HOUSE AND GARDEN 
162 
November, 1909 
This English country house has no great amount of land, but see how an air of spacious¬ 
ness has been secured by keeping the approach along the outside 
edge of the lawn, leaving the latter an unbroken expanse 
planning these as they are, the whole place is vastly improved and 
much space saved—which makes it an excellent general example 
of good landscape gardening. 
The purchaser of this not very unusual yet somewhat quaint 
and attractive house found the traditional walk leading straight 
to the front steps. This of course cut the already small lawn in 
two, making two patches about 18 x 25 feet each—the lot is 
50 x 100. The walk to the kitchen had to stay on that side of the 
house because of the general plan of the house, so only two 
courses were open to him. 
One was to move this walk’s point of departure from the side¬ 
walk six feet to the left, broaden it to a four-foot walk and when 
within six feet of the house let it branch into a Y, with the right 
arm disappearing around the corner of the house and the left ter¬ 
minating at the foot of the steps: 
the other was to do what the plan 
shows he has done. 
The disadvantages of a service 
entrance and a main entrance 
being the same, even on a very 
small place, are obvious; but this 
was not the only thing which de¬ 
cided him in favor of the scheme 
as it is here shown. The unalter¬ 
able way out and in to this lot 
is at the left-hand corner — that 
psychological impulse which is 
forever at work in this matter, 
so decreed — and the owner was 
wise enough to follow its admo¬ 
nitions. 
There was no hedge when he 
moved into the place and almost 
no planting of any kind; he had 
therefore an exceptional oppor¬ 
tunity to observe not only his own 
impulse regarding it, but the im¬ 
pulses of his friends as well. And 
he resorted to all kinds of subter¬ 
fuge to trick the unwary and lure 
them into wandering into the 
house across the little patches of 
green instead of keeping to the 
prim, granolithic walk. Nine times out of every 
ten they left the sidewalk just where the gate 
now is, and though they did not follow the right 
angle to the porch which the walk shows, a 
group of shrubs close to the waik in this angle, 
backed up by a tree which shades the porch, 
deludes one now into going that way willingly 
and contentedly, because it is plainly the most 
direct—or seems to be. 
The house is a rambling affair, irregular 
enough and informal enough to have almost any 
kind of garden except a formal one; so the 
hedge-enclosed front lawn now has a border of 
old-fashioned flowers on two sides, with more 
growing against the house. To provide a way 
out to the kitchen entrance as well as a private 
way in from that side if one happens to desire it, 
a line of stepping stones has been carried across 
in front of the bay window to a wicket in the 
hedge. Similar stones at the end of the porch 
do away with the tramping down of the grass 
which is sure to result from much running across, 
in such a situation. Always remember, by the 
way, to put two stones at the end of such a line 
to divert footsteps, iigw this way, now that, so that the grass will 
be worn evenly instead of just in one place following the last stone. 
By this shifting of the front walk the dimensions of the lawn 
become 42 x 25 feet, the former being the distance across the front 
from the inner side of the hedge which excludes the kitchen walk, 
to the inner side of the boundary hedge opposite — and this 
increased area is all in one undivided stretch of greensward, which 
makes it appear even more of an increase than it actually is. 
The kitchen walk is utilitarian, pure and simple, yet passing 
between the two rows of hedge as far as the corner of the house 
and between vine-covered house and hedge from there on, it is 
by no means unattractive. A stout gate admits it to the kitchen 
yard, which is completely latticed. 
The sidewalk remains of cement, but once inside the front 
gate- — painted white, this is hung 
between white posts, above which 
the privet of the hedge is being 
trained to form an arch — there is 
no longer a sign of such massive 
material; the house walks are both 
appropriately graveled as be¬ 
comes a simple, cottage scheme. 
The hedge is trimmed at 
shoulder height, rising higher, as 
already mentioned, at the gate. 
The seclusion of the place is de¬ 
lightful, yet it is not at all shut in. 
Space does not permit me to 
give further plans to illustrate 
larger places, but even if it did 1 
doubt very much my ability to 
select anything more generally 
suggestive and helpful than this. 
Walks and drives are simply longer 
or shorter according to the distance 
they must cover; they are never 
very different one time from an¬ 
other, excepting on uneven ground. 
And even here there is no method 
of laying them out better than the 
one described — of this 1 am long 
since convinced — unless the cir¬ 
cumstances are very exceptional. 
It takes a long time to train or pleach trees over an arch, but 
it is an effective way of marking an entrance gate 
