122 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



effect. Before stately buildings and in connection with terraces 

 and formal avenues, appropriate specimens are always in keeping ; 

 but in New England house-scenes not especially arranged to receive 

 them they destroy the last hope of good general effect. 



With what object, then, should the planting of the suburban 

 house ground be planned? 



I answer, with the object of helping the building and the other 

 controlling parts of the scene, to form an appropriate and pleasing 

 whole. In the ver}' smallest front j-ai'ds one thing which should 

 seldom or never be omitted can be accomplished just as well as 

 it can be in grounds of larger area — that is the connecting of the 

 house walls with the ground by means of some sort of massing of 

 verdure. Shrubs planted near the base of the house wall remove 

 at once all appearance of isolation and nakedness, and nothing can 

 help a building more than this. There, if nowhere else, some 

 evergreens should be used ; and it is fortunate that in a climate in 

 which hardy evergreens are few, the stiff sorts like the box, the 

 arborvitses, and the junipers are all entirely appropriate in close 

 connection with a building. The more irregular the structure, the 

 more varied in detail may be these wall plantings, but if the house 

 is of formal design, a hedge-like row of bushes may be best. The 

 older houses in many New England villages often have bushes 

 set thus along their walls ; and at the Longfellow mansion in Cam- 

 bridge the same purpose is accomplished by a low terrace balus- 

 trade, half covered by creepers. 



In grounds a little larger than the smallest, the securing of some 

 breadth of effect by means of grass should be attended to, next 

 after the wall plantings. If there is space enough to get this open- 

 ness and at the same time to have some bushes near the street line 

 as well as next the house, so much the better. Plant nothing which 

 will grow to a size disproportionate to the scene. Large trees on 

 small lots are not onlj^ inappropriate, but they shade the ground 

 excessively and make it difficult to grow the indispensable ground- 

 covering of shrubs. Maintaining sufficient openness, plant shrubs 

 again against the naked fences, or grow climbers on them if space 

 does not permit of anything more. In larger grounds give the 

 house a setting or background of appropriate trees. Where, as 

 in New England, climate keeps deciduous plants leafless half the 

 year, plant for effect in winter as carefully as for the summer ; 

 use all possible broad leafed evergreens and all the cheerful fruit 

 bearing and colored stemmed shrubs, and for summer add various 



