The Livable House 



house, however, it does not lose the intimate feeling of a living- 

 room, but merely adds to it the free spirit of outdoors. This 

 is accomplished bv two factors: the first, walling the garden in; 

 the second, proper proportion. 



Walls used in this sense do not have to be of brick or concrete 

 — a shrub border, a high hedge, the house wall, anything which 

 confines the garden and limits the view, serves the purpose. Al- 

 most all of us can recall gardens set in the midst of a great lawn, 

 or lying in the foreground of a distant view, and can remember 

 feeling vaguely that there was something wrong with the garden, 

 even though the flowers were very lovely. And the reason for our 

 discontent was the looseness of the garden, its loss of scale by com- 

 parison with such great distance, its ineffectiveness. 



Some sort of wall for this same garden would have transformed 

 it no doubt — and increased its interest a hundredfold. 



In the process of walling in the garden it is not necessary to 

 shut out every prospect — to leave no distant views at all — the 

 garden wall should contain windows even as the house wall does. 

 Views glimpsed through a frame of trees, or a gateway, are ever 

 so much more inviting than panoramas, because they lure us on 

 with a promise instead of satisfying us at a glance. 



The boundary around the Hubbard garden is a delightful com- 

 bination of garden wall and picture frame; it ties the garden in 

 without shutting out entirely the surroundings and limits it with- 

 out confining it. 



Proper proportion within the flower garden, the second factor 

 which is responsible for its atmosphere of friendliness, relates to 



[86] 



