The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Small Home Landscaping
When the entrance door, in a Cape Cod or similar facade, is considerably off center, leaving more building on one side of the door than the other, extend the planting beyond the corner on the short end to give more balance to the facade. If a driveway or other construction detail interferes, plant a tall, upright-growing evergreen against the corner, a climbing rose or a vine on a trellis.
Where a section of the house projects, there is no need, as in the Cape Cod style, to balance the planting on either side of the entrance; the front, itself, is not symmetrically balanced. If the projection is not more than 3 ft. and if the entrance is within the angle, with a step or platform of comparable width, a low plant is set at the edge of the projection and a tall one on the open side of the platform-preferably a plant with a squarish form like Hicks' yew.
Should the path approach the step directly, the low plant is now balanced with another low one; thus you have one on either side of the path at the entrance.
If the projection exceeds 3 ft. or becomes a wing, the house is given a more L-shaped appearance, usually with the entrance in the angle. The planting is then adjusted, depending on whether the path approaches the entrance parallel to the house or does so directly. In most cases, unless there are several steps, the planting is kept low to medium low at the entrance. When planting space at door is narrow, plant a Firethorn or other wall shrub trained on wires.
One of the very best effects for this L-shaped house having one wing, or for the double L-shaped (with two wings), is a planting which uses a multiple-stemmed tree, such as grey birch, flowering dogwood, sorrel, hawthorn or similar small tree, with an under planting of low ever-greens. This planting is set, in the case of the L-house, at the corner opposite the wing; in the case of the double wing house, it is within the angle opposite that in which the entrance is situated. This planting is balanced in each case with a low mass near the entrance door.
