356 
The Garden Magazine, August, 1921 
Lay y Wheelwright , Landscape Architects 
duced herewith (below). The outer part of the 
rim is carried higher than the inner part, making a 
shelf that retains the sod at a point just below the 
water level, so the concrete basin is completely hidden. 
The detail of the rim for “Sylvia’s Pool” (page 
356) is an adaptation, and we believe an improve- 
ment over the Andre detail. The shelf is wider and 
the construction is perhaps easier. The greater 
width of the shelf gives a more secure footing for 
rocks to rest on. In this particular pool, walls were 
carried down below frost all around under the curb, 
an extra insurance for the stability of the pool in a 
severe climate. 
If the edge of a pool is built without any such lip 
on the curb, as shown in these details, the water level 
must be just even with the rim to conceal the basin, 
and then it does not conceal very well, or else there 
must be the equivalent of a coping done in naturalis- 
tic rock work. With the first arrangement there is 
bound to occur a seepage (through capillary attrac- 
tion at least), over the top, that saturates the soil and 
produces too wet a condition at the margins. The 
second arrangement gives a margin too continuously 
rocky, and more difficult to construct, for the designer 
good naturalesque garden of our own conception; and in using 
the term garden, be it clearly understood that 1 include the pool. 
England, too, is noted for successful wall and rock gardens. 
The humid climate and comparatively cool summers there pro- 
duce conditions favorable to the growth of plants in locations in 
which but few plants could survive with us. During our hot, dry 
summers most plants are parched to death in the small pockets 
of earth from which they must draw sustenance in this type of 
garden, especially in walls where drainage is even more com- 
plete than in rock work. We can always use the hardy Cacti, 
the Sempervivums and the Sedums without fear of loss, but they 
do not provide the desired variation in plant life. If our rock 
garden is the setting for a pool, its limitations are not so confined. 
The saturated earth along the margin provides an ideal spot in 
which to grow interesting bog plants, and farther away there is 
sufficient moisture for many others that would be scorched in 
an ordinary rock garden. 
The ideal location for a rocky pool is some nook in the 
woods, for we associate it naturally with such a spot. If 
we want a pool of this kind and have no woods, we should 
select a location at least close to some trees, which will give 
us the foundation for a setting. But 
if there is only open lawn, let us 
forego the desire for a pool, rejoice 
in what we do possess, and remem- 
ber that some people haven’t even 
lawns. 
Masking the Margin 
T HERE are no specific instruc- 
tions that can be given for the 
building of the small naturalesque 
pool, above or below the water. 
That which lies outside the pool 
rests solely on the art of the de- 
signer. The basin itself may vary 
in shape as infinitely as the sur- 
roundings, but its actual construc- 
tion does not differ materially from 
that of the formal pool. The mar- 
gin or curb (if you would call it 
such), calls for special discussion, 
for this must be so designed that it 
can be completely hidden. Andre, 
in “L’Art des Jardins,” shows a 
good detail for this, which is repro- 
A MAN-MADE 
WATERFALL 
This is the overflow 
of the pool shown be- 
low and such lively 
action renders the 
stagnancy which 
sometimes character- 
izes small artificially 
created bodies of wa- 
ter, here quite out of 
the question 
EXAMPLES OF RIM CON- 
STRUCTION 
The upper diagram is a detail of the 
rim used in Sylvia’s Pool, showing a 
greater width of shelf and some other 
minor modifications of the plan from 
Andre’s “L’Art des Jardins’’ (shown 
at left) which is basically sound and 
a safe guide to follow 
Lay li Wheelwright, Landscape Architects 
THE SOURCE OF A NATURALESQUE POOL 
The bubbles mark the spot where the water flows in from a twelve inch pipe under the shadow'of a rock. 
The water supply is a very considerable one as seen in the outlet of this same pool pictured above 
