical work. 



In the development of areas for habitation and for 

 the recreation of many persons, there must be under- 

 ground pipes and surface grading. Roads and walks 

 must be provided as well as means for supplying light 

 and water, disposing of sewage and other wastes in a 

 sanitary and sightly way. Grading is required about 

 buildings and in the construction of roads, game- 

 courts and gardens, and is often resorted to in order to 

 secure such special effects as are indicated below : 

 shutting out of sight a road or walk that crosses the 

 turf foreground of a distant view or across a lawn 

 view; making a building which stands below a road- 

 level to appear nearer this level by having the surface 

 slope away from the building into a valley with its 

 opposite side at the road made more abrupt, and cov- 

 ered with low shrubs; making buildings on formal ter- 

 races appear nearer the ground-level by substituting 

 for the terraces a gradual ogee or reverse curve. 



There are usually two classes of roads and walks, 

 the long indirect pleasure ways for occasional use that 

 are preferably turf- or leaf -covered and the direct thor- 

 oughfares from house to town and from building to 

 building that are in constant use and must be well 

 drained and thoroughly constructed on easy grades. 



A _ 5 per cent grade is regarded as the desirable 

 maximum for horse-drawn vehicles. Curves, even sharp 

 curves, are made through irregular steep land to gain 

 the necessary length to give easy grades. With auto- 

 mobiles steeper grades are permissible, while less 

 abrupt curves without obstruction to the view of the 

 road are much more desirable. The tendency is to 

 accept steeper walks with fewer steps than formerly, 

 not alone in the cities where ramps are being substi- 

 tuted for steps in the great railroad stations, but also 

 in country parks and private grounds. 



Automobiles are compelling new methods of road- 

 construction that provide either a solid surface like 

 brick, wood block or a concrete bed with tar and fine 

 stone surfacing; macadam or gravel bound by asphalt, 

 tar or glutrin; or gravel with surface application of oil 

 or calcium chloride to lay dust. W T ater-bound macadam 

 roads are out of date and a waste of 

 money where there is much automobile 

 traffic. When good gravel can be secured, 

 it is likely to make the best and most 

 economical country and private estate 

 road if given the same attention in con- 

 struction and care as was given the old 

 macadam roads. In nearly every section 

 of the country, good binding gravels are 

 to be secured, such as the white cement- 

 ing churt of central Georgia, the red 

 Paducah gravel near the junction of the 

 Ohio and Mississippi, the gray Peekskill 

 gravel of the Hudson River, the reddish 

 cementing gravels of eastern Wisconsin 

 and the foothills at Santa Barbara, Cali- 

 fornia, and the gravelly clays of the 

 sandy foothill section of North Carolina 

 of which so many hundred miles of excel- 

 lent low-cost roads have been made 

 about Pinehurst. 



For little used drives and walks, well- 

 drained turf or a covering of pine-needles 

 or deciduous leaves are serviceable and 

 attractive with a low maintenance-cost. 

 Walks can be carried down steep places attractively 

 with a minimum disturbance of the surface and vege- 

 tation at the lowest cost by the use of stick instead 

 of stone steps. These are made of rounded or square 

 pieces about 2 feet long used as risers for earth or sod 

 treads and held in place by stubs driven down in the 

 face at each end. 



Sometimes a public water system is available, or a 

 natural gravity supply either for direct service or to 

 operate a hydraulic ram or a water-wheel pump to 

 force water to a reservoir. At other times windmills, 

 gasolene, hot-air, steam or electric pumps are installed 

 to force water from dug or driven wells, ponds or 

 streams, to an elevated reservoir that will give gravity 

 supply, or to air-tight tanks at lower levels from which 

 the water is forced through the supply-pipes by air- 

 pressure. 



It is very important that sewage be disposed of in 

 such a manner as not to contaminate the water-supply. 

 It is very likely to do so if it flows on the surface, 

 through the ground from the ordinary leaching cesspool; 

 or into sink-holes as it often does in the limestone regions 

 of the South. The danger is multiplied under such cir- 

 cumstances if the supply is taken from a spring or 

 stream or well below the house-level. Even if the 

 owner's water-supply is taken from a higher level one 

 should consider the neighbors below in the disposal of 

 his sewage. 



