The livable house, its garden . oodland plantings, but retinosporas, cryptomerias, goldenarbor vitae, smack of the nursery—and destroy utterly the freespirit of the woods and fields. Some landscape architects never get away from the suburbantype of planting. Their materia niedica, so to speak, consists ofthe contents of the nursery catalogues, and they treat a big parkjust as they would a little garden plot, using over and over againbarberry, snowberry, forsythia, mock orange, and spireas, withperhaps a few native shrubs mixed in, out of deference to a dimidea that parks should be planted a li
The livable house, its garden . oodland plantings, but retinosporas, cryptomerias, goldenarbor vitae, smack of the nursery—and destroy utterly the freespirit of the woods and fields. Some landscape architects never get away from the suburbantype of planting. Their materia niedica, so to speak, consists ofthe contents of the nursery catalogues, and they treat a big parkjust as they would a little garden plot, using over and over againbarberry, snowberry, forsythia, mock orange, and spireas, withperhaps a few native shrubs mixed in, out of deference to a dimidea that parks should be planted a little differently from smallplaces. But the big conception that country is only to be intro-duced into city by means of fidelity to country planting, or thatthe spirit of existing country, its own particular charm, is to bepreserved only by adherence to the example it sets, quite escapesthem. A big meadow will never have the feel of a real meadow,,will never be anything but an enlarged lawn, unless it be fringed [62] / G a d n. [63] The Livable House with true meadow planting; the petty suburban feeling creeps inby way of privet and weigelia and deutzia—and the spirit of dog-wood and hawthorn (the native kinds, not foreign introducedsorts), hazel nut, and sumach is gone. I do not mean to be decrying the obvious merits of our faithfulflowering shrubs; they are very useful and very beautiful, but Ishould like to make it clear that they are essentially of the housegarden—that they have a tame cat feeling which belongs near thehouse, and that they should be left behind w^ith the house when itis the spirit of woods and fields one is trying to recall in principles are true of the elements of planting along drivesand walks according as the groups of shrubs and trees are nearthe house or remote from it. The form which the planting should take depends upon theform of the drive or walk. The avenue type of planting, that is straight rows of things,should be confined to
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectlandscapegardening
