Tying Together House and Garden- By Fletcher Steele, 



EASY ACCESSIBILITY THE FIRST CONSIDERATION WITH EACH WINDOW THE 

 FRAME FOR A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE-THE APPROACH FROM THE PUBLIC WAY 



Landscape 

 Architect 



A STUDENT in old Pompeii is 

 puzzled to determine whether the 

 houses are half garden or the 

 gardens half house. Each one is 

 intimately a part of the other. All is quite 

 different to-day. Now a man builds a 

 house, then walks, drives, service-yards, 

 and a garden, each by itself, with little or no 

 relation to the rest. We have outgrown 

 the patchwork quilt and patchwork archi- 

 tecture, but as yet few have outgrown a 

 patchwork arrangement of their estates. 



This disunity of design is comparatively 

 modern and altogether American. In our 

 colonial days an orderly inter-relation of 

 house, service buildings and grounds was 

 always planned. As architects have turned 

 back to study the buildings and decorators 

 to the furniture, so designers of estates 

 should study the colonial landscape archi- 

 tectural arrangement. 



We might draw the lesson from old places 

 in New Amsterdam, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 

 or farther south. But nowhere were the 

 conditions so like those of to-day as in New 

 England, or was the arrangement so easily 

 adaptable for the ordinary small homestead. 

 There we find two general types, the Door- 

 yard Garden and what we may call the 

 Straightaway Garden. 



In early days the small frame houses were 

 placed close to the highway. From the 

 door in the middle of the front ran a straight 

 walk to the street. A low paling followed 

 the street line turning in at right angles to 

 meet the corners of the house. The area 

 thus enclosed became the little Dooryard 

 Garden, sacred to the housewife. It was 

 planted with flowers. But more important 

 were the herbs for homemade remedies and 

 for cooking. In other words, the garden 





This illustrates the straightaway type of garden, pre- 

 senting a dressed front to the street; the utility plants are 

 relegated to more secluded regions 



was necessary. It was also easily accessible. 

 But a step from the kitchen, and one could 

 pick a bit of "sallat" at meal times or ladle 

 the dishwater where most needed on "piny" 

 or " fetherfew." The housewife was a busy 

 woman and not a moment of the few that 

 could be spared for tending the garden need 

 be lost in going or coming. 



The other type I call the Straightaway 

 for the "straightaway path" which gen- 

 erally ran through it. These gardens be- 

 longed to the larger houses, inhabited by 

 prosperous people whose womenfolk were 

 helped by servants. I say helped advisedly, 

 for though the mistress no longer scrubbed 

 and swept she still spun and sewed, and 

 her touch was recognized in every dish that 

 left the kitchen. In those days there was 

 little distinction between master and ser- 

 vant, service quarters, and drawing-room. 

 But the life of the mistress was somewhat 

 reserved and the needs of the household 

 were large. The tiny Dooryard Garden 

 was too public and small for her fancy, 

 So she appropriated for her uses land on the 

 side away from the street. 



She rarely put her flower garden next the 

 house, however. That space was needed 

 for bleaching and drying, and for sun- 

 cooking the strawberry jam; for well, 

 woodshed, and smoke-house, and divers 

 out-buildings. So a small yard was set 

 aside, irregular in shape, as controlled by 

 conditions. It was fenced in on one or 

 more sides to keep out prowling animals 

 and to remind the farm hands, who passed 

 this way from barns to house, that they 

 were entering the precincts of the mistress. 

 This yard was as much used in summer as 

 the kitchen itself, for much the same pur- 

 poses. It was a distinct, bounded unit of 

 design. It was open. At one side a grape 

 arbor was often built against the house, 

 with two or three fruit trees near by. 

 Around the edges were lilacs and ragged 

 yellow day-lilies. 



Beyond the yard lay the garden. Oppo- 

 site a door or principal window of the house 

 an opening, sometimes arched, was made 

 through the shrubs, and a long broad path, 

 led to a simple arbor at the end. Beds were 

 laid out on either side. Flowers and herbs, 

 vegetables and bush fruits, pears and 

 cherry trees were planted here and there 

 (The apples were gathered into an orchard 

 at one side). But few feet away from the 

 house, the garden was in effect merely the 

 second extension of the useful apartments. 

 Yard and garden were more than added 

 comforts — they were necessary. Hence 

 they were put close to the house, generally 

 with regard for the architectural lines, and 

 constantly used and tended. 



Material conditions have changed since 

 those times. Home use of medicinal herbs 

 and smoke-house have passed with candle- 

 dip and spinning wheel. Woodsheds and 

 open fires are luxuries rather than necessi- 

 ties. A modern estate requires few of the 

 old appointments. Their gradual displace- 

 12 



ment and the lack of imagination to replace 

 the old with modern uses has resulted in 

 our unhappy patchwork design and the 

 divorce of house and grounds. But gar- 

 dens have again come to their own, and 

 soon we shall learn to find their uses along 

 with the pleasures. 



Accessibility plays quite as much a part 

 in the good design of estates as it ever did. 

 Gardens should be where they can be easily 

 reached. It is a delight to be able to step 

 from drawing-room directly into a flower 

 garden. Where the house is occupied only 

 during two or three seasons of the year one 

 should by all means have a garden ad- 

 joining the house. It is always possible to 

 keep a garden looking well for eight out of 

 twelve months, but difficult and expensive 

 to keep it at its best during the remaining 

 four. Therefore the garden of an all the 

 year round house should follow the second 

 of the colonial types, having the garden near 

 but not next the dwelling, as none wishes 

 to look out on to a shabby garden for four 

 months. The yard separating the two 

 should be designed as a unit with proper 

 boundaries, planted simply with evergreens 

 and shrubs having bright-colored twigs, 

 flower and fruit which will be agreeable to 

 look upon at all seasons. 



Sometimes the intervening yard may be 

 dispensed with in favor of some modern 

 equivalent such as a broad terrace. Fitted 

 up with comfortable chairs andawnings, with 

 big pots for flowers, a terrace is a natural 

 complement of the drawing-room which 

 should open upon it. In winter the pots can 

 be filled with green and the awningsput away 

 to let the sunshine pour into the house. 



Another intermediate step is the typically 



The dooryard type of garden in its simple form. En- 

 closed from the street, handy to the kitchen, with plants 

 set in as most convenient at the moment. Pot herbs and 

 flowers for cutting within quick reach 



