Planning Feature Gardens for Special Effects 
By Stephen F. Hamblin, M assachusetts 
[Editor’s Note: These suggestions for the treatment of a limited area about the house are prepared by a professional Landscape 
Designer. In each case a definite area is in mind to keep the problem concrete. It must not be supposed that any of these plans could be 
actually carried out in any place that you have in mind, but, modified by local circumstances, they will serve as examples of methods of treat- 
ment, and even in sectional parts may be adapted to fit into larger general treatments. The planting lists are also to be regarded as sug- 
gestive, the plants named being regarded as types for which others may frequently be substituted according to availability , personal preference, etc.] 
I. A FORMAL GARDEN FOR FRAGRANCE 
(See blueprint plan, page 20) 
T HE Fragrance Garden is planned 
to be a part of a larger formal 
garden, and the herbs used are 
mostly subshrubs that will hold 
their fragrant foliage the seasons through. 
To plant the beds full enough for immediate 
effect it will take about a thousand herbs, 
at a cost of $75 to $100, planted. The cost 
of construction would be figured with that 
of the larger garden. 
Since this garden is supposed to be in a 
region where box and lavender are hardy, 
as in the Middle Atlantic States, little snow 
will cover the beds; so the planting is par- 
ticularly arranged to be effective all winter. 
Except for a few herbs whose other charac- 
ters make them desirable in a sweet-herb 
garden, the plants hold their foliage through- 
out the year. Further, the odor of their 
foliage may be just as strong some sunny 
day in the middle of winter as when the 
garden lays full under the summer’s sun. 
Little emphasis has been put on showy 
flowers; but many of the herbs have rather 
small flowers, in shades of pink, lavender, 
and light blue, which harmonize well with 
the foliage. In great measure the foliage 
has a gray-green tone, quiet at all seasons 
of the year, and the garden might well be 
called a gray garden. 
With this main idea of persistent gray- 
green foliage, and flowers of pale tones, we 
can arrange our materials in the beds con- 
sidering particularly their height and foliage 
textures. As it is easy to get too many 
fragrances in a garden of this kind we 
take a dozen well-known herbs that have in 
general the odor of thyme and lavender. 
With this fragrance as the centre of interest 
of the garden we can add other less fragrant 
but taller-growing herbs to give a more 
finished garden effect. Only perennial 
herbs are used, as when once planted the 
garden is to remain unchanged for years. 
From its very position the garden is 
regular in outline, and a rather symmetrical 
arrangement of the plants is followed, 
though the two sides of the garden are of 
similar but not always the same materials. 
There will be a feeling of repose in this 
garden, but not monotony nor rigidity, as 
the herbs will be allowed to grow in their 
own free way. 
First to arrange the taller herbs at the 
back against the wall, and in the corners. 
Lavender and tarragon balance well, are 
alike, and yet unlike, and their slender 
branches show to good advantage against 
the wall, which is of the softer tones of con- 
crete or stone rather than brick. In front 
of these, lower in growth and broader in 
leaf, more compact in habit, yet not too 
different, we will place belts of hyssop, 
rosemary, germander, and hoarhound. 
These four are wonderfully alike in habit 
and harmonious in color. In front of these, 
as edging against the walk, sweet marjoram 
and common thyme will serve well. As 
they grow out upon the walk they should be 
clipped, unless extreme irregularity in the 
line of the bed is desired. To fill the four 
corners of the garden such tall fine- leaved 
herbs as southernwood and Roman worm- 
wood are chosen ; or if this gives too balanced 
an effect more rosemary may be put in 
one of the corners. 
Against the semicircular wall gas plant 
and sweet clematis (Clematis Davidiana) 
will give greater height than the other plants 
of the garden, a different character of foliage 
and bright flowers in summer. To hide 
their fall in autumn, common sage, or other 
broad-leaved herb with persistent foliage, 
will face them down. 
