2 LITTLE GARDENS 
render it impossible or inconvenient, to have the lawn or plot of 
grass (by whichever title the size of the green may entitle it to be 
called) near the house, for one must not lose sight of the uses to 
which the grass may be put during the summer months. From the 
gardener’s point of view, its, chief purpose should be to provide a 
cool, neat plot of green among flowers of gaudy colouring, that it 
may accentuate the brilliance of these and, incidentally, thereby gain 
in attractiveness itself. However, the lawn is valuable to the lady 
of the house from a far more prosaic point of view, and on its 
proximity to the dwelling its usefulness in this direction will largely 
depend. There is no gainsaying the fact that a garden, however 
small it may be, is made additionally attractive by the possession of 
a little lawn, provided—-and its worth hinges entirely upon this— 
that it is neat and well kept. An unkempt, untidy lawn detracts 
from, rather than adds to, the beauty of a garden, and, naturally, 
the smaller the latter the more obtrusive is the ill-kept lawn. But 
it is not a difficult matter to make a lawn and keep it in good 
condition, as may be gathered from the instruction in a later chapter, 
although it is work that needs care. 
General Remarks on Design.—Personally, I much prefer to 
see a small plot of grass, with beds and borders at the side, 
than one broken up here and there by little beds of various shapes 
and sizes. Although suitable planting hides their defects to some 
extent, small beds of fantastic design have a paltry look, and in a 
little garden they are bound to exercise an influence on the whole 
aspect, an influence that tends rather to accentuate the smallness 
of the garden. Now, of course, this is just what one does not wish 
to do; the garden-maker should work with an exactly opposite 
purpose. It may seem affected to write of broad effects bein 
obtainable in tiny gardens, but, at any rate, it is possible by carefu 
planning and planting to render the narrow limits less obtrusive. 
The chief means to this end is to hide all the fences and walls—any 
object, in fact, that indicates exactly where any part of the garden 
begins or ends. 
Covering the Walls and Fences.— When the garden is quite 
small this may be done easily by covering the walls and fences with 
Ivy, with Jessamine, Roses, Clematis, and Virginian Creeper, but 
preferably with Ivy, because this provides a warm green covering 
for the bare boards or bricks the whole year round. If the garden 
does not come in the category of those that are quite small, then 
by a tasteful arrangement of rustic trelliswork (to be covered with 
climbing plants), or by planting groups of shrubs wherever they 
may be needed, the actual size of the garden may be hidden from 
view. It is a good plan to imagine a friend coming into one’s garden 
for the first time and to think what his impressions would be. 
‘Would the boundary fences strike him at once as being bare and 
obtrusive, defining the exact limits of the garden? Then either 
drape them with evergreens or, if space allows, hide them with 
