90 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 



yard is to become a picture or a series of pictures, good or bad, 

 depending upon the skill displayed in planning- it. The artist would 

 not paint a home scene with the house the foremost figure. He 

 would not picture the entrance to the grounds as a straight lane 

 terminating at the door of the barn, giving an unobstructed view of 

 barnyard scenes, which are at best seldom attractive. Nor would he 

 bound the yard by four lines of trees or shrubs, with no attempt to 

 break the monotony by filling in the corners and planting here and 

 there a clump of shrubs to break up the straight lines. So we 

 should apply these rules to the planting of the home yard, and make 

 the house the central figure but not the foremost. The trees and 

 shrubs should come to the foreground at the sides of the picture. 

 Trees may be planted along the front border of the lawn provided 

 they are pruned up enough from below to give a good view of the 

 yard from the highway. Hedges are more oiten used to screen 

 unsightly portions of the home grounds, and unless one is ashamed 

 of the front yard, they should seldom be tolerated as a front yard 

 fence. 



If the yard is small and there is no place for curved drives, the 

 lane should at least make a slight curve after it passes the house ; 

 then a few trees and shrubs properly placed will screen the barnyard 

 from the entrance to the grounds. If necessary to plant windbreaks 

 made up of trees and shrubs planted in straight lines, the picture 

 may be greatly improved by filling in the square corners with 

 smaller shrubs and by planting clumps of shrubbery here and there 

 inside the windbreak where it borders the yard proper. Small 

 shrubs may be planted about the house to unite the house more or 

 less with the lawn and to break up the straight lines. They should 

 be used to fill in all retreating angles about the foundation of the 

 house. Shrubs to be planted about the house should be selected 

 and located with some care. In the first place they should be largely 

 low-growing shrubs. So long as it does not cover a window or 

 crowd a doorway, a tall shrub like the lilac or honeysuckle may 

 occasionally be used in some deep retreating angle about the house. 

 Avoid planting trees and shrubs in places where they obstruct 

 views from windows. If clumps of trees are planted about the yard, 

 a few low shrubs planted near them will have the effect of finishing 

 the picture. 



