Book of Gardens 



57 



THE AXIS IN GARDEN DESIGN 



Simple Principles and Rules Upon Which the Landscape Arrangement Should Be 

 Based, and an Example of How They Are Applied 



NO garden can be truly successful if it 

 wilfully violates certain simple rules 

 of design which should be carefully consid- 

 ered before a spade is turned. Its beds and 

 borders may proceed from month to month 

 with the most delightful effects of color and 

 mass; its walls and steps and architectural 

 ornament may be executed with skill and ex- 

 Cjuisite taste, yet it will remain a meaningless 

 array of misplaced beauty if it lacks the es- 

 sential relation it should bear to its surround- 

 ings, and if its various parts want a proper 

 coordination to bring them into focus and to 

 give them their inherent value. It will be 

 rather like a marionette vsathout strings. 



Stripping off all artistic vagueness and get- 

 ting right down to the bones of garden design, 

 we find that in this case the strings are nothing 

 more than the center-lines or axes; and that 

 a proper arrangement of these, one to bring 

 into a convincing and logical relation to the 

 garden the surrounding natural and archi- 

 tectural features, is the skeleton of the scheme. 

 Upon this structure of strings that ties the 

 garden to the house and to the dominant nat- 

 ural growths of the site, the actual plan is 

 made. 



A graphic illustration of the evolution of a 

 garden scheme is given in the accompanying 

 series of plans. These show the development 

 of the axial lines and, by means of them, the 

 subsequent development of the garden on a 

 place of moderate size where the character of 

 the ground is consistently level and unbroken 

 throughout. Plan 1 represents the house and 

 site before an}' center-lines are drawn and a 

 final arrangement seems correspondingly ob- 

 scure. The letters on the plans mark the sev- 

 eral features of the property that must be taken 

 into consideration in order appropriately to 

 locate and design the garden. Thus "A" is 

 the house of which the extremity of the south 

 wing is a loggia or built-in porch opening upon 

 a cluster of closely grouped trees. "B" indi- 

 cates the most suitable spot for . the flower 



garden, "C" the open lawn space, "E" the 

 vegetable garden, "F" the tennis court and 

 "G" the garage. The disposition of these vari- 

 ous elements of the plant is arrived at by a 

 study of the adaptability of the ground for 

 each. Thus, it is desired to reach the garden 

 through the loggia, but as there is a greater 

 wish to keep the space on the east front of 

 the house in open lawn, and as the space just 

 off the loggia to the south is far too shady, it 

 seems best to place it at "B" as shown. Then, 

 at "D" the vegetable garden will connect with 

 the service portion of the house and, at the 

 same time, balance the flower garden on the 

 opposite side. This leaves a place east of the 

 gardens and the lawn for a tennis court and 

 completes the sketching in of all the spaces 

 that lie in some relation to the garden. 



As yet there has been no definite tying in of 

 these various elements. The gardens, lawn 

 and tennis court have been apportioned to their 

 proper places, but there has been no attempt 

 made to shape them up or to connect them to 

 the. house or to each other. To do this it is 

 first necessary to draw in the axis lines of the 

 house group as in Plan 2. This house plan 

 being simple and symmetrical, its axes will 

 bisect the plan in either direction; the main 

 axis, 1, cutting the principal faces of the build- 

 ing and the secondary axis, 2, cutting the less 

 important faces at the ends. These center lines 

 must form a right angle vnth whatever face 

 of the house they happen to cut. Axes are 

 drawn through the garage and kitchen yard 

 to help in the development of the service por- 

 tion of the grounds. 



The approximate location of the flower gar- 

 den having been already determined, it is 

 now necessary to devise a system of axes upon 

 which it may be developed more precisely, and 

 by which it may be convincingly connected 

 with either one of the house axes. As there is 

 in this instance no unusual characteristic in 

 the topography of the site or an existing minor 

 bit of architecture from which to get a start 



we must use the trees. Of all those on the 

 property only the ones designated by letter 

 are of sufficient individual excellence to war- 

 rant their inclusion in the scheme as units in 

 the design. A high arching elm is marked 

 "H", two well developed cedars "J" and ''K", 

 and a nicely proportioned white oak "L". As 

 the elm, "F", might serve as the keynote of 

 the garden and as it is just about halfway 

 between the property line and the edge of the 

 space allotted to the lawn, a line, 3 on Plan 3, 

 is made to bisect it and, furthermore, to inter- 

 sect the secondary axis of the house with a 

 right angle. 



We now have the main center-line of the 

 garden and have it connected with a center 

 line of the house, but we want something more 

 than a backbone and we want to tie in also, 

 if possible, the two cedars and the white oak. 

 The cedar, "G", and the white oak are readily 

 worked into the scheme by connecting them 

 to the established main axis of the garden by 

 lines 4 and 5. 



The next step is the shaping up and the 

 adding of flesh to the skeleton. In plan 4 

 we see how the different elements of the scheme 

 have been proportioned and how the paths and 

 boundaries have been located by means of the 

 axis lines previously sketched in. The cross 

 axis of the house, line 2, formed the basis for 

 a path from the loggia to a pool in the paving 

 of the path, marking the intersection of the 

 main garden axis, then on to a seat, where it 

 terminates at the high boundary of the property 

 line. 



It is largely a matter of taste whether or not 

 to mark with some ornament the intersections 

 of the cross axis, lines 4 and 5, with the main 

 axis of the garden. They have served their 

 purpose in defining to some extent the limits of 

 the garden and in creating the cross lines. Line 

 6, tying in the cedar "K", has become the rea- 

 son for the longitudinal path on the north side 

 of the garden and the corresponding one along 

 the south side. 



