THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE - Continued
Lawn flower-beds.
[Illustration: Fig. 19 Hole-in-the-ground gardening]
The easiest way to spoil a good lawn is to put a flower-bed in it; and
the most effective way in which to show off flowers to the least
advantage is to plant them in a bed in the greensward. Flowers need a
background. We do not hang our pictures on fence-posts. If flowers are
to be grown on a lawn, let them be of the hardy kind, which can be
naturalized in the sod and which grow freely in the tall unmown grass;
or else perennials of such nature that they make attractive clumps by
themselves. Lawns should be free and generous, but the more they are cut
up and worried with trivial effects, the smaller and meaner they look.
[Illustration: 20. Worth paying admittance price to see!]
But even if we consider these lawn flower-beds wholly apart from their
surroundings, we must admit that they are at best unsatisfactory. It
generally amounts to this, that we have four months of sparse and
downcast vegetation, one month of limp and frost-bitten plants, and
seven months of bare earth (Fig 19) I am not now opposing the
carpet-beds which professional gardeners make in parks and other
museums. I like museums, and some of the carpet-beds and set pieces are
"fearfully and wonderfully made" (see Fig 20) I am directing my remarks
to those humble home-made flower-beds that are so common in lawns of
country and city homes alike. These beds are cut from the good fresh
turf, often in the most fantastic designs, and are filled with such
plants as the women of the place may be able to carry over in cellars or
in the window. The plants themselves may look very well in pots, but
when they are turned out of doors, they have a sorry time for a month
adapting themselves to the sun and winds, and it is generally well on
towards midsummer before they begin to cover the earth. During all these
weeks they have demanded more time and labor than would have been
needed to care for a plantation of much greater size and which would
have given flowers every day from the time the birds began to nest in
the spring until the last robin had flown in November.
[Illustration: Fig. 21 An artist's flower border]
Flower-borders.
[Illustration: 22. Petunias against a background of osiers.]
[Illustration: 23. A sowing of flowers along a marginal planting.]
We should acquire the habit of speaking of the flower-border. The border
planting of which we have spoken sets bounds to the place, and makes it
one's own. The person lives inside his place, not on it. Along these
borders, against groups, often by the corners of the residence or in
front of porches--these are places for flowers. Ten flowers against a
background are more effective than a hundred in the open yard.
I have asked a professional artist, Mr Mathews, to draw me the kind of a
flower-bed that he likes. It is shown in Fig. 21. It is a border,--a
strip of land two or three feet wide along a fence. This is the place
where pigweeds usually grow. Here he has planted marigolds, gladiolus,
golden rod, wild asters, China asters, and--best of all--hollyhocks. Any
one would like that flower-garden It has some of that local and
indefinable charm that always attaches to an "old-fashioned garden"
with its medley of form and color Nearly every yard has some such strip
of land along a rear walk or fence or against a building It is the
easiest thing to plant it,--ever so much easier than digging the
characterless geranium bed into the center of an inoffensive lawn. The
suggestions are carried further in 22 to 25.
[Illustration: Fig. 24. An open back yard. Flowers may be thrown in
freely along the borders, but they would spoil the lawn if placed in
its center.]
[Illustration: Fig. 25. A flower garden at the rear or one side of the
place.]
The old-fashioned garden.
Speaking of the old-fashioned garden recalls one of William Falconer's
excellent paragraphs ("Gardening," November 15, 1897, p. 75): "We tried
it in Schenley Park this year. We needed a handy dumping ground, and hit
on the head of a deep ravine between two woods; into it we dumped
hundreds upon hundreds of wagon loads of rock and clay, filling it near
to the top, then surfaced it with good soil. Here we planted some
shrubs, and broadcast among them set out scarlet poppies, eschscholtzias,
dwarf nasturtiums, snapdragons, pansies, marigolds, and all manner of
hardy herbaceous plants, having enough of each sort to make a mass of
its kind and color, and the effect was fine. In the middle was a
plantation of hundreds of clumps of Japan and German irises
interplanted, thence succeeded by thousands of gladioli, and banded with
montbretias, from which we had flowers till frost. The steep face of
this hill was graded a little and a series of winding stone steps set
into it, making the descent into the hollow quite easy; the stones were
the rough uneven slabs secured in blasting the rocks when grading in
other parts of the park, and both along outer edges of the steps and the
sides of the upper walk a wide belt of moss pink was planted; and the
banks all about were planted with shrubs, vines, wild roses, columbines,
and other plants. More cameras and kodaks were leveled by visitors at
this piece of gardening than at any other spot in the park, and still we
had acres of painted summer beds."
