Plant with nature, not against her, following the line of least resistance 
Utilizing Natural Features in Garden Making 
FIGHTING AGAINST NATURE THE GREATEST CAUSE OF DISCOURAGED HOME MAKERS—HOW TO 
HAVE RATIONAL, EASY, BEAUTIFUL THINGS—HOW TO FOLLOW THE LINE OF LEAST RESISTANCE 
by Grace Tabor 
Photographs by Thomas W. Sears, landscape architect, and by Nathan R. Graves 
[This is the first of a series of articles by Miss Tabor on the great subject of landscape gardening as applied to the Ameri¬ 
can home of modest proportions. It strikes an eminently practical note, not primarily for the connoisseur but for the layman 
who would like to give his home a beautiful and distinctive setting.] 
E VERY plant in the world that springs up naturally in any 
spot has selected that particular spot because it finds there 
the conditions of light and air and moisture best adapted to its 
needs. In other words, you will find that every square foot of 
soil all over this round earth is covered by the vegetation that 
likes that particular kind of soil and location — and other things 
won’t grow there without a struggle. 
Of course this is the statement of a perfectly obvious fact— 
yet it is not so very long ago that the owner of a charming country 
home complained to me of the fruitlessness of all his efforts to 
establish a smooth and conventional lawn at one side of his house 
“ because water would settle there in spite of all that he could do. ” 
Subsequent investigation revealed a group of little springs under 
the fine old trees—Nature’s marvelous provision for a multitude 
of wild, elusive things of exquisite beauty which defy domestica¬ 
tion in the ordinary garden. 
He gave up trying to defeat Nature’s purpose by filling in what 
he had always regarded as a miserable, low, wet, soggy area, and 
now he has a lovely and unusual bit of garden where pitcher plants, 
orchids, trilliums, iris and ferns mingle genially with other less 
familiar bog-loving things. The whole is deftly inclosed and 
hidden from the outer world by a grouping of marshmallow and 
tall, reedy grasses and bamboo; and not the least of the joys of 
this garden is its startling unexpectedness. 
All of which points a moral, does it not?—even though it 
adorns no tale — and the moral leads to a certain very definite 
rule which I would urge every maker of gardens, actual or expec¬ 
tant, to learn by heart and deeply to impress upon his inner mind. 
Here it is, briefly and simply: Plan and plant a garden always 
along the line of least resistance. 
What with the rain when it ought to be dry and the drought 
when it ought to rain, the slugs, and the blights of varying form 
but unvarying fatality, the moths and the bugs and the beetles 
and the borers, and all the other unpleasant things which lurk 
around, determined to evade the wariest and the wisest of those 
who plant either for pleasure or profit, gardening is one of this 
life’s most tantalizing uncertainties the best way we can fix it. 
Therefore we owe it to ourselves and to the patch of ground we 
seek to beautify, to mitigate this unhappy state of affairs as much 
as lies in our power — to make our heads save our hands and our 
backs, and incidentally our garden hopes — by teaching us to 
garden according to Nature’s laws instead of against them. 
So we come to the question which should always be the first 
consideration: what has Nature done with the land where you are 
going to build your garden? Before a stone or brick of a building 
is laid or the style of the house is determined upon, this should 
receive attention, for on a property of any size at all it governs 
not only the kind of garden one is to have but also the location 
of the buildings and their “kind.” 
A wild garden ought not to be actually under one’s windows, 
while a formal garden very appropriately may—and the set of 
conditions which calls for the former imperatively, will, quite as 
imperatively, preclude the possibility of the latter, or vice versa, 
thus affecting the position of both house and garden. Plan there¬ 
fore, if possible, before any building is done, both the house and 
the garden. Take every natural feature and peculiarity of the 
land, topographical or otherwise, into consideration. Is it rocky 
or is it stony? — there is a big difference. Is it wet or dry? Is it 
hilly or flat? What is the nature of its soil? What can be done with 
it most easily and simply? What is the line of least resistance? 
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