The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Small Home Landscaping

The conifer, which must be a rather narrow type, and not a spreading pine, could be Colorado spruce, Douglas spruce, Blue spruce. Balsam fir or, in the warm regions, the Deodar cedar, Red cedar or Incense cedar. Any one of these could be used as a Christmas tree.

Solve Your Own Landscape Problems

A good picture needs a good frame and your
house deserves landscaping worthy of it.

Foundation Planting

THE plants you set around the base of the house are given the loose term "foundation planting." It is a purely American invention, unknown in Europe or anywhere else. It has had many critics, but despite these it persists. It is America's contribution to home landscaping. In its correct application, foundation planting should enhance the home, bringing out the best parts of the house and playing down the weaknesses. However, as an art it has been and is being badly abused. Properly related to the particular house, a foundation planting can add charm and color. On the other hand, there is nothing more pathetic than a few diminutive pointed evergreens strung along the base of the house. It's wrong and it's ugly. Many builders do this and then call the home landscaped.

Then there are houses against which plants are so crowded that they kill each other. But the biggest mistake you can make is to follow the trend and plant conifers like pine, spruce, hemlock, white cedar and similar trees. These are really 60 ft. trees. In a few years they will completely hide the house. Avoid, too, the planting composed of one of every plant from the nursery. This is a plant collection, each plant different from the one next to it. Not only is this expensive; but, most of all, the plants have no relation to the house at all. There is no uniformity either in color or form.

Your first step in working out a foundation planting is to study your house its size, style and height. The plants you choose must fit the house, must also suit the growing conditions around it. Here are a few rules that will help.