The Garden Magazine, January, 1921 
241 
A BLENDING OF OLD AND NEW WHICH CONVEYS THE HAPPY DECEPTION OF HAVING BEEN LONG ESTABLISHED 
When the suburban development absorbs the farm why sacrifice the orchard? Why not, as this astute homebuilder has done, 
let it become a dominant feature of the lawn extension to which it lends delightful mellowness? The screening hedge 
and well-grown ornamental border assure a pleasurable privacy further accentuated by the two low steps of approach 
of distinction. Landscaping, too, is passing out of that formal, 
unattractive stage of which we have had a surfeit into an era 
of picture making, intimate and delightfully suggestive of 
domesticity. 
With the comforting assurance that mere imitation is no 
longer the rule, let us proceed to fashion our own grounds ac- 
cording to the dictates of personal preference. If we plant intel- 
ligently, striving always toward a definitely conceived end, we 
can not go far astray in the matter of taste; add to that a bit 
of individuality, expressed by deft handling of the responsive 
living material at our command, and we approach what is for 
us, as home builders, ideal landscape achievement. 
Every home plot is as much an individual entity as every 
human being is a separate person. To realize the greatest possi- 
bilities of each, there must be separate, individual treatment 
for each. It is a poor home plot, indeed, that has no inherent 
landscape possibilities, though the owner may have to study 
long before he appreciates just what his particular piece of 
ground calls for, which feature to emphasize, which to subor- 
dinate, where concealing masses should be formed, and where 
little vistas should be opened or fashioned. Even the tiniest 
yards respond amazingly to thoughtful handling and can be 
coaxed into offering friendly shelter for many a favorite hobby 
of the owner who cares to express his personality through its 
ready medium. 
After all it is the meaning behind the planting, not the plant- 
ing itself, that is significant. Grounds ornamented (as many 
unfortunately still are), in conventional, by-the-rule mode — 
so many square feet of lawn, so many linear yards of ornamental 
borders, etc. — leave the spectator cold; he misses at once the 
warm personal note which is an integral part of every “ home 
plot” worthy of the name. 
E XAMINING the question from this point of view, one 
becomes keenly conscious of the fact that in landscaping the 
picture is the thing, not the materials it is made of ; though, as we 
all know, some materials are more appropriate for certain uses 
than are others. In many of our home plots we have over- 
stressed the materials and forgotten the picture. We have been 
confident that a Blue Spruce, for instance, simply because it is 
a Blue Spruce, or Peonies, or Spiraea Vanhouttei, because in 
themselves lovely, must necessarily make a yard so. The fact is 
that Spiraeas, Peonies, Blue Spruces, and all the other innum- 
erable ornamental plants the gardener is heir to, like the colors on 
the artist’s palette, have little meaning until properly combined. 
If, then, the picture rather than the pigment is of import- 
ance, why not make use of the widest possible range of land- 
scaping material? Why restrict our effects to plants of the 
purely ornamental type? Why not include plants that are 
productive as well as beautiful? 
