THE GENERAL PLAN OR THEORY OF THE PLACE - Continued
The appreciation of foliage effects in the landscape is a higher type of
feeling than the desire for mere color. Flowers are transitory, but
foliage and plant forms are abiding. The common roses have very little
value for landscape planting because the foliage and habit of the
rose-bush are not attractive, the leaves are inveterately attacked by
bugs, and the blossoms are fleeting. Some of the wild roses and the
Japanese Rosa rugosa, however, have distinct merit for mass effects.
Even the common flowers, as marigold, zinnias, and gaillardias, are
interesting as plant forms long before they come into bloom. To many
persons the most satisfying epoch in the garden is that preceding the
bloom, for the habits and stature of the plants are then unobscured. The
early stages of lilies, daffodils, and all perennials are most
interesting; and one never appreciates a garden until he realizes that
this is so.
[Illustration: 28. Funkia, or day-lily. Where lies the chief
interest,--in the plant-form or in the bloom?]
[Illustration: 29. A large-leaved nicotiana.]
Now let the reader, with these suggestions in mind, observe for one week
the plant-forms in the humble herbs that he meets, whether these herbs
are strong garden plants or the striking sculpturing of mulleins,
burdocks, and jimson-weed. Figures 27 to 31 will be suggestive.
Wild bushes are nearly always attractive in form and habit when planted
in borders and groups. They improve in appearance under cultivation
because they are given a better chance to grow. In wild nature there is
such fierce struggle for existence that plants usually grow to few or
single stems, and they are sparse and scraggly in form; but once given
all the room they want and a good soil, they become luxurious, full, and
comely. In most home grounds in the country the body of the planting may
be very effectively composed of bushes taken from the adjacent woods and
fields. The masses may then be enlivened by the addition here and there
of cultivated bushes, and the planting of flowers and herbs about the
borders. It is not essential that one know the names of these wild
bushes, although a knowledge of their botanical kinships will add
greatly to the pleasure of growing them. Neither will they look common
when transferred to the lawn. There are not many persons who know even
the commonest wild bushes intimately, and the things change so much in
looks when removed to rich ground that few home-makers recognize them.
[Illustration: 30. The awkward century plant that has been laboriously
carried over winter year by year in the cellar: compare with other
plants here shown as to its value as a lawn subject.]
[Illustration: Fig. 31. Making a picture with rhubarb.]
Odd and formal trees.
[Illustration: Fig 32. A weeping tree at one side of the grounds and
supported by a background.]
It is but a corollary of this discussion to say that plants which are
simply odd or grotesque or unusual should be used with the greatest
caution, for they introduce extraneous and jarring effects. They are
little in sympathy with a landscape garden. An artist would not care to
paint an evergreen that is sheared into some grotesque shape. It is only
curious, and shows what a man with plenty of time and long pruning
shears can accomplish. A weeping tree (particularly of a small-growing
species) is usually seen to best advantage when it stands against a
group or mass of foliage (Fig. 32), as a promontory, adding zest and
spirit to the border; it then has relation with the place.
This leads me to speak of the planting of the Lombardy poplar, which may
be taken as a type of the formal tree, and as an illustration of what I
mean to express. Its chief merits to the average planter are the
quickness of its growth and the readiness with which it multiplies by
sprouts. But in the North it is likely to be a short-lived tree, it
suffers from storms, and it has few really useful qualities. It may be
used to some advantage in windbreaks for peach orchards and other
short-lived plantations; but after a few years a screen of Lombardies
begins to fail, and the habit of suckering from the root adds to its
undesirable features. For shade it has little merit, and for timber
none. Persons like it because it is striking, and this, in an artistic
sense, is its gravest fault. It is unlike anything else in our
landscape, and does not fit into our scenery well. A row of Lombardies
along a roadside is like a row of exclamation points!
[Illustration: IV. Subtropical bedding against a building. Caladiums,
cannas, abutilons, permanent rhododendrons, and other large stuff, with
tuberous begonias and balsams between.]
But the Lombardy can often be used to good effect as one factor in a
group of trees, where its spire-like shape, towering above the
surrounding foliage, may lend a spirited charm to the landscape. It
combines well in such groups if it stands in visual nearness to chimneys
or other tall formal objects. Then it gives a sort of architectural
finish and spirit to a group; but the effect is generally lessened, if
not altogether spoiled, in small places, if more than one Lombardy is in
view. One or two specimens may often be used to give vigor to heavy
plantations about low buildings, and the effect is generally best if
they are seen beyond or at the rear of the building. Note the use that
the artist has made of them in the backgrounds in Figs. 12, 13, and 43.
Poplars and the like.
Another defect in common ornamental planting, which is well illustrated
in the use of poplars, is the desire for plants merely because they grow
rapidly. A very rapid-growing tree nearly always produces cheap effects.
This is well illustrated in the common planting of willows and poplars
about summer places or lake shores. Their effect is almost wholly one of
thinness and temporariness. There is little that suggests strength or
durability in willows and poplars, and for this reason they should
usually be employed as minor or secondary features in ornamental or home
grounds. When quick results are desired, nothing is better to plant
than these trees; but better trees, as maples, oaks, or elms, should be
planted with them, and the poplars and willows should be removed as
rapidly as the other species begin to afford protection. When the
plantation finally assumes its permanent characters, a few of the
remaining poplars and willows, judiciously left, may afford very
excellent effects; but no one who has an artist's feeling would be
content to construct the framework of his place of these rapid-growing
and soft-wooded trees.
[Illustration: Fig. 33. A spring expression worth securing. Catkins of
the small poplar.]
[Illustration: Fig. 34. Plant-form in cherries.--Reine Hortense.]
I have said that the legitimate use of poplars in ornamental grounds is
in the production of minor or secondary effects. As a rule, they are
less adapted to isolated planting as specimen trees than to using in
composition,--that is, as parts of general groups of trees, where their
characters serve to break the monotony of heavier forms and heavier
foliage. The poplars are gay trees, as a rule, especially those, like
the aspens, that have a trembling foliage. Their leaves are bright and
the tree-tops are thin. The common aspen or "popple," Populus
tremuloides, of our woods, is a meritorious little tree for certain
effects. Its dangling catkins (Fig. 33), light, dancing foliage, and
silver-gray limbs, are always cheering, and its autumn color is one of
the purest golden-yellows of our landscape. It is good to see a tree of
it standing out in front of a group of maples or evergreens.
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