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

Landscape Gardening

For the second example of landscape motive we may assume an estate through which runs a considerable brook. Certainly we would want to make the most of so gracious a feature.

To do this we would probably conduct our main walk or drive along the brook bank. The walk would not exactly parallel the brook, but would sometimes approach the stream, sometimes fall back into the woods at a little distance. At one or two specially chosen points it would cross the brook, and from these crossings probably the very best views would be seen. In one section the brook would lie quietly in deep shadows; in another it would glisten in the sun; in one place it would tumble loudly over rocks; in another it would form a deep still pool. The brook would be our motive or theme, and our landscape gardening would consist in getting out of it as many beautiful pictures as possible, in as great a variety as circumstances would allow. We would thus have a variety of views with unity of motive.

The pine-tree theme described above may be called a species motive. It is representative of a large and important class. For what we have done with the pine tree we may do with oak trees, or with maples, or with eucalyptus. Or if we make a rose garden all of roses, the way a rose garden ought to be made, then plainly we are handling a rose motive. Or if we make an iris garden, or a peony garden, or a garden of water lilies, our motive in each case is one species, genus or group of plants. Such species motives are easy to manage; they are artistically good, and they ought oftener to be adopted.

The brook may be classified as a topographic motive. Other topographic motives are often useful in landscape gardening.

For example, a lake, or even a lake shore, may become the highly desirable subject matter of our work. A sand dune has many beauties; and a very acceptable park might be made on sand dunes.