56 
House & Garden 
PLANNING the GROUNDS of a SMALL PLACE 
A Letter to the Architect Somewhere in France 
FREDERICK N. EVANS 
“\7'OU want letters. How 
X would it be if I were 
to tell you about how things 
have gone with ‘your’ house 
since you saw it in the shav¬ 
ings and clod stage? 
“Gross flattery that it is, I 
must say that we have de¬ 
sired no changes since we 
moved in, which speaks fair¬ 
ly well for your ability to 
diagnose our needs. One is 
aware of a slightly guilty 
feeling in saying that he is 
very comfortable these days, 
but we have been that. 
“Our eaveless house and 
latticed garden some have 
thought queer. One woman 
asked earnestly when the 
carpenters would finish the 
roof, and two respectable cit¬ 
izens have asked me what 
breed of hens I was going to 
keep behind the fence— 
choice sarcasm, had the ques¬ 
tions been put in any differ¬ 
ent way than they were. 
Honest remarks from neigh¬ 
bors have been responded to 
without smiles (visible ones). 
Some of us have a creed that 
a bit of architecture may be 
looked upon as symbolic, like 
sculpture. To us your house 
recalls certain pleasant past 
years spent in New England. 
“They say that the cob¬ 
bler’s children usually go 
without shoes. But I could 
not bring myself to be so 
neglectful, or should I 
say, so conventional. 
Nothing is said about 
the cobbler’s own feet, 
and didn’t I, too, in¬ 
habit these grounds ? 
Therefore, I took the 
paper and pencil, and 
worked out a plan, not 
in order to do a profes¬ 
sional ‘stunt,’ but to 
make sure that we were 
not to lose one square 
inch of property for 
The home is the house 
plus its surroundings — 
even if one neighbor 
did ask when the car¬ 
penters would finish 
the roof 
The plantings are so 
arranged that the view 
from the hallway and 
entrance is extensive 
and unobstructed by 
trees 
our own rightful use. 
“I am sending you a 
sketch of it. My idea was 
to connect up the outside 
with the interior, in public, 
private and service parts. 
This is the inviolable land¬ 
scape architectural saw, you 
know. I think that I have 
not let many more square 
inches go to waste outside 
in my grounds than you 
have cubic inches inside. 
“To hedge or not to hedge 
was not long a question. 
The primness of the exte¬ 
rior said ‘Hedge!’ There 
being a plant for every pur¬ 
pose, the Japanese barberry 
could not be kept out of the 
front-line trench. I al¬ 
lowed three full feet be¬ 
tween the hedge row and 
the sidewalk. Had we had 
just a little more of the 
earth’s crust at our disposal 
I should have made it four 
feet. For even a small 
place that gives a very dis¬ 
tinctive effect. 
“No garage? Well, no 
machine! And yet the 
thought of this ultimate 
need in a future cycle is not 
left out. The structure 
would be placed in what is 
the play area, and the drive 
put in by moving the rear 
of the garden forward, or 
it could be brought in on 
the side where the stepping 
stones lie. 
“The garden is a 
great joy. Inside the 
shelter now covered 
with vines we often 
have luncheon out of 
doors. In the flower 
border there has been 
bloom from the first 
early squills, through 
the season of bleeding- 
heart and irises to the 
present second fullness 
of the wonderful gar- 
The garden in 
the clod stage 
was scarcely pre¬ 
possessing 
Even delivery 
boys will use the 
stepping stones 
30" apart 
But with the 
planting well un¬ 
der way it looks 
differently 
A sense of full 
luxuriance is 
manifest in the 
flower border 
