30 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS 
CONDUCTED BY 
FRANCES COPLEY SEAVEY. 
ORNAMENTAL PLANTING FOR HOME GROUNDS. 
This is a subject in which every improvement 
Society and every individual member of such organ- 
izations is interested, perhaps especially So in the 
spring when the fancy turns naturally to out-of-door 
aspects and to out-of-door occupations. 
If hardy material is not used exclusively it should 
at least form the basis of decorative planting for the 
home grounds. Without it, the garden and grounds 
are bleak and bare during by far the greater part of 
the year, and with it, the most delightful effects may 
be secured not only in the spring and in the fall, the 
seasons when space devoted to summer-bedding is a 
blank, but throughout the summer and even in win- 
ter. 
In planting home grounds the end and aim in 
each case is a picture. It goes without saying that 
this should be a picture of home and comfort. The 
dwelling is naturally the important, central idea and 
feature of the picture and the planting must always 
be subordinated to it while at the same time making 
a background to set off and frame it. 
From this it will be understood that the first con- 
sideration is the plan of the planting rather than the 
plants of which it is to be composed. It is wrong in 
principle to consider detail in any art work in ad- 
vance of a broad general scheme or design. That 
would be putting the cart before the horse. 
The common practice of those who plant shrubs, 
trees and other plants about their homes is to scatter 
them around promiscuously, dotting them over the 
lawns in what may be termed the nursery style. 
Planted in this way, they become unrelated individ- 
uals devoid of interest unless, indeed, as specimens. 
Now specimens — even very good ones — do not of 
themselves develop the cozy look that a real home 
should wear, but there is a pictorial style of planting 
that does. No hard and fast rules for the arrange- 
ment of growing plants for the development of this 
higher, artistic style of planting can be set down, for 
conditions differ and conditions govern. 
However, it may be said in a general way that 
there should be an open lawn in front of a dwelling, 
and that trees and shrubs should be massed to form 
a background and settling for the house and a frame 
for the grounds. Also that the hard angles of the 
building may be rounded out or filled in by well pro- 
portioned groups, and that vines may be allowed to 
climb walls or trellises or pillars, which, with shrubs 
set at their base, will tend in effect to anchor the 
building to its site and blend .the different features 
of the pictures into a homogeneous whole. 
If the grounds are small, no large trees are allowa- 
ble except outside as street trees unless conditions 
permit their use as a background. It is desirable that 
the boundary shrubberies that are to frame both 
house and grounds should be planned to screen all 
parts of the grounds that are devoted to practical 
uses ; that they shall be irregular on the side next to 
the lawns ; that the material composing them shall not 
be set in holes cut in the sod, but in a bed large 
enough to contain them all, so that weeds may be 
kept down and the plants cultivated with a hoe ; and 
DWELLING AND LAWN WITH WELL-PLACED TREE. 
(American Linden; note the untrimmed branches, } 
that the plants shall be allowed to grow naturally, 
meeting and melting into each other to form a mass 
of verdure informal and graceful in character, but not 
too crowded. It is, however, sometimes admissible 
to break the continuity of the undulating line where 
turf and border meet, by isolating an exceptionally 
fine specimen plant, or even a small group of plants, a 
little away from the shrubbery bed, in holes cut in the 
sod to receive them. A red or a green cut-leaved 
Japanese maple would look well set forward in this 
way a few feet from the line of the large bed; sa 
would a little star magnolia (Magnolia stellata), or a 
group of Yuccas ; and where there is room, an irregu- 
larly spaced trio of fern-leaved elder (Rhus laciniata) 
makes a handsome group. 
