LANDSCAPE GARDENING OPPORTUNITIES 127 



what has been planted necessitates the replanting of the whole 

 layout in a few years. Again the grounds may change hands and the 

 new owner has everything ripped out and laid out differently, only 

 to sell in turn, when all is done over again. All this means more 

 work to be done — in fact, there is no end to it. 



Where the Greatest Opportunities Lie 



It has always been my experience that in localities where there 

 is the greatest field for landscape gardeners and where no end of 

 competent men have the laying out and planting of new grounds, 

 there are the most and the greatest opportunities for work on those 

 same grounds afterward, for the local florist ojr florists if they 

 have established any reputation at all for being able to do work in 

 that fine. The more planting there is done originaUy the more work 

 there wiU be needed to take care of it, add new features, change 

 things, replant, etc. 



The laying out of new grounds and their planting is, after aU, 

 only the beginning. We will keep on building new homes and keep 

 on seUing others and there isn't a city or town, no matter how well 

 laid out nor how well the home grounds are planted, where there 

 are not all kinds of opportunities for the local florist to get his full 

 share and more of landscape work, if he goes after it. 



If you get plans from fifty different landscape gardeners for 

 the layout of a small home ground, let us say 100 ft. by 150 ft. in 

 size with a residence about 50 ft. from the sidewalk, you will most 

 likely obtain fifty different ideas as to treating the property. Yet 

 most of them will include the features treated in this chapter, all 

 of which are necessary in order to obtain a harmonious setting and 

 give character to the grounds. It is these things that you should 

 have in mind whenever called upon to treat small grounds, and to 

 quite an extent the treatment of larger grounds doesn't differ greatly. 

 When a man once has practical experience in laying out small 

 grounds, he wiU have no trouble in taking bigger jobs and growing 

 with his work. It is right here that he can make good use of the 

 ideas of others who have written books on the subject. 



Drainage Work and Grading 



Whenever I have to submit sketches, specifications and an 

 estimate on the laying out of new work, which is usually about the 

 time the residence nears completion, I take up the grading and 

 drainage first, for these form the foundation of all the rest. Uusually 

 the soil excavated from the basement is all needed to fill up to what 

 is caUed the water table of the building, and from there help to form 

 a gentle slope toward the lot lines. Wherever this can be done, it 

 usually takes care of the surface drainage at the same time and does 



