42 
House 
Garden 
THE 
< 5 - 
AXIS IN GARDEN DESIGN 
Simple Principles and Rules Upon Which the Landscape Arrangement Should Be 
Based , and an Example of How They Are Applied 
RICHARD H. PRATT 
N O garden can be truly successful if it 
wilfully violates certain simple rules of 
design which should be carefully con¬ 
sidered before a spade is turned. Its beds and 
borders may proceed from month to month 
with the most delightful effects of color and 
mass; its walls and steps and architectural 
ornament may be executed with skill and ex¬ 
quisite taste, yet it will remain a meaningless 
array of misplaced beauty if it lacks the es¬ 
sential relation it should bear to its surround¬ 
ings, and if its various parts want a proper 
coordination to bring them into focus and to 
give them their inherent value. It will be 
rather like a marionette without strings. 
Stripping off all artistic vagueness and get¬ 
ting right down to the bones of garden design, 
we find that in this case the strings are nothing 
more than the center-lines or axes; and that 
a proper arrangement of these, one to bring 
into a convincing and logical relation to the 
garden the surrounding natural and archi¬ 
tectural features, is the skeleton of the scheme. 
Upon this structure of strings that ties the 
garden to the house and to the dominant nat¬ 
ural growths of the site, the actual plan is 
made. These imaginary lines—these center- 
lines and axes—then become on the plan some¬ 
thing more substantial when they define the 
direction and location of paths, vistas, boun¬ 
daries and borders. It is here that they begin 
to work and their usefulness becomes apparent. 
The First Plan 
A graphic illustration of the evolution of a 
garden scheme is given in the accompanying 
series of plans. These show the development 
of the axial lines and, by means of them, the 
subsequent development of the garden on a 
place of moderate size where the character of 
the ground is consistently level and unbroken 
throughout. Plan 1 represents the house and 
site before any center-lines are drawn and a 
final arrangement seems correspondingly ob¬ 
scure. The letters on the plans mark the sev¬ 
eral features of the property that must be taken 
into consideration in order appropriately to 
locate and design the garden. Thus “A” is 
the house of which the extremity of the south 
wing is a loggia or built-in porch opening upon 
a cluster of closely grouped trees. “B” indi¬ 
cates the most suitable spot for the flower 
garden, “C” the open lawn space, “E” the 
vegetable garden, “F” the tennis court and 
“G” the garage. The disposition of these vari¬ 
ous elements of the plan is arrived at by a 
study of the adaptability of the ground for 
each. Thus, it is desired to reach the garden 
through the loggia, but as there is a greater 
wish to keep the space on the east front of 
the house in open lawn, and as the space just 
off the loggia to the south is far too shady, it 
seems best to place it at “B” as shown. Then, 
at “D” the vegetable garden will connect with 
the service portion of the house and, at the 
same time, balance the flower garden on the 
opposite side. This leaves a place east of the 
gardens and the lawn for a tennis court and 
completes the sketching in of all the spaces 
that lie in some relation to the garden. 
As yet there has been no definite tying in of 
these various elements. The gardens, lawn 
and tennis court have been apportioned to their 
proper places, but there has been no attempt 
made to shape them up or to connect them to 
the house or to each other. To do this it is 
first necessary to draw in the axis lines of the 
house group as in Tlan 2. This house plan, 
being simple and symmetrical, its axes will 
bisect the plan in either direction; the main 
axis, 1, cutting the principal faces of the build¬ 
ing and the secondary axis, 2, cutting the less 
important faces at the ends. These center lines 
must form a right angle with whatever face 
of the house they happen to cut. Axes are 
drawn through the garage and kitchen yard 
to help in the development of the service por¬ 
tion of the grounds. 
Axes and Details 
The approximate location of the flower gar¬ 
den having been already determined, it is 
now necessary to devise a system of axes upon 
which it may be developed more precisely, and 
by which it may be convincingly connected 
with either one of the house axes. As there is 
in this instance no unusual characteristic in 
the topography of the site or an existing 
minor bit of architecture from which to 
get a start we must use the trees. Of 
all those on the property only the ones 
designated by letter are of sufficient individual 
excellence to warrant their inclusion in the 
scheme as units in the design. A high arching 
elm is marked “H”, two well developed cedars 
“J” and “K”, and a nicely proportioned white 
oak “L”. As the elm, “F”, might serve as the 
keynote of the garden and as it is just about 
halfway between the property line and the edge 
of the space allotted to the lawn, a line, 3 on 
Plan 3, is made to bisect it and, furthermore, 
to intersect the secondary axis of the house 
with a right angle. 
We now have the main center-line of the 
garden and have it connected with a center 
line of the house, but we want something more 
than a backbone and we want to tie in also, 
if possible, the two cedars and the white oak. 
The cedar, “G”, and the white oak are readily 
worked into the scheme by connecting them 
(Continued on page 60) 
