BEAUTIFYING HOME GROUNDS 



187 



a few good specimens or a group of bushes or a tree may properly stand in 

 the bend of a path. 



Lawn Planting. The lawn also should serve the considerations of 

 practicability with beauty. It should therefore be rather open and 

 unbroken. It should be somewhat enclosed by a frame of shrubbery, but 

 it must not, without defeating both considerations, be planted all over 

 with trees and bushes standing alone. This is a "spotty/' not effective 

 use of material and is hard to maintain. Arrange the bushes they may 

 be wild ones taken from the woodside, flowering kinds from the nursery- 

 man, or both planted in groups together, in bordering beds at sides of 



A DESIRABLE METHOD OF PLANTING DAFFODILS, SHOWING THE BULBS BEFORE 



COVERING. 



the lawn area. Such a bed should be dug over, no grass should be main- 

 tained between bushes, and its outline against the lawn planned in long, 

 flowing curves like that of the native woodland. Set the tall-growing 

 species generally toward the center or rear of the bed, allow the bushes 

 to grow together in a natural way, cut out the dead wood, but do not trim 

 them into rounded formal shapes. There should be a bed made against 

 the base of the house and other buildings. Plant this with shrubs of a 

 moderate height of growth and of good bushy habit. More homes look 

 bare and uninteresting, almost inhospitable, because of the lack of this 

 planting which lends a warming influence to the building, than from any 



