60 
House & Garden 
PLANNING THE SMALL CITY GARDEN 
Caref ul Selection of Material and Due Thought for Its Arrangement Will 
Accomplish Much Even in Small Spaces 
CHARLES S. LE SURE 
A FTER a strenuous 
day in the mart of a 
busy city, the atmos¬ 
phere of a simple land¬ 
scape garden of foliage and 
flower is soothing to mind 
and body. Perhaps it is 
just a tiny garden of twen¬ 
ty-five or thirty feet 
breadth, but even so, we 
know that some of the most 
interesting bits of landscape 
planting, real jewels of the 
art, are to be found in 
crowded cities. However 
small the area, it is possible 
to create a true garden home 
with a little study and ob¬ 
servation and sincere appli¬ 
cation to the problem. And 
what fun it is to plan the 
garden, select the plant 
materials and do the plant¬ 
ing! There is a wealth of 
happiness in learning to 
compose foliage and flower 
color, but the greater hap¬ 
piness comes when the garden is complete. 
Then the home owner is richly rewarded for 
his sincere efforts to create a living landscape 
of his own. 
No area is so small that it may not include 
a simple, pleasing arrangement of hardy flow¬ 
ering shrubs and flowers accented with a few 
small trees. With a little pleasant reading of 
good landscape books, which are to be found 
in every library nowadays, and close attention 
to magazines devoted to such topics, the city 
dweller will soon gain a small education in the 
principles of landscape gardening, so that he 
will be enabled to plan and plant his own 
small garden. It can be done if the desire is 
present, for after all it is no more difficult than 
learning to play golf or run a new auto, and 
all of us take such pastimes as a matter of 
course. It is just a matter of reading and 
then application of the principles. Read¬ 
ing of a dozen books, and most of these are 
interesting, will make the principles plain, 
and then by observing carefully drawn 
plans and noting their chief character¬ 
istics, any earnest student can create gar¬ 
den pictures. One man has said that the 
reason more people do not plant their 
grounds right is because they do not try. 
Even if the owner desires to employ the 
services of a professional landscape archi¬ 
tect, he could do better work if the owmer 
had a fair knowledge of the principles he 
employs in the work. 
Many of our cities would appear far 
more attractive if more people would get 
the spirit of modern landscape planting. 
The w r riter is familar with hundreds of 
Unsightly objects may be screened from view and delight fid privacy 
simple arrangement of shrubs and flowers. The picture may not show 
glance, but every bit of the planting was carefully thought 
residence streets and there is everywhere an 
apparent lack of knowledge of creative plant¬ 
ing. In many cities, while the house archi¬ 
tecture is good, it is to be noted that the plant¬ 
ing is not at all in keeping with the lines of 
the house itself. We frequently see in the lead¬ 
ing architectural magazines, pictures of the 
very best in house architecture, yet the effect 
is injured by the careless methods of plant¬ 
ing. A small tree or shrubs improperly placed 
near the house will often ruin the picture from 
the artistic standpoint. Most of this careless¬ 
ness is due to the lack of general education in 
gardening as an art, coupled with the fact that 
as yet the landscape profession is compara¬ 
tively new and its members few in number. 
Those of us with a vision look forward to the 
achieved by a 
it at a casual 
out 
The available space for the planting, shown in its 
completion at the top of the page, was only 30' by 
45', yet it shows perfect balance and considerable 
variety 
time when both the city and 
country will be a beautiful 
garden. The home owner 
who takes a real interest in 
his planting problem will 
hasten the day. 
The garden illustrated 
here is typical of what may 
be accomplished on a very 
small area, this plot being 
about 30' in width and 45' 
in length. The primary 
object was to make a se¬ 
cluded, restful retreat, a 
private garden of simple de¬ 
sign that would give plea¬ 
sure to the household as well 
as shut out from view the 
unsightly buildings at the 
rear. How well this has 
been done, the picture indi¬ 
cates. Care was used in 
the selection and arrange¬ 
ment of plants to bring 
about simplicity and bal¬ 
ance, and at the same time 
to show variety. 
The center of the garden is left as a panel 
of lawn enclosed on three sides by the hedge 
of shrub foliage, which with the corner ac¬ 
cents of pyramidal birches will completely 
shut out the rest of the unsightly view in an¬ 
other year. The maple tree in the foreground 
casts its shadow in an effective way to the 
lawn below, giving to the garden a rich appear¬ 
ance. The flowers are arranged in small 
panels in the lawn at the sides and ends, the 
white seats and bird bath serving admirably 
as accents without marring the simplicity of 
the whole composition. No shrubs were used 
which are not of proven worth in varied cli¬ 
matic conditions. In the corners with the 
birches are massed Persian lilacs, these being 
chosen because of their refinement in contrast 
to the coarser varieties. The Persian lilac, 
moreover, does not sprout at the base nor 
wait so long to present us with its wonder¬ 
ful flower clusters. Frequently it will bloom 
the same year it is planted, although the 
plants are very small. Among the other 
tried and true shrubs are the staghorn and 
fragrant sumac, Regel's privet, ninebark, 
mock orange and the snowberry. 
In choosing the flowers, only tested 
varieties were used like the gaillardia, 
achillea, iris, phlox, Black-eyed Susan, 
platycodon and campanulas. These all 
furnish cut flowers over a fairly long pe¬ 
riod and look well in the beds. Rather 
than make a regular collection of indi¬ 
vidually attractive plants, it was the de¬ 
sire of both owner and gardener to arrive 
at an intimate garden enclosure, simple 
and pleasing in outline. 
