ideas for landscaping your home, gardens, home improvement tips, water features & garden decoration
Planning Your Garden
Shady corners, and spaces unsuitable for flower-growing, may be planted with ferns, which thrive best in shade if they have protection from cold winds.
An interesting feature in an English garden was called an "Orchid Dell" by the owner. It was a hollow on a chalky hillside, which had been excavated at some earlier period, and, before taken in hand, had supported a straggling growth of hazel. Soil had gravitated to the bottom, and had become overgrown with fine grass. Native ferns were planted freely about the hazel stems. A rough spiral path was carried from the floor to the brink of the dell, threading its way through the thicket. In the grass, native orchids were planted, and the conditions proved favorable to their welfare. The common bluebell, wild anemone, and primrose of the woods were added, being confined mainly to the steep banks. The effect in spring was beautiful, the flowers losing nothing by being in partial shade. The dell was entered through a natural arch of traveler's joy—the wild clematis. I mention this as an instance of what may be done to beautify what by many would be regarded as a piece of waste ground suitable only as a dumping place for garden rubbish. An almost exact counterpart is possible on most of the garden spots of America.
In spite of our best efforts to make the garden beautiful at every point, it will happen at times, unfortunately, that ugly objects intrude into the picture. A stable building, potting-shed, garage, or other structure, necessary but unbeautiful, offends the eye, and it should be the gardener's care to conceal it. Much may be done by planting trees and shrubs, but they take time to grow to sufficient size, and whilst the natural screen is in progress of development it is well to erect a temporary one of trellis, training some quick-growing climbers upon it. In certain cases there may be insufficient room for the natural screen, and then the trellis should be a permanent structure, built substantially of stout materials.
I might enumerate a vast number of suggestions and expedients for creating beauty in the garden details, but I could not hope to exhaust the subject within the limits of this chapter. Each garden provides its own particular set of problems, and the main point for the garden maker is to be alive to opportunities for interesting work and to avail himself of them to the utmost. Though I have emphasized the importance of studying the general effect, and of treatment adapted for securing a broad, well-composed, and interesting picture, I regard it as equally important that the details should be as carefully studied. A garden is seen in two ways — as a pleasant place affording a sense of space, repose, and variety of form and color, and as something to examine in detail for its interest of flower and plant.
