VI 

 COLOR IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 



And now we reach a delicate point in the discussion of garden 

 problems. It is here that individual taste will and must assert 

 itself, though a line may be drawn consisting of a few principles 

 for occasional reference. 



Do many people, as they see a house and its surroundings, 

 think of the picture created? I am thinking now of the average 

 house, the house on the small lot. There is a picture; a picture 

 always results, a composition of some kind, from whatever we do 

 in building and planting. If the house is merely one of a row, 

 there is stUI the general effect, to which each house, each tree or 

 shrub contributes; if the house is detached, set in its own 

 small bit of ground, the chance comes to make it an attractive 

 individual composition, and thus to serve as an uplifting in- 

 fluence in its locality. 



The color of houses has so much to do with this agreeable or 

 disagreeable effect; and as all that is beautiful is logical, as all 

 that is successful is related, the loveliest houses are those of a 

 material drawn from the neighboriag earth or woods; the nearest 

 material is almost always the best, partly because of nature's 

 harmony of color. A stone or brick quarried or made near-by is 

 usually best; or, if lumber is used, a wooden house painted 

 quietly to harmonize with its surrounding color. Tradition of a 

 locality, as in New England, often determines the type of house 

 and its color as well. I have seen so often the horror of color out 

 of place in certain house-exteriors — for instance, the roof of red 

 tile on a bungalow in a wood, a roof of red that smites one in the 

 eye, where all about are the soft browns and grays of winter 



