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I'latf lf2. The Right Wji.v ot Ueooratliii:: the Hciine Groiiiicl 



OP LANDSCAPB GARDBNI NG 



THE WRONG WAY OF PLANTING THE HOME -GROUNDS 



Here are trees and shrubs but no picture. Indiscriminate 

 planting without regard to expression is not artistic. The mind 

 wanders from one detail to another and finds no meaning in any- 

 thing. This is because the composition is faulty. There are no 

 contrasts — no lights and shadows — no force in the grouping. It 

 does in fact give us a "tired feeling" to look at it. 



There is no great merit in merely planting trees here and 

 there throughout the yard without pictorial arrangement; the 

 birds and squirrels do that much; in fact I publish on another page 

 a miniature landscape made by the Bower-Bird which shows order 

 and, from the bird point of view, a very artistic composition. For 

 description and illustration of the Bower-Bird, see page 96. 



The Greening Pictorial System of Landscape Gardening does 

 what its name implies; that is to say, it makes a picture of a land- 

 scape without additional cost to the owner. It costs no more to 

 do things the right way than the wrong, and in most instances 

 considerably less. 



THE RIGHT WAY OF DECORATING THE HOME 

 GROUNDS 



The Greening idea of a beautiful landscape is that of a 

 living picture full of expression. In this scene a heavy 

 plantmg of trees and shrubs borders the yard, leaving the lawoi 

 area open and therein lies the charm of the picture. We are 

 always pleased with contrasts of related subjects. In the lan- 

 guage of the painter this is expressed in "high lights and shad- 

 ows." In rhetoric the figure of speech known as antithesis is 

 usea to express contrasting ideas or emotions. The great force 

 of Shakespeare as a dramatic writer lies in his antithetic in- 

 tensity. "He put noons and midnights side by side. His tears 

 oft fell upon his smiles. No other dramatist would have 

 dreamed of adding to the pathos — of increasing our apprecia- 

 tion of Lear's agony, by supplementing the wail of the maid 

 King with the mocking laughter of a loving clown." 



And so in gardening, a group of trees and shrubs without 

 a proper lawn setting does not mean much, and a lawn without 

 a framework of trees and shrubs expresses very little; but a 

 combination of both in due proportion gives us the contrasting 

 lights and shadows that sway the emotions. 



To say of a garden that it is emotional as the plays of 

 Shakespeare is to confer the highest praise, and this garden 

 merits such praise. 



The picture represents a banking of hardy shrubs — Hy- 

 drangea, Spiraea Van Houttei, Philadelphus Aurea and Deut- 

 zia Gracilis around the circle, with Spiraea Reevesii to the right 

 and Spiraea Van Houttei to the left of the steps. There are 

 mixed shrubs on the left of the lawn ranging from dwarf to tall- 

 growing varieties. Maples and Birches define the sky-line. 



