The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Art Of Landscape Architecture
The treatment of these various large or small country places and village lawns is chiefly, therefore, a question of relations between different parts.Therefore there should be a proper rhythm in these relations, a spacing, a notation that naturally applies to all kinds of design whether it be music, poetry, painting, architecture, or landscape gardening. The true spirit of design lies in the balance and poise of the parts, their variation, whether rapid or slow, tense and violent,or suave and tranquil.
In the village yard the sense of cosiness, the having something of one's own seems desirable, and enclosure is therefore needed on all sides, and the same with equal force applies to the country place. How much finer would the village yards be if this idea were put in practice, a bit of grass, bordering shrubbery, and such trees as the space will allow, and, instead of a straight path through the centre, one passing along half concealed through the foliage, with, at the feet of the bushes, flowers of all kinds, iris, etc.
Then again there may be a little square or green in the quadrangle of a group of cottages: this place does not need shrubs, only trees; its charm lies in its open greensward and trees. Prince Puckler mentions an instance in England:
"Not far from the parks is an interesting establishment called 'The Cottages.' The proprietor, Mr. Harford, has endeavoured to realize the beau ideal of a village. A beautiful green space in the midst of a wood is surrounded by a winding road; on it are built nine cottages all of different forms and materials, stone, brick, wood, and roofed with thatch, tiles, and slate; each surrounded with different trees, and enwreathed with various sorts of clematis, rose, honeysuckle, and vine. The dwellings, which are perfectly detached though they form a whole, have separate gardens, and a common fountain which stands in the centre of the green, overshadowed by old trees. The gardens, divided by neat hedges, forma pretty garland of flowers and herbs round the whole village. What crowns the whole is, that the inhabitants are all poor families, whom the generous proprietor allows to live in the houses rent free. No more delightful or well chosen spot could be found as a refuge for misfortune: its perfect seclusion and snugness breathe only peace and forgetfulness of the world."
On the other hand, when we turn to larger places, twenty acres or many thousands of acres, the same principles apply to the architectural and the natural features, to the high and low, and broad and narrow masses, related and contrasted in a hundred ways.
