Amateur Gardencraft: A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover

by Eben E. Rexford

A BIT OF INFORMAL BORDER

I have spoken of planting shrubs at the sides of the home-lot. If this is done, we secure a sort of frame for the home-picture that will be extremely pleasing. If the shrubs near the street are small and low, and those beyond them increase in breadth and height as they approach the rear of the lot, with evergreens or trees as a background for the dwelling, the effect will be delightful. Such a general plan of planting the home-grounds is easily carried out. The most important feature of it to keep in mind is that of locating your plants in positions that will give each one a chance to display its charms to the best effect, and this you can easily do if you read the catalogues and familiarize yourself with the heights and habits of them.

If your lot adjoins that of a neighbor who has not yet improved his home-grounds, I would advise consulting with him, and forming a partnership in improvement-work, if possible. If you proceed after a plan of your own on your side of the fence, and he does the same on his side, there may be a sad lack of harmony in the result. But if you talk the matter over together the chances are that you can formulate a plan that will be entirely satisfactory to both parties, and result in that harmony which is absolutely necessary to effective work. Because, you see, both will be working together toward a definite design, while without such a partnership of interests each would be working independently, and your ideas of the fitness of things might be sadly at variance with those of your neighbor.

Never set your plants in rows. Nature never does that, and she doesn't make any mistakes. If you want an object-lesson in arrangement, go into the fields and pastures, and along the road, and note how she has arranged the shrubs she has planted there. Here a group, there a group, in a manner that seems to have had no plan back of it, and yet I feel quite sure she planned out very carefully every one of these clumps and combinations. The closer you study Nature's methods and pattern after them the nearer you will come to success.

Avoid formality as you would the plague if you want your garden to afford you all the pleasure you can get out of it. Nature's methods are always restful in effect because they are so simple and direct. They never seem premeditated. Her plants "just grow," like the Topsy of Mrs. Stowe's book, and no one seems to have given any thought to the matter. But in order to successfully imitate Nature it is absolutely necessary that we familiarize ourselves, as I have said, with her ways of doing things, and we can only do this by studying from her books as she opens them for us in every field, and by the roadside, and the woodland nook. The secret of success, in a word, lies in getting so close to the heart of Nature that she will take us into her confidence and tell us some of her secrets.

One of the best trees for the small lawn is the Cut-Leaved Birch. It grows rapidly, is always attractive, and does not outgrow the limit of the ordinary lot. Its habit is grace itself. Its white-barked trunk, slender, pendant branches, and finely-cut foliage never fail to challenge admiration. In fall it takes on a coloring of pale gold, and is more attractive than ever. In winter its delicate branches show against a background of blue sky with all the delicacy and distinctness of an etching. No tree that I know of is hardier.

The Mountain Ash deserves a place on all lawns, large or small. Its foliage is very attractive, as are its great clusters of white flowers in spring. When its fruit ripens, the tree is as showy as anything can well be. And, like the Cut-Leaved Birch, it is ironclad in its hardiness. It is an almost ideal tree for small places.

The Japanese Maples are beautiful trees, of medium size, very graceful in habit, and rapid growers. While not as desirable for a street tree as our native Maple, they will give better satisfaction on the lawn.

The Purple-Leaved Beech is exceedingly showy, and deserves a place on every lawn, large or small. In spring its foliage is a deep purple. In summer it takes on a crimson tinge, and in fall it colors up like bronze. It branches close to the ground, and should never be pruned to form a head several feet from the ground, like most other trees. Such treatment will mar, if not spoil, the attractiveness of it.