6 SOUTHERN HOME GROUNDS 
Along patthfl, walks or driveways mass plantings are far better than specimens 
lawn from your neighbors. Where a row of homes are set nearly equi-distant 
from the street and each lawn is well kept up. fences and hedges are out of 
place. It is more charming to let lawns run into each other, forming one solid 
green carpet, with occasional six-cimens and masses about the homes. But, 
should some barrier lie wanted, a neatly trimmed hedge of privet or a shrubbery 
border answers much better than a fence. 
Talk it over with your neighbors. Tear down that fence and plant a shrub 
border or hedge. Doing this will make both homes more valuable and better 
places to live in. 
Another good way to make a mass planting is to use perennials. They have 
a high decorative value and may be used in combination with shrubs, or alone 
as a foundation planting. Right up close to the house, plant the taller growing 
varieties, and in front plant the lower kinds. In this way your planting will 
"step down," as it were, toward the front, where, without any perceptible 
break, it will blend with the greenery of the lawn. 
If you u.se perennials, be sure to plant those that will give variety, both 
in color of flower and period of bloom. Do not plant those of the same flowering 
period together, but place other plants between them. This will bring you extra 
joy. for it affords several months when some parts of your perennial border 
will be in bloom. 
Specimen Plantings 
By specimen plantings is meant the planting of single trees on the lawn, 
or. in fact, anywhere on the home grounds. Specimen plantings are also desir- 
able in parks and cemeteries, but it is on the home grounds that their great 
worth should be more fully appreciated. Wherever shade ie wanted, plant 