Contents of the flower-borders.
There is no prescribed rule as to what one should put into these
informal flower-borders. Put in them the plants you like. Perhaps the
greater part of them should be perennials that come up of themselves
every spring, and that are hardy and reliable. Wild flowers are
particularly effective. Every one knows that many of the native herbs
of woods and glades are more attractive than some of the most prized
garden flowers. The greater part of these native flowers grow readily in
cultivation, sometimes even in places which, in soil and exposure, are
much unlike their native haunts. Many of them make thickened roots, and
they may be safely transplanted at any time after the flowers have
passed. To most persons the wild flowers are less known than many
exotics that have smaller merit, and the extension of cultivation is
constantly tending to annihilate them. Here, then, in the informal
flower-border, is an opportunity to rescue them. Then one may sow in
freely of easy-growing annuals, as marigolds, China asters, petunias and
phloxes, and sweet peas.
[Illustration: 26. Making the most of a rock.]
One of the advantages of these borders lying at the boundary is that
they are always ready to receive more plants, unless they are full. That
is, their symmetry is not marred if some plants are pulled out and
others are put in. And if the weeds now and then get a start, very
little harm is done. Such a border half full of weeds is handsomer than
the average hole-in-the-lawn geranium bed. An ample border may receive
wild plants every month in the year when the frost is out of the ground.
Plants are dug in the woods or fields, whenever one is on an excursion,
even if in July. The tops are cut off, the roots kept moist until they
are placed in the border; most of these much-abused plants will grow. To
be sure, one will secure some weeds; but then, the weeds are a part of
the collection! Of course, some plants will resent this treatment, but
the border may be a happy family, and be all the better and more
personal because it is the result of moments of relaxation. Such a
border has something new and interesting every month of the growing
season; and even in the winter the tall clumps of grasses and
aster-stems hold their banners above the snow and are a source of
delight to every frolicsome bevy of snowbirds.
I have spoken of a weedland to suggest how simple and easy a thing it
is to make an attractive mass-plantation. One may make the most of a
rock (Fig. 26) or bank, or other undesirable feature of the place. Dig
up the ground and make it rich, and then set plants in it. You will not
get it to suit you the first year, and perhaps not the second or the
third; you can always pull out plants and put more in. I should not want
a lawn-garden so perfect that I could not change it in some character
each year; I should lose interest in it.
It must not be understood that I am speaking only for mixed borders. On
the contrary, it is much better in most cases that each border or bed be
dominated by the expression of one kind of flower or bush. In one place
a person may desire a wild aster effect, or a petunia effect, or a
larkspur effect, or a rhododendron effect; or it may be desirable to run
heavily to strong foliage effects in one direction and to light flower
effects in another. The mixed border is rather more a flower-garden idea
than a landscape idea; when it shall be desirable to emphasize the one
and when the other, cannot be set down in a book.
The value of plants may lie in foliage and form rather than in bloom.
[Illustration: 27. The plant-form in a perennial salvia.]
What kinds of shrubs and flowers to plant is a wholly secondary and
largely a personal consideration. The main plantings are made up of
hardy and vigorous species; then the things that you like are added.
There is endless choice in the species, but the arrangement or
disposition of the plants is far more important than the kinds; and the
foliage and form of the plant are usually of more importance than
its bloom.
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