![[Illustration: 37. The planting in a simple front yard.]](images%5Cfig037.png)
We will first look at a very ordinary front yard. It contained
no
plants, except a pear tree standing near the corner of the house. Four
years later sees the yard as shown in Fig. 37. An exochorda is the
large
bush in the very foreground, and the porch foundation is screened and a
border is thereby given to the lawn. The length of this planting from
end to end is about fourteen feet, with a projection towards the front
on the left of ten feet. In the bay at the base of this projection the
planting is only two feet wide or deep, and from here it gradually
swings out to the steps, eight feet wide. The prominent large-leaved
plant near the steps is a bramble, Rubus odoratus,
very common in the
neighborhood, and it is a choice plant for
decorative planting, when it
is kept under control. The plants in this border in front of the porch
are all from the wild, and comprise a prickly ash, several plants of
two
wild osiers or dogwoods, a spice bush, rose, wild sunflowers and asters
and golden-rods. The promontory at the left is a more ambitious but
less
effective mass. It contains an exochorda, a reed, variegated elder,
sacaline, variegated dogwood, tansy, and a young tree of wild crab. At
the rear of the plantation, next the house, one sees the pear tree. The
best single part of the planting is the reed (Arundo Donax)
overtopping the exochorda. The photograph was taken early in summer,
before the reed had become conspicuous.
A ground plan of this planting is shown in Fig. 38. At A is the walk and B the steps. An opening at D serves as a passage. The main planting, in front of the porch, fourteen feet long, received twelve plants, some of which have now spread into large clumps. At 1 is a large bush of osier, Cornus Baileyi, one of the best red-stemmed bushes. At 2 is a mass of Rubus odoratus; at 5 asters and golden-rods; at 3 a clump of wild sunflowers. The projecting planting on the left comprises about ten plants, of which 4 is exochorda, 6 is arundo or reed, at the back of which is a large clump of sacaline, and 7 is a variegated-leaved elder.
![[Illustration: Fig. 38. Plan of the planting shown in Fig. 37.]](images%5Cfig038.png)
![[Illustration: Fig. 39. Diagram of a back-yard planting. 50 x 90 feet.]](images%5Cfig039.png)