No garden is worth having unless it is a living garden – a place as much for people as for plants. Let’s look to see how you can turn your property into a living garden. Inevitably and, we hope, forever, gardening is the happiest and most satisfying thing you will do outdoors; the magnet that draws you out even when the day is too cold for swimming, or too hot for tennis or basketball.
So gardening or landscaping is the backbone of our plan for outdoor living. It shapes and contains our days and our doings. It is unending variety and the greatest contentment. But swimming and games, suppers cooked under the stars and leisurely lunches on the patio are very much part of the living garden, too. Fit them in so your family and your friends flock to your backyard garden because it is green and pleasant with blossoms and because, kicking off their shoes, they have the time of their lives in it.
A Way of Life
In the living garden, the family and neighbors who find the garden so pleasant it acts as an alluring magnet to all.
Everybody has fun. While lawn sprinklers play in the front yard, people play in the backyard. But not all the time. There is always work to be done in a garden and when the mood is happy there are also plenty of hands to help.
Outdoor living is expansive, so wide areas should be left cleared and open for games, for pool (or additional terrace if your pool is in the future), for eating, lounging, sunning. Outdoor living is informal so it gravitates to the more private back of the lot. Not everyone wants to do the same things at the same time, so there are easy divisions for the “doers,” the “loungers,” and the “players.” Different generations can pursue their own courses and nobody will be underfoot, On an outdoors day, no one much wants to nip into the house, so there are buildings at hand to store whatever you are going to need. Cooking is done on a grill and you can move it to the spot that seems best at the moment and eat right there.
How it Works
No two houses are exactly alike, nor any two lots. Most of all: no two families are alike either. Make your plan your own. We divide the garden into areas you can shift around changing their sizes and shapes to suit your family, your house, your whim.
There is just one rule you will break at your peril. Make a master plan from the very beginning. In this way, each section, as you complete it, will fit, neat as a jigsaw puzzle piece, into the final picture. You will not have to disturb things as you go along.
Modern principles of landscaping are all against fancy foundation planting for several sound reasons (two of them – obscures good house lines, is hard to control so it won’t darken interiors). We chose one low juniper to set off the front corner of the house and a small flower bed for color at the rear.
We assume that you want your lawn uncluttered, that its form and size will be determined by the house and drive, and its placement dictated by privacy.
“A” on the plan indicates the most important screen plantings: across the back property line and in a front corner. In both a mixture of tall, dense shrubs will do the job. Bush honeysuckle, privet, viburnums, mockorange work well.
“B,” the “for show” planting in front of the screening shrubs, is showcase for plants you specially enjoy – roses or peonies, for instance. If minimum upkeep is a must, consider something as self-reliant as spirea, forsythia, lilacs or species roses with spring bulbs and daylilies along the front.
Choose trees for shade, for their coolness and the way they muffle sound. Keep their ultimate size and shape in mind, their beauty of flower, tidiness, etc.
# 1, a Sunburst locust, not only looks as if it were covered with golden flowers most of the growing season but casts cool shade near the front door.
# 2, a hawthorn shades the sitting-out terrace.
# 3 & 4, oaks, help to screen while young, grow into a magnificent background as they mature, and last for generations. (All oaks are good trees – choose ones that like your climate.)
# 5 & 6 are maples, serve the same purpose and vary leaf-and-branch patterns. If ash and pine suit your fancy, make them ash and pine.
# 7 is two smallish flowering trees, crabs or cherries, dogwood or hawthorn. If you want to be original, try halesia, the silver bell tree. It’s a beauty.
Planned for Play
A swimming pool (C on the plan) may be in the future for you. You surely want to wait till all your children are old enough to learn to swim, your budget can take it in stride. (Pools are no longer in the “90% income tax bracket,” but they’re not dirt cheap either.) So here our long range planning pays its way: the pool-to-be is sown to grass or turned into a big sand pile, the poolside paved and used for games or a sitting terrace, the combination pool-and-tool house built for immediate use to store all sorts of outdoor gear.
Croquet “rediscovered” regularly, calls for continuous lawn space and good turf. Provide both from the start. Pull up wickets and stakes and you can play badminton, etc.
What You Build
Area “D” on is your source of supplies and workshop. Here you can grow vegetables and flowers for cutting, have your coldframe and compost pile and, handy to the play yard, a closet for toys.
You can build your poolhouse profitably long before you build your pool. See that it “sets right” with the house. Aside from that, anything goes. The no-rules rule also applies to the fence linking poolhouse and garage. But remember this is both a separator of play area and vegetable garden and a background for plants you want to show off.
And while you’re “showing off,” the cutting garden running to the street will pleasure passers-by and add a splash of color to the house – and to the whole neighborhood.
At Ground Level
When you live outdoors, you live at ground level. So begin by making sure that yours is really a livable level. This does not mean a dead, bubble-in-a-glasstube level, as flat as your living room floor. It is essential that the ground pitch away from the house if you are to have proper drainage. (A quarter of an inch to the foot is plenty and not even a rolling croquet ball can be thrown much off course by so slight a grade.)
Once the grade is established, look to the quality of your soil. Where you plan to have your lawn you will need 6 inches of good rich topsoil. When this is installed, you are ready to have your paving set and to outline your planting beds and bury all the outdoor plumbing and electrical lines for landscape lighting (or go solar) you need at proper depth. Plumbing means a sprinkler system which will guarantee you a well-watered lawn with the greatest of ease. And connections for your hose. So while you are at it, why don’t you include an outdoor drinking fountain for children and hard-working gardeners and thirsty gamesters? It will save a lot of wear and tear and mud on the kitchen floor. You can buy drinking fountains which double as hose connectors, all ready to install.
What You Plant
The actual gardening in the Living Garden is the key to whether it is irresistibly pleasant to live in, or deteriorates into a meeting place for the neighborhood pups.
First and foremost, make sure your soil is right (check the soil pH): well-drained but not dry; neither too acid nor too alkaline; with plenty of fertility and enough depth to give all your plants the room they need for roots. A regular soil-testing program helps immensely. Just as important: select every plant with sharp attention to the role it must fill. This means considering ultimate size, shape, time of blooming and texture of foliage. To say nothing of the amount of tender, loving care required to keep it in prime condition. Most important of all – whether it pleases you.
by J Manning
