Manual of Gardening | Page 9

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.
The lawn provided, the gardener conceives what is the dominant and central feature in
the place, and then throws the entire premises into subordination to this feature. In home
grounds this central feature is the house. To scatter trees and bushes over the area defeats
the fundamental purpose of the place,--the purpose to make every part of the grounds
lead up to the home and to accentuate its homelikeness.
A house must have a background if it is to become a home. A house that stands on a bare
plain or hill is a part of the universe, not a part of a home. Recall the cozy little

farm-house that is backed by a wood or an orchard; then compare some pretentious
structure that stands apart from all planting. Yet how many are the farm-houses that stand
as stark and cold against the sky as if they were competing with the moon! We would not
believe it possible for a man to live in a house twenty-five years and not, by accident,
allow some tree to grow, were it not that it is so!
Of course these remarks about the lawn are meant for those countries where greensward
is the natural ground cover. In the South and in arid countries, greensward is not the
prevailing feature of the landscape, and in these regions the landscape design may take on
a wholly different character, if the work is to be nature-like. We have not yet developed
other conceptions of landscape work to any perfect extent, and we inject the English
greensward treatment even into deserts. We may look for the time when a brown
landscape garden may be made in a brown country, and it may be good art not to attempt
a broad open center in regions in which undergrowth rather than sod is the natural ground
cover. In parts of the United States we are developing a good Spanish-American
architecture, perhaps we may develop a recognized comparable landscape treatment as an
artistic expression.
[Illustration: Fig. 7 A house]
* * * * *
_Birds, and cats_
The picture in the landscape is not complete without birds, and the birds should comprise
more species than English sparrows. If one is to have birds on his premises, he must (1)
attract them and (2) protect them.
One attracts birds by providing places in which they may nest. The free border plantings
have distinct advantages in attracting chipping sparrows, catbirds, and other species. The
bluebirds, house wrens, and martins may be attracted by boxes in which they can build.
One may attract birds by feeding them and supplying water. Suet for woodpeckers