A CONCRETE EXAMPLE OF MAKING THE SPACE AT THE REAR OF YOUR HOUSE 
ATTRACTIVE BY JUDICIOUS PLANTING AND ARCHITECTURAL ARRANGEMENT 
Photographs by S. P. Negus, Landscape and Garden Architect 
T HE matter of making the so-called “back part’’ of the 
suburban place attractive architecturally and horticultur- 
ally, is often neglected by the bouse owner. After seeing to it 
that this essential part of his home is so designed as to be satis¬ 
factory from a purely practical point of view, he too frequently 
lets the matter rest there, instead of so making use of improve¬ 
ments well within his reach that the “back yard” shall become 
a place of real beauty. Nor is this improvement a mere matter 
of theory, a fanciful thing that exists only on paper or in the 
imagination of a city dweller removed 
to a ten by fifteen lot in a suburban 
town. In many instances it has been 
carried to a most successful con¬ 
clusion, and nowhere, perhaps, are its 
best developments more undeniably 
presented than on the place which we 
illustrate here, and which was de¬ 
signed by Mr. S. P. Negus, landscape 
architect, for Mrs. H. P. Bunstine of 
Dayton, Ohio. 
Besides showing graphically how 
much can be done toward making a 
back yard “garden” that really de¬ 
serves the name, the photographs 
demonstrate conclusively that a long 
period of time is not necessary for 
the place to assume an air of com¬ 
pleteness and settled age. But a 
single year’s progress is shown here, 
and yet in that period this place of 
Mr. Negus’ designing has been trans¬ 
formed from a bare and unattractive 
back yard to a really pretty garden 
where the warm, red brick walks are 
bordered with flowers and box, the 
lattice work and arbor covered with 
vines, and the whole transformed into 
what it is intended to be — an outdoor 
living-room. 
Perhaps a few words of explana¬ 
tion as to the reasons lying back of 
the design may be of interest. In the 
first place, it was obvious that no so- 
called “natural” manner of planning would be appropriate in such 
a restricted space, surrounded as it is on all sides by rigid archi¬ 
tectural lines. The scheme, therefore, is strictly formal or archi¬ 
tectural in plan, such as would best “tie in” with the house and 
harmonize with the surroundings, and at the same time utilize 
the limited space to best advantage. 
The garden is bordered on the street side by a high brick wall 
and separated from the adjoining properties by tall lattice fences. 
The problem here is really that of an outdoor living-room, and 
there is no more reason for exposing 
it to the public gaze than to open up 
to public view the living-room inside 
the house. Whatever the merit of 
the argument sometimes heard against 
the English practice of enclosing their 
private grounds, there can be no ques¬ 
tion of its expediency in such a case 
as this. 
The “back yard” here pictured is 
divided into four “compartments,” if 
I may so term them: flower garden, 
vegetable and service quarters, ter¬ 
race, and drying yard. The flower 
garden proper occupies a space of 
approximately fifty by sixty feet, 
while the vegetable and service quar¬ 
ters measure about forty by fifty feet. 
Nevertheless it is extraordinary how- 
much gardening pleasure the owners 
have in their limited domain. 
The main feature of the garden is 
a head of the sylvan god Pan in dull 
green faience, set into a cement and 
brick wall panel. He cheerfully 
spouts water out of his mouth into a 
basin containing gold fish, whenever 
he is given the cue by a turn of the 
handle on the terrace. The overflow 
from the basin trickles musically down 
a shallow brick channel in the walk 
into a central bronze drain which also 
carries off the ‘surface water of the 
garden itself. 
A brick wall closes the rear of the garden and a 
lattice fence screens it from the service quarters 
View of the above after twelve months, showing the 
apparent increase in size after planting appeared 
(too) 
