Introduction . 



xlix. 



FIG. XLI. — ANOTHER FORECOURT TREATMENT. 



A frequent example of 



waste of effort is where a 



narrow border at the foot 



of a house is filled with 



small plants — annuals or 



other summer flowers. The 



border itself is often poorly 



devised, fussing and 



dodging in and out among 



bays and slight projections. 



It is much better to carry ^ 



the border straight across, 



and to fill the spaces next 



the house with something 



of sohd and shrubby 



character, such as laurus- 



tinus, choisya and escal- 



lonia, with a planting, in 



the narrower spaces and 



towards the path, of smaller 



shrubs, such as lavender, 



rosemary, phlomis, the 



dwarf rhodode ndrons, 



olearias and hardy fuchsias ; 



then, if front spaces still 



need filling there is nothing 



better than the 



leaved megaseas 



stately acanthus in com- 

 bination with the dark- 

 leaved shrubs, and of 



southernwood and santolina 



with the grey. 



The title of this volume, 



" Gardens for Small Country 



Houses," needs, perhaps, 



some explanation, because a few of the pictures reproduced belong obviously to large 

 gardens. Although some of the gardens described in the earlier " monograph " 

 chapters (L to VL) are of fairly large extent, they mark the increasing tendency to be 

 generous in the provision of garden space round country houses which may fairly be 

 called small. We have not attempted to deal with the little plots which belong to little 

 cottages, as they give scarcely any scope for invention or conscious design. Several 

 scores of photographs have been taken specially for the purposes of the book, but it 

 has not been found possible to rely solely on existing small gardens, known to us,, 

 for pictures that would elucidate the points we wished to make. It is fair to claim, 

 however, that no feature has been illustrated which would not be fitting in a small 

 garden when reduced in scale, or which it would be wrong so to reduce. In order 

 that the range of illustration should be as wide as possible, we have been glad to 

 avail ourselves of several sketches for pools, walls and the like, which Mr. Inigo Triggs 

 has kindly placed at our disposal. To Mr. J. Maxwell Scott and Mr. Charles Yates, 



large- 

 and the 



SUGGESTED PLAN TO PROVIDE 



TURNING SPACE FOR MOTOR-CAR. 



