36 SUBURBAN GARDENS 
material, topping and overshadowing the walls 
that are so artificial. 
From the house, therefore, the garden is to 
work out in its several directions, to the outer 
limits or boundary of the plot. Hence it is 
from the house that the start must be made 
with the design; in other words, the house it- 
self will furnish the first motif or form in the 
design. And the principal doors or porches 
or porch entrances or windows will furnish in- 
ceptive points from which the secondary 
motifs will proceed. Just what form these 
shall take and just how they shall be unified 
in spite of their diversity are things which 
each designer must decide for himself — and 
for the particular situation which he is at work 
upon. Now therefore we come to consider- 
ing the design as applied to the ground, rather 
than to a flat abstract surface of the given 
form. 
Here we are at once quite beyond the realm 
of certainty or rule, and only by the aid of 
diagrams will it be possible for me to gen- 
eralize even, with any chance of being under- 
stood. Four designs, therefore, for a plot 
fifty by one hundred feet in size, are shown — 
one somewhat regular or semi-formal, and one 
altogether irregular or informal for each type 
