GARDEN PLANNING AND BUILDINGGARDEN PLANNING AND BUILDING There must be more interesting planting arrangements, a real enclosed garden perhaps. Some like to play games. For them there must be tennis courts, swimming pools, croquet courts, or bowling greens. And some just like to sit in the shade and read, but they don't like to do it in public! For them there must be a shrub-enclosed little lawn with a generous shade tree and a lounging chair. And so, to be most completely useful, the home grounds need to be carefully designed; perhaps "arranged" is a better term to suit the particular character and requirements of the owner. But the practical, the useful, side is not the only one to be considered. There
is the artistic side. No matter how practical
an arrangement may be, it is less than
wholly successful if it ails to evoke
the emotions by its beauty. And beauty
doesn't just happen, except rarely perhaps
in a natural setting. It has to be brought
about. Successful designing of the home
grounds must be a happy blending of the
academic and the practical, the artistic
and the useful, the ornamental and the
natural. Furthermore, it must have the
qualities of intimateness, of domesticity,
of unpretentiousness; yet it may not degenerate
into the incidental, careless arrangements
so often seen. It must have definiteness
of plan and economy in the use of space;
a unified design structure, balance and
symmetry, to give restfulness; variety,
to prevent monotony; emphasis, and, above
all, privacy. It must express the genius
of the site, the spirit of the architectural
style of the house, and the personality
of the owner and the designer. It may seem
at first glance that such a composite thing,
such a mixture of apparently diametrically
opposed ideas, such a synthesis of many
moods, is impossible of attainment. Yet
this thing we call landscape design is
just such a combination. And where it is
successful we find, upon.... garden planning continued... |
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