COMMON SENSE IN PLANNING YOUR GROUNDS 
E. C. STILES 
Landscape Architect 
The Smaller the Place the Bigger the Problem — Demands of Utility 
to be Satisfied Before Details of Ornament and Personal Fancy 
W TILITY is the factor of supreme importance in plan- 
ning a small place. The principles of propriety, suita- 
bility, variety, etc., applicable in all good landscaping 
WfTN'TI here become acutely significant because in dealing with 
limited areas the designer cannot afford even an occasional slip. 
A misplaced object, relatively unimportant on larger grounds 
where the interest is dispersed and an imperfect square yard or 
two is of no great moment, becomes on a small property both 
conspicuous and costly! With only a few hundred square feet 
at one’s disposal the problem of utility is paramount. And so 
in making the plan for such a place this factor takes precedence 
over all others and not until it has been met, frankly and fully, 
should other considerations have play. When the owner has 
planned the most complete and advantageous use of his home 
grounds, he is at liberty to indulge his personal fancy in the mat- 
ter of ornamental planting, garden features, and the innumerable 
other minor distractions which absorb every home-builder. 
T HE merely ornamental is seldom beautiful; a familiar truth 
which the circumspect small-property owner wisely accepts. 
Conditioned as he is by modern land values and building costs, 
he recognizes that the careful landscape plan, like the architec- 
tural plan for the house proper, in the long run justifies itself 
as a paying investment. Sample plans for specimen properties, 
as well as illustrated details of various landscape effects are 
frequently presented to readers, but this article is offered with 
the hope of meeting the requirements of those who wish to plan 
their own home ground or to intelligently criticize such plans 
with a definite assurance, when they have completed or accepted 
a design, that every available inch of ground has been put to 
its best possible use. In other words, this article is an attempt 
to set forth the governing principles of small-property design, 
not as applied to some particular area but as generally applica- 
ble to any small place irrespective of the size of the house or the 
shape of the plot. Design of this character is not merely a 
matter of personal inclination, but is resolved by its very limit- 
edness into a few distinct phases which may be successfully 
treated by obedience to some simple rules of common sense. 
T HE first and most important question is of course the loca- 
tion of the house, which is the controlling factor of all other 
elements of the problem at hand. The distance from the street 
depends in most cases upon the position of the other houses 
along the street; but, if a new property on a new block, fifty to 
sixty feet will usually be found a satisfactory distance for lots 
of one hundred to two hundred feet frontage and a depth of one 
hundred and fifty to three hundred feet. 
The next consideration is on which side of the property shall 
it be located, and the answer is never (except under the most 
unfavorable conditions in the matter of neighbors) in the 
middle of the lot, for the result on the average lot of small 
frontage is complete waste of development possibilities about 
the immediate living portions of the house. A location of 
fifteen to twenty feet from either side line meets the require- 
ments of most suburban developments, and is in consequence 
the best situation as a rule. The choice of side-line is auto- 
matically determined by the kitchen and service portions of the 
structure, which should be adjacent to it so that one drive- 
way, coming in at that point, may cover both personal and 
service requirements. Never allow the entrance drive to cut 
Incorrect placing of the garage and the poultry yard, the swing 
across of the driveway, etc., all make for unnecessary steps be- 
sides wasting the space and destroying the full use of the land 
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