terest, and therefore conspicuous individual plants on either side of it must be 

 so selected and so placed as to correct or preserve this balance. 



If a house stands in the center of its lot, and especially if its facade is a sym- 

 metrical one, then any large or conspicuous plants in the front yard should be 

 symmetrically placed and should also be of the same kind, or at least not notice- 

 ably different. From the discussions in the foregoing chapters, it should be 

 evident that no front yard foKage should be unduly conspicuous. Massive and 

 round-headed trees and shrubs, for exaniple, are usually more suitable than 

 sharply pointed forms. Moreover, this principle applies also to the plants occa- 

 sionally used on either side of the front door. When related particularly to some 

 details of the house design, plants should, of course, be considerably smaller 

 than the trees on the lawn, which on the contrary relate principally to the entire " 

 house front. However, plants immediately adjoining the doorway may be even more 

 conspicuous than the lawn trees; in fact, they may properly be the most promi- 

 nent plants in the entire front yard. Frequently fine evergreens or dense, low- 

 growing shrubs that are showy with berries in winter when the leaves have fallen, 

 are most suitable. At times, it is a good plan to shear such deciduous shrubs in 

 order to give them a more distinct and regular form. Unless the house and 

 the door are very elaborate, rounded forms are best. The whole front should be 

 thus carefully studied as a picture, and the individual plants proposed for the 

 area should be subordinated to the tout ensemble. 



Trees standing on either side of the house, or even behind it, when seen from 

 the street become a part of this aspect, and must be taken into account. Very 

 high boundary planting intended to enclose a garden efiectively, may become 

 so prominent in the front-yard scene as to require the use of a stronger accent 

 on the narrow side of the front lawn, such as a massive tree or a taU-boled tree 

 with a spreading top, in order to preserve the balance in the front. It is usually 

 best, however, to plant about the house those large trees which have an indefinite 

 form and growth habit, as, in the last analysis, these are but accessory to the 

 • house and therefore should not be conspicuous in themselves. Trees rising above 

 the house and in its rear, frequently add greatly to the appearance of the building 

 and to the homelike atmosphere of the entire property. But such trees should 

 likewise have broadly spreading tops. The most important rear view of a house 

 is that from the lawn behind it, and this is of necessity limited. A shade tree, 

 tall and somewhat spreading in habit, is frequently well placed near the porches 

 or terraces overlooking the rear lawns, for there it provides useful shade as well 

 as making the views from the house out over the lawn more pleasing and inter- 

 esting. 



. On a. small rear lawn there is rarely space for more than one large tree in addi- 

 tion to those required for the border planting. In fact, unless this lawn is un- 

 usually large, medium-sized trees are probably better than large ones. For 

 example, a large tree such as the elm or the red or white oak will, at maturity, 

 have a spread of branches amounting to about sixty feet in diameter. Other 

 trees which will grow equally tall without spreading so widely, and tlierefore will 

 neither occupy so much space nor cast too much shade, may be selected. As 

 another alternative, one may select trees of a form and habit similar to that of 

 well-known larger trees but smaller in every way. If high-headed trees, such as 

 the elm, are desired, unless one can plant fairly large trees at the start, it will 