The planting by the arbor takes the 
peculiar foliage and odor of rue, faced on 
one side by the narrow leaved lavender 
cotton, which is evergreen, and on the inside 
by the broad leaved balm, which has also 
tfie strong lemon odor. The groups of 
peppermint and spearmint are of doubtful 
value in this garden. It seems odd to ex- 
clude them from a garden of sweet herbs, 
but they are weedy, die to the ground in 
autumn, and unless their roots are confined 
they will spread out into the grass. If we 
want them w'here we may pinch their leaves 
as we pass by, perhaps we can put them 
under the sweet brier roses, and leave open 
the space that they occupy on the plan, 
that we may walk close to the sundial. 
A small sundial, of form suited to the 
design of the garden, is not inappropriate 
in a planting of this sort ; but unless set far 
enough from the arbor to be in full sun dur- 
ing the middle of the day, perhaps a bird 
bath or gazing globe would be better. Its 
base may be planted with the golden leaved 
variety of mother-of-thyme (Thymus ser- 
pyllum, var. aureum) instead of grass, in 
allusion to the old saying that “Time is 
golden.” It would be quite possible to 
carpet the whole central panel with mother- 
of-thyme instead of grass, but that would 
give too much thyme odor. 
The arbor should be lightly covered with 
vines, with merely enough foliage to give a 
suggestion of shade and coolness in summer. 
The oldfashioned Japanese honeysuckle 
(Lonicera japonica), rather than Hall’s 
variety, will give fragrant white flowers in 
May and June, while the foliage will be 
effective most of the winter. This must 
not be allowed to grow too rankly, or the 
arbor will soon be nothing else. For bloom 
in autumn the climbing knotweed (Polygo- 
num Baldschuanicum) will give a fleecy- 
19 
white mass of fragrant bloom, or the pani- 
cled Japanese clematis will do as well. 
Since we are not considering the exterior 
planting of the garden we merely indicate 
sweet brier (Rosa rubiginosa), sweet fern 
(Comptonia asplenifolia) and fragrant su- 
mac (Rhus aromatica) along the outer side 
of the arbor to carry out the fragrance idea. 
II. A SMALL ROSE GARDEN 
(See blueprint plan, page 20) 
T HIS may be a feature on a large estate 
terminating an important walk, or as 
the formal garden in a small lot. The hardy 
everblooming roses and various ramblers 
will prolong the season of bloom of the 
hybrid roses, while single roses of many 
species, will carry out the rose idea as well 
as acting as a screen for the garden. Hardy 
spring bulbs give an early show of bloom 
and hardy phlox will come on after the rose 
season is largely passed. These plants may 
cost from $400 to $500, and the work of 
construction possibly as much more, de- 
pending on the existing condition of the 
grounds and the management of the work. 
The screen planting of shrubs which ties 
the garden with the general shrub planting 
of the estate, and as well gives the garden 
seclusion from within, is made up of the 
rose type of shrubs, planned to give a great 
show of white and pink flowers in June and 
July, when the garden is at its best, though 
some of the shrubs, as the flowering rasp- 
berries under the large flowering dogwoods, 
that give height to the screen at the north 
end of the garden, are in bloom most of the 
summer. The large masses of rugosa roses 
close the ends of the arbor; these with the 
hybrids that accompany them will give 
scattered bloom all summer, and the climb- 
ing roses and clematis upon the arbors and 
posts leading from the house will give con- 
siderable bloom after the season of the gar- 
den roses is passed. To separate the garden 
on the sides from the lawn we will try a row 
of tall posts connected by chains rather than 
a hedge, and upon these train some of the 
single-flowered hybrids of Rosa wichuraiana, 
particularly some of Walsh’s newer hybrids 
in the lighter shades, to avoid color clashes 
with the roses in the beds. 
To frame the walk to the orchard tw r o 
pyramidal arborvitaes are introduced, and a 
group of dwarf Japanese yew at the end of 
the central panel makes contrast of dark 
green in summer with the flowers or in 
winter with the snow; but for the most part 
the interest is with the show of hybrid roses 
in June and such display as the everbloomers 
give later in the season. 
The Hybrid Perpetualsare arranged some- 
what regularly in the two outer beds, while 
the turf panel between them and the walk 
