October, 1906 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



241 



How to Lay Out a Small Plot Successfully 



By Ralph Child Erslcine 



HK study of home-building is one of uni- 

 versal interest, whether it be of that great 

 army of humanity who live in layers, one 

 family above another, trying to gather into 

 a few small window-boxes a pitiful morsel 



sygtEgg gg^ A A x 1 of the world's nature-beauty; or of the 



favored ones whose broad lands stretch out in rolling acres 



of fields and woods and pleasant valleys. But perhaps the 



most forlorn situation in which a lover of home-beauty 



finds himself is that of the man of small means who has 



been enticed into one of the typical villages that lie on 



the outskirts of any American city. Here the devastations 



of the real-estate agent confront him. Barren, weed-grown 



plots, all marked and staked, are his share; and he is bidden 



to conform his plans for garden and home to the narrow 



limitations of one or more of these "city lots." 



But Mr. O. O. Watson in the village of Lowerre, N. Y., 



has not only solved this problem but has created a model 



for the thousands of gardeners in a similar situation. His 



garden is important for two reasons; although in reality a 



small piece of ground, it gives an impression of unlimited 



extent; and it is eminently successful in its use of the classic 



and antique ornament. Immediately the visitor is given 



the theme of the place by one of the most remarkable 



gateways in the country. Six feet of lawn intervenes be- 

 tween the street-walk and the tall English privet hedge 



that gives an air of quiet and repose which is only increased 



by the enticing glimpse of garden and curving paths, seen 



through the heavy wrought-iron gate. While the two 



large vases of classic design that surmount the gate-posts 



are in complete accord with what lies within. 



The secret of creating in a small garden an impression 



of unlimited extent is to gain in miniature the graceful 



curve of roads and paths behind tree masses and through 



green fields, that is seen in a large estate. This is done by 



well-proportioned paths winding among dense masses of 



green, placed at the proper points of the turns. 



The paths should be not more than eighteen inches wide, 



clean-cut in the sod and clean-swept. There are a great Watson has used the white, purple and pink varieties of the 



many flowering bushes and leafy shrubs suitable to create old-fashioned Althea, or Rose of Sharon, for this purpose 



the desired illusion of hidden depths. It is well to choose very effectively. As almost every gardener knows, these 



such as will grow a little higher than a man's head. Mr. shrubs are not only of graceful shape and dense leafage, 



but during the entire summer are filled 

 with gay blossoms. A circular bed of can- 

 nas and elephant's-ears, around a plant of 

 the quick-growing castor-bean, whose 

 great star-shaped leaves blend well with 

 those below them, forms a satisfactory 

 screen. It can easily be seen how charming 

 is this last combination of large-leafed 

 plants with the gorgeous plumes of the 

 cannas interwoven. 



Fine specimens of the single-flower tree- 

 hvdrangeas flank the path within the gate 

 (they are the parent of the less formal 

 common hydrangea) , and on the left stands 

 a very large Florentine oil- or wine-jar. To 

 the right a small wing of the house projects 

 somewhat in the manner of a porte-cochere, 

 over a winding rose-path, along which 

 we have gone but a little way when 

 our attention is arrested by a bed of dainty 



A remarkable entrance ; a rose-path continues on around to the right. In winter 

 two red Florentine lions take the place of these vases 



Plan of the formal garden ; three divisions, each fifty by one hundred feet. Notice the isolation of 

 formal ornaments by means of shrubbery 



