LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND HOME DECORATION COMPARED

Articles In This Section:

· LANDSCAPE GARDENING AND HOME DECORATION COMPARED

· Knowledge of Materials

· A Plan

· The Natural versus the Artificial System

· New Homes and Homes Already Established

The term "landscape gardening" properly is applied in the more extended meaning of the words to that larger work of making and decorating extensive estates, parks, etc., where distant views (landscapes) may be obtained within their limits and by the work of the gardener or landscape artist.

Very little of this kind of work can be done in this country because of the small areas owned by most of our people, and the term "home decoration" or "home landscape gardening" will more properly apply to most of the work done among us in this line. Yet when we consider that outside the limits of cities and large towns there are large and extended views which even the owner of the smallest estate may take in or shut out at will in the arrangement of his own decorative trees and shrubs, the work of home decoration becomes in a true sense landscape gardening.

We can and do to a greater or less extent include the whole landscape in the decoration of all home grounds if we wish to obtain the best results. There is hardly a country or suburban home so shut in as not to afford some scope for the appropriation of outside vistas of beauty beyond its limits, and in many cases views for miles around may be found and improved or toned down or heightened by careful treatment in our own planting; and in more closely planted districts, by mutual understanding and cooperation, the real art of landscape gardening may have as broad scope as in the park and large estate.