THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



As for the practical ways of arranging this division, they 

 are various. When the space is small, a lattice or an arbor 

 ■with screening vines will serve; when the planting in front is 

 irregular, an irregular group of shrubs will make a barrier in 

 fact, while in appearance there is none. If the front space is 

 shallow, an opening in the barrier which gives a glimpse into 

 a garden beyond will make the street side seem more spacious 

 without diminishing the privacy of the garden side. 



This separating of the front from the rear of the grounds 

 is a thing often done in older gardens not only in the South, 

 but about Salem, Newburyport, and near Philadelphia; for in 

 the older gardening the provision for privacy, the making of 

 the garden a place of quiet and retired enjoyment, was con- 

 sidered of greater moment than that the passer-by should be 

 impressed by the size and handsomeness of the estate. 



The first task to which the suburbanite addresses himself 

 is the matter of making his house at home in its environment, 

 of "tying it to the site," as gardeners say, so that it shall seem 

 securely anchored and not likely to slip its moorings. When 

 he begins literally ".from the ground up," then he seeks out a 

 landscape-gardener or an architect of gardening proclivities 

 and lays out the entire space — plans not only the house, but 

 garden, garage, or stable, so that all may fit together and 

 make a consistent and harmonious whole. This is compara- 

 tively easy. 



But if, instead of building, he rents or buys or inherits his 

 house, he must make the environment fit the house, in the 

 achievement of which there are several uncharted rocks ahead 

 that may wreck his garden enterprise. Houses differ. One 

 can no more prescribe a treatment applicable to all expressions 

 of the builder's art than one can prepare a medicine which 

 will cure every human ill; although at the same time there 



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