For the most attractive and bene­ficial use of your grounds, you will want to include in your plans most of the features outlined in this chap­ter. Such essentials as a good lawn, thriving shade trees and paths and walks are usually taken for granted, yet often they are the most difficult to acquire, and may absorb a major part of your initial effort and budget. On the other hand, such a project as an outdoor living room, with its cooking and entertaining facilities, may have been over­looked in the past because it sound­ed too difficult to achieve. And yet such seemingly difficult features can add tremendously to your enjoy­ment and may, depending on what type you choose, be obtained with relatively little effort and cost!

Trees—For Shade and Beauty

Perhaps if any one feature can be singled out as basic to successful landscaping, it is the presence of fine trees. The unfortunate trend of developmental builders in cutting down trees in a wholesale manner, and the growing use of treeless fields for new building, has focused attention on the property owner who must begin with nothing when it comes to trees. Architects agree that a single shade tree, even of medium height, can make a very great difference in the comfort and livability of a house It is amazing to discover what a tree can do for a house. A tree in leaf, for example, can reduce noises from the street. A tree tall enough to throw shade over the roof can materially reduce heat in summer. Trees can lessen the amount of dust around a house and provide protection from winds. But there are also the many es­thetic considerations. There are the things that shrubs and trees can do to improve the looks of your house itself. Properly situated, they can sharply alter the lines of your house. They can give a small house dignity; appear to reduce the un­gainly height of a tall house; soften the lines of a new house and provide welcome contrasts in color and texture. Plan from the beginning to plant new trees that will harmonize with the colors of your house and best suit its architectural style.

When you are planning for new trees bear in mind the annual cycle of the tree; how long it holds its leaves, what its colors are during blossoming, when it is in fruit or full berry, and in fall, when its leaves change color. Plan to con­trast flowering deciduous trees with evergreens; slender trees that owe much of their virtue to the color and line of their trunks and branches—the white clump birch, for example—with trees that are chiefly beautiful in mass, such as the weeping willow or the new purple fringe. (The latter is a tree that looks like a cloud of smoke when in bloom.)

If you are planning vistas for large grounds—and this is a useful rule even for smaller spaces—have in your design a foreground, a middle ground and a background. A background is most naturally com­posed of large trees. Here can be used many of the species of rough and irregular growth which would not look too well at close range. These trees will give a gentle texture to what would otherwise be an un­broken and monotonous back­ground surface. In the foreground use flowering shrubs. Then, for the middle ground, use the many med­ium-sized trees and large shrubs which can be singled out for color­ful foliage or blossoming.

This advice applies mainly to new planting. If you have just bought your property and are thinking of taking out a tree that blocks a view, or is otherwise ob­jectionable, wait at least a year.

Live with the tree, observe it in its various colors through the seasons and carefully consider its advan­tages as well as its disadvantages, remember that a tree once de-stroyed is difficult to replace.

Aside from the ornamental qualities of trees, the two most important ways in which they can improve your property are by screen­ing and giving shade. Perhaps you are overlooking a chance to use one of the shade trees on your grounds for a pleasant gathering spot. Put down some paving, place a few deck chairs there, and come summer everyone will gravitate to this spot. Use the shade of your trees for the children's area, and if you don't have a tree on the south, southeast or southwest side of your house, plant one or two there. If you are using trees to screen off an un­pleasant view, use evergreens which will do the job the year round.

In deciding what trees you wish to acquire, which you wish to save, take into account their ability to thrive in your climate and soil con­ditions. Also, find out their rate of growth. If you have a new house you will want rapid-growing trees and shrubs that bloom within two to three years after transplanting. Sometimes, however, as in founda­tion planting, a slower rate of growth is advantageous; it means the tree will not be bothered by crowding. The shape, color of blos­soms and foliage, height and spread, habits — you will want to avoid trees that mess up a lawn or terrace with seed droppings or in­sects—are other important factors. Think not only of the old favorites but of some of the new Oriental and European importations, and the many colorful new hybrids as well. And do not discount the value of fruit and nut trees as ornamental trees, for many are lovely, par­ticularly in the spring.

Have a Good Lawn

A good lawn is a basic require­ment for attractive and enjoyable grounds. When you plant a tree you do so realizing that you are plant­ing for years to come, even for gen­erations. Few realize, however, that lawns must be planted in the same spirit. The lawns of many famous estates were planted over a hundred years ago, and this type of turf, luxuriously verdant, is always an inspiration. Today's lawn builder is fortunate. The battle against weeds and poor soils can be won, thanks to the introduction of new chemicals. And modern spreaders, mowers and other tools can help you develop a parklike lawn.

