78 
House & Garden 
Just as it is possible on a hillside garden to use either retaining walls or 
steep slopes to take care of the differences in level, it is possible to use 
either steps or grass ramps to provide means of ascent and descent. Both 
methods in each case are used in the interesting hillside garden shown above 
WHEN YOU PLAN YOUR GARDEN 
Let the Garden Fit the Site Rather than Force the Site to Fit the Garden 
RICHARD H. PRATT 
A GARDEN is something like the 
horse that won’t drink if he isn’t 
thirsty, no matter how nicely he is 
led to water. In fact, there are gardens that 
stand stubbornly for years without taking 
a sip of their sites, just because they are 
unable to overcome the strangeness of their 
predicament. If you want a horse to drink 
you must use tact, and if you want a gar¬ 
den to “belong” you must use taste. After 
that, in both cases, it is largely a matter of 
keeping up the water supply. 
You should get the feeling from a garden 
that it has grown rather naturally out of 
its situation, or, at least, that it has been 
able to effect a suitable compromise. 
Perhaps it is too much to ask that every 
garden should be an expression of its 
site. There are sites for which the garden 
must act as a mask. But even a mask 
should fit the face it covers, regardless 
of how much it changes its appearance. 
As the garden should be near the house 
—attached to it if possible—so that it can 
be seen from within doors and easily 
reached, the exterior materials and the 
architectural manner of the building should 
figure in the garden’s design even though 
they are only suggested in the way a wall 
is built, or the way some paving is laid, 
or in the color and style of an arbor or 
pergola. In addition to this common under¬ 
standing in spirit between the house and 
garden, a relationship that may be either 
subtle or obvious, depending upon the 
taste of the designer, the two should be 
actually connected, so that they will seem 
to be part of the same establishment. A 
garden that lies at a distance from the 
house is a thing to be visited on increasing¬ 
ly rare occasions rather than to be lived 
in all hours of fair weather, and a garden 
close to the house that lies askew or dis¬ 
connected is apt to be a restless haphazard 
sight and a jar to sensitive nerves. 
In a general way the above constitute 
the mutual responsibilities of the house and 
garden. The house can rarely be accused 
of being too conscientious about the com¬ 
fort and convenience of the garden. And 
it is probably better that way. The garden 
that has to make the most of a bad location 
is bound to be more interesting—if it is 
only because it has to fight for its place 
and struggle for its beauty—than the 
garden that is born with a perfect site in 
its mouth. 
When it comes actually to considering the 
kind of gardens best suited to the various 
kinds of sites it is time to do a little con¬ 
servative classifying. No two gardens are 
alike, of course, but, cautiously speaking, 
all can be put into four general groups 
something like this: 
(a) The steep hillside garden 
(b) The long narrow garden 
(c) The broad open garden 
(d) The small intimate garden 
Rock gardens, wild-, bog-, water-, and 
Japanese gardens are intentionally exclu¬ 
ded from this list because they are excep¬ 
tions to the general rules of design which 
are being discussed here, and they will be 
considered later on in the series. It is 
possible under certain circumstances to 
combine in one garden any or all of the 
four types listed above, just as it is possible 
to make endless variations on each type 
illustrated. On the small place, however, 
some treatment of a single type will gen¬ 
erally suffice. The particular type will be 
determined by the size, shape, and nature 
of the available space. 
The first and most difficult type to handle 
is that which must fit a fairly steep hill¬ 
side. The problems on a slope of any 
sharpness are to create one or more levels 
that can be treated in a comfortable and 
decorative manner; to find some way to 
