Practical Plans for the Home Grounds 
V. The Suburban Garden — By Ruth Dean, Land New Y^k'"' rt ’ 
(Editors’ Note — One article in this series of layout plans appears each month, and each one approaches a problem totally different 
from the others. Complete planting plans are not given here, as the object is to discuss the layout in general. Several planting plans 
will be found in the issues for February and April from which the garden maker may adopt details to Jit his own case.) 
A LMOST everyone wants 
green lawns about his house. 
At the same time, almost 
everyone’s wife wishes flow- 
ers on her place — and the problem of 
reconciling these two desires, of giv- 
ing a restful, spacious appearance to 
the setting of a house, and, some place 
about it of satisfying a perfectly 
justifiable demand for color, is what 
this little plan solves. 
The piece of property is a typical 
suburban plot, of what one might call 
the upper middle class of such plots; 
about 120 x 200 ft. in extent, with a 
similar lot on either side. There is 
not room for a drive to come up and 
make a “turn-around” in front of the 
house, without using up the entire 
lawn space. The expedient frequently 
adopted under such conditions, of 
making a U-shaped drive, is bad be- 
cause, as the house is set back only 70 
feet from the street, the whole drive is 
perfectly visible from the highway, 
and a road which leads into a place, 
only to lead out is not a very inviting 
one. It is far better to leave the lawn 
space in front of the house unbroken, 
running the road in at the side, near 
the lot line, with a short walk leading 
up to the entrance. If there is a side 
entrance so much the better — one may 
alight directly at the door. The drive 
curves slightly so that the passerby 
may not look directly into the service 
yard at the rear, which serves as court 
to both the kitchen and garage. 
A small kitchen garden opens from 
this service yard, which is separated 
from the flower garden bv tall-growing 
shrubs. The flowers are gathered to- 
gether in one place, where they are 
ever so much more effective than they 
would be if scattered about the founda- 
tions of the house or in the shrubbery 
border. In the former position they 
are always bad, for flowers are an ex- 
ceedingly weak foundation planting. 
It is much better to use shrubs and 
vines close to the house, and to keep 
the flowers for the garden. A few 
strong growers, such as yuccas, butter- 
fly weed, or hollyhocks (if they are cut 
back as soon as they are through 
flowering) can sometimes be used to 
good advantage among shrubbery. 
The central paths of this little 
garden are paved with broken flags, in 
the crevices of which grass is allowed 
to grow. To the left is a grassy space 
with two seats, and perhaps some 
small, amusing garden figure at the 
centre back. The background of this 
court should be cedars or white pine, 
whose dark green foliage would pro- 
duce a desirable effect of depth. 
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