HOUSE AND GARDEN 
October, 
1914 
227 
left in picturesque tangles of underbrush and shady trees. 
Although this garden, like all old-fashioned ones, has the de¬ 
lightful charm of seeming irregularity, it was laid out in regular 
beds and walks. Each bed is bordered with hardy shrubs, in¬ 
terspersed with hardy plants, and, at intervals, decorative shade- 
trees. 
Garden planning is 
as fascinating as 
house planning, and 
must be done with 
equally as much care. 
A tree in the wrong 
place may cause as 
much regret as some 
bit of inharmonious 
architecture. And 
since the ultimate re¬ 
sults in gardening are 
even harder to fore¬ 
see, it behooves us— 
the inexperienced of 
us—to study the plans 
of really successful 
gardens. 
When once you 
have entered the yard 
and taken the little 
path to the left of the 
old Colonial house, 
you could almost believe yourself in fairyland, and that there was 
no way of escape save the one by which you had entered. Cer¬ 
tainly you would not believe you were in a city lot—rather that 
you were entering a large estate. The spruce and beech trees 
with their low-hanging branches screen the street, masses of 
shrubbery on each side obscure the fence boundaries, and straight 
in front of you, beyond the velvety lawn, is the garden. 
Under each of the old trees in the front, in the spaces too 
shady for grass, are thick clumps of wild flowers — blue and white 
violets, larkspur and dog-toothed violets. Instead of following 
the fence line so closely as to seem severe in outline, the shrub¬ 
bery on both sides is massed so that it gradually merges into the 
garden proper. Of course, these shrubbery hedges are arranged 
as regards height; lilac 
and the taller shrubs 
in the rear, coming 
down to peonies and 
poppies in the front. 
Slightly in the fore¬ 
ground, to the right, 
is a rustic summer 
house, surrounded by 
peonies and roses. 
This is shaded and 
partly screened by 
small trees, wild crab- 
apple — the blossoms 
of which have no ri¬ 
val in all the world of 
beauty. 
Then come the flow¬ 
er-beds, three on each 
side, with wide grass 
walks between, and 
arranged somewhat in 
the order of height. 
The impression, how¬ 
ever, is not of arrangement at all: you would probably need 
to have your attention called to the fact that every bed had been 
planted with a border originally, and that all the bulbs and plants 
had been set out in rows. Nature, the artist, has allowed 
the iris to run over into her neighbor’s territory, allowed the 
poppy seed to fall where they would, and has helped the roses 
and shrubs to branch out in all directions. In fact, it is some- 
(Continued on page 243) 
In shady spaces are wild flowers and roses everywhere. There is no impression of arrangement, though 
the garden was originally laid out to plan 
Bordering the central walls are perennial shrubs; one of the large beds is given over to roses and the other to many varieties of lilies which, with the addition of the 
hydrangea hedge and the arbors of Lady Gay roses, constitute the most formal arrangement of the garden 