But obtaining a fine lawn is sometimes a much more compli­cated matter than scattering seed or plucking weeds. You will want to have your soil analyzed, and then, perhaps, change its make-up. Per­haps you will need to drain or grade. Before you select your seed formula, take into account the use to which your lawn will be put. Will it be a general-purpose area or will it be a showplace in your garden where you will strive for a putting-green lawn? Except for problem lots in suburban areas, where the living space outside is small and may have to be paved, the lawn will be the broad canvas on which you paint your picture with flowers, shrubs, trees and walks. Keep it larger than any other area, certain­ly two or three times the width of your borders and beds.

Flowers

You will want flowers for cut­ting and flowers for contributing gaiety and charm to your grounds. The aim of the successful gardener is to have a succession of flowers from early spring to late fall. You can plan from the beginning to have perennials which bloom at different seasons, (for example, iris, which has the peak of its bloom just as the peony season begins). Know ac­curately when the perennials bloom and then plan to fill in the gaps left by their passing with prolific and quick-growing annuals. You can plan to have a potting bed, perhaps in your vegetable garden or in a sheltered spot behind your tool house or garage, where you can grow extra annuals as well as those perennials which do not mind being transplanted. Then when the tulip season passes, for example, you can fill in with another tall bulb, a sum­mer-flowering one, such as, per­haps, the canna lily.

Your plan should be made on paper, with the shape of the bed or border sketched in, and the posi­tion of the plants indicated. Per­haps the most common and feasible design for the average 60 x 100-foot lot, or even the half-acre lot. is the border running the length and rear wall of the back yard. This can be a mixed border of summer-flow­ering bulbs, perennials and annuals, backed by shrubs. Other designs can be planned for the center of the lawn, for the foundation planting, for the pathways to the house and for the sides of the house. Semi-formal or formal gardens can have borders or beds laid out alongside of and divided by walks.

In planning your border, pro­vide for tall screening plants that will form a background for the shorter plants. The screening plants may need staking but they should be sturdy. If you have a wide bord­er, over 6 feet, you will need a nar­row path in front of the screening plants for cultivating and tending. The center border plants are of medium height, and can be chosen for vivid color. If you are planning a wide border, relatively tall plants such as iris go here. In the fore­ground is your edging, composed of such neat and plainly visible flowers as: clipped green perenni­als, or low-growing petunia, ager-atum, pansies, dwarf marigolds or sweet alyssum.

It is wise in planning to have beds or borders that are visible from your windows and close to your terraces and gathering places outdoors.

Plant list:            
1.Cannart Red Cedar
2. Arbor Vitae          
3 Savin Juniper   
4 Mugho Pine   
5.Andorra Juniper
6. Laurel
7. Pfitzer Juniper

Foundation Planting

The special planting set close to the house is called foundation planting and has great importance since it improves and enhances the proportions of your house as well as relates the house to the grounds. Evergreens are widely used for foundation planting not only be­cause they can thrive in the shade of the house, but because of their year-round good looks.

If you have not used evergreens elsewhere, though, it is a mistake to suddenly use them at the founda­tion. The contrast will be too sharp; the evergreens are apt to look for­bidding. There remains a wide choice of flowering shrubs, dwarf fruit trees, roses and cushion chry­santhemums that will lend color to your foundation design in spring. summer and fall. Japanese redleaf barberry, floribunda roses, flower­ing quince and forsythia are among the bushes and plants that can be used.

While it is tempting to try one of each of the nursery's evergreen specimens in your foundation planting, this should, of course, be avoided. On the other hand, con­trast tall and low-growing types: use stiff-needled pines with feathery juniper with broadleafed laurel and rhododendron.

Plant list:

1. Floribunda roses, red
2. Floribunda roses, yellow
3. Golden Syringa
4. Spirea Thunbergii
5. Dolgo Crabapple
6. Redleaf Japanese Barberry
7. Rose panicle

In your preliminary planning, draw to scale the relationship be­tween your house elevation and the foundation shrubs and trees as they will look at mature height. Perhaps some of those you've selected will be too tall for your house, obscur­ing your windows and making the house gloomy inside. In that case, you don't want them.
In general, because your en­trance is the most important feature of your house facade, you start your planning with it in mind, using shrubs that direct the eye toward the door. The planting in front of the house is usually bowl-shaped in its overall outline. This gives the impression of a broad base to the house. In some places, let the wall show to the foundation. Put the tallest shrubbery at the corners of your house.

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