The Livable House 



"geometric" is forbiddingly mathematical. But, with or without 

 a name, it is this pleasingly ordered flower garden I am going to 

 write about first — the naturalistic or "studied haphazard" garden 

 will come later — and the formal garden, that is the unpleasantly 

 formal garden of gravel and bedding plants, can be left out of 

 our calculations altogether. 



Probably the most important point in the consideration of the 

 first kind of garden is its location; this, it goes without saying, 

 should be near the house, or, if it cannot be near the house, it 

 should be definitely ofif by itself, away from it. Some houses, 

 especially those of the latter part of the Victorian period — high- 

 stooped houses with meaningless porches, and poorly arranged 

 rooms — never could be conveniently opened into a garden. For 

 these the flower garden should be a separate, independent crea- 

 tion, with the way leading to it made as attractive as possible, 

 with its own walls or borders, and its own plan, independent of 

 that of the house. But the garden which is planned along with 

 the house should be "tied up" to it in some fashion if possible — 

 perhaps the entrance to the garden may be through a sun porch, 

 perhaps the first flower beds border a paved terrace intimately, 

 perhaps the paths run out from long windows or doors of the 

 house and form flower-bordered vistas for its occupants; in any 

 case the ideal garden picks up the lines of the house and continues 

 them in its own, for this formalistic garden is of the house and its 

 belongings; it dispenses with the roof and modifies the walls to 

 let in sunshine and air, and substitutes flowers that are alive for the 

 painted ones of silks and chintzes. In enlarging the scale of the 



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