THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE - Continued
A plan of a back yard of a narrow city lot is given in Fig. 2, showing
the heavy border planting of trees and shrubs, with the skirting border
of flowers. In the front are two large trees, that are desired for
shade. It will readily be seen from this plan how extensive the area for
flowers becomes when they are placed along such a devious border. More
color effect can be got from such an arrangement of the flowers than
could be secured if the whole area were planted to flower-beds.
[Illustration: Fig. 3. Plan of a rough area.]
A contour map plan of a very rough piece of ground is shown in Fig. 3.
The sides of the place are high, and it becomes necessary to carry a
walk through the middle area; and on either side of the front, it skirts
the banks. Such a plan is usually unsightly on paper, but may
nevertheless fit special cases very well. The plan is inserted here for
the purpose of illustrating the fact that a plan that will work on the
ground does not necessarily work on a map.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Suggestion for a school-ground on a four-corners.]
In charting a place, it is important to locate the points from which the
walks are to start, and at which they are to emerge from the grounds.
These two points are then joined by direct and simple curves; and
alongside the walks, especially in angles or bold curves, planting may
be inserted.
A suggestion for school premises on a four-corners, and which the pupils
enter from three directions, is made in Fig. 4. The two playgrounds are
separated by a broken group of bushes extending from the building to the
rear boundary; but, in general, the spaces are kept open, and the heavy
border-masses clothe the place and make it home-like. The lineal extent
of the group margins is astonishingly large, and along all these margins
flowers may be planted, if desired.
If there is only six feet between a schoolhouse and the fence, there is
still room for a border of shrubs. This border should be between the
walk and the fence,--on the very boundary,--not between the walk and the
building, for in the latter case the planting divides the premises and
weakens the effect. A space two feet wide will allow of an irregular
wall of bushes, if tall buildings do not cut out the light; and if the
area is one hundred feet long, thirty to fifty kinds of shrubs and
flowers can be grown to perfection, and the school-grounds will be
practically no smaller for the plantation.
One cannot make a plan of a place until he knows what he wants to do
with the property; and therefore we may devote the remainder of this
chapter to developing the idea in the layout of the premises rather than
to the details of map-making and planting.
Because I speak of the free treatment of garden spaces in this book it
must not be inferred that any reflection is intended on the "formal"
garden. There are many places in which the formal or "architect's
garden" is much to be desired; but each of these cases should be treated
wholly by itself and be made a part of the architectural setting of the
place. These questions are outside the sphere of this book. All formal
gardens are properly individual studies.
All very special types of garden design are naturally excluded from a
book of this kind, such types, for example, as Japanese gardening.
Persons who desire to develop these specialties will secure the services
of persons who are skilled in them; and there are also books and
magazine articles to which they may go.
The picture in the landscape.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. The common or nursery way of planting]
The deficiency in most home grounds is not so much that there is too
little planting of trees and shrubs as that this planting is
meaningless. Every yard should be a picture. That is, the area should be
set off from other areas, and it should have such a character that the
observer catches its entire effect and purpose without stopping to
analyze its parts. The yard should be one thing, one area, with every
feature contributing its part to one strong and homogeneous effect.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. The proper or pictorial type of planting]
These remarks will become concrete if the reader turns his eye to Figs.
5 and 6. The former represents a common type of planting of front yards.
The bushes and trees are scattered promiscuously over the area. Such a
yard has no purpose, no central idea. It shows plainly that the planter
had no constructive conception, no grasp of any design, and no
appreciation of the fundamental elements of the beauty of landscape.
Its only merit is the fact that trees and shrubs have been planted; and
this, to most minds, comprises the essence and sum of the ornamentation
of grounds. Every tree and bush is an individual alone, unattended,
disconnected from its environments, and, therefore, meaningless. Such a
yard is only a nursery.
The other plan (Fig. 6) is a picture. The eye catches its meaning at
once. The central idea is the residence, with a free and open greensward
in front of it The same trees and bushes that were scattered haphazard
over Fig. 5 are massed into a framework to give effectiveness to the
picture of home and comfort. This style of planting makes a landscape,
even though the area be no larger than a parlor. The other style is only
a collection of curious plants. The one has an instant and abiding
pictorial effect, which is restful and satisfying: the observer
exclaims, "What a beautiful home this is!" The other piques one's
curiosity, obscures the residence, divides and distracts the attention:
the observer exclaims, "What excellent lilac bushes are these!"
An inquiry into the causes of the unlike impressions that one receives
from a given landscape and from a painting of it explains the subject
admirably. One reason why the picture appeals to us more than the
landscape is because the picture is condensed, and the mind becomes
acquainted with its entire purpose at once, while the landscape is so
broad that the individual objects at first fix the attention, and it is
only by a process of synthesis that the unity of the landscape finally
becomes apparent. This is admirably illustrated in photographs. One of
the first surprises that the novice experiences in the use of the camera
is the discovery that very tame scenes become interesting and often even
spirited in the photograph. But there is something more than mere
condensation in this vitalizing and beautifying effect of the photograph
or the painting: individual objects are so much reduced that they no
longer appeal to us as distinct subjects, and however uncouth they may
be in the reality, they make no impression in the picture; the thin and
sere sward may appear rather like a closely shaven lawn or a new-mown
meadow. And again, the picture sets a limit to the scene; it frames it,
and thereby cuts off all extraneous and confusing or irrelevant
landscapes.
These remarks are illustrated in the aesthetics of landscape gardening.
It is the artist's one desire to make pictures in the landscape. This is
done in two ways: by the form of plantations, and by the use of vistas.
He will throw his plantations into such positions that open and yet more
or less confined areas of greensward are presented to the observer at
various points. This picture-like opening is nearly or quite devoid of
small or individual objects, which usually destroy the unity of such
areas and are meaningless in themselves. A vista is a narrow opening or
view between plantations to a distant landscape. It cuts up the broad
horizon into portions that are readily cognizable. It frames parts of
the country-side. The verdurous sides of the planting are the sides of
the frame; the foreground is the bottom, and the sky is the top. It is
of the utmost importance that good views be left or secured from the
best windows of the house (not forgetting the kitchen window); in fact,
the placing of the house may often be determined by the views that may
be appropriated.
If a landscape is a picture, it must have a canvas. This canvas is the
greensward. Upon this, the artist paints with tree and bush and flower
as the painter does upon his canvas with brush and pigments. The
opportunity for artistic composition and design is nowhere so great as
in the landscape garden, because no other art has such a limitless field
for the expression of its emotions. It is not strange, if this be true,
that there have been few great landscape gardeners, and that, falling
short of art, the landscape gardener too often works in the sphere of
the artisan. There can be no rules for landscape gardening, any more
than there can be for painting or sculpture. The operator may be taught
how to hold the brush or strike the chisel or plant the tree, but he
remains an operator; the art is intellectual and emotional and will not
confine itself in precepts.
The making of a good and spacious lawn, then, is the very first
practical consideration in a landscape garden.