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Preparation for Planting
Volumes have been written on when and how to plant and these should be consulted when this information is needed. For planning purposes, however, here is the most important advice: plants are living, growing things. Like children, they need food and drink and they will not thrive in an improper environment. Plan to give the plants a proper foundation in your outdoor living room. Prepare the beds to the proper depth and see that the soil is just as it should be before a single plant is set out. Sticks, stones and refuse so often buried around the yard when it is graded will not grow good plants or lawn. The expense of properly preparing the foundation for our outdoor living room might seem like sinking money into the ground but it soon reappears in the healthy and rapid growth of leafy walls of green and masses of flowers and each succeeding year dividends in growth and beauty continues.
Walks and Stepping Stones
When a walk is a permanent feature in the design of an outdoor living room -- as in a formal treatment -- and there will be considerable foot traffic, construction should be of brick, gravel or some other material of pleasing texture and color. Steppingstones can be used when there is not much traffic and in places where a certain effect is desired. Often a few stones will give the idea that there is something to be seen where they lead even though the grass would be walked upon more than the stones in reaching the point of interest. If the outdoor living room is developed in a portion of the grounds that is remote from the house, a permanent or stepping stone walk leading to the garden room is essential. A permanent walk (except a service walk) usually looks best if made wide enough for two persons to walk side-by-side; three and one-half feet is considered minimum. Steppingstone paths may be narrow for single-file use or broadened as the need demands. Steppingstones give an informality that cannot be secured in any other way.
Walls
While we think of living walls of green as the ideal background for the outdoor living room, there are occasions where a solid wall will mark the boundary or serve to retain a terrace or higher level. Masonry walls of pleasing color and texture make an ideal background for the display of plants and flowers. The walled-in court or yard has its own particular charm and offers untold possibilities for the development of a charming outdoor room. The deliberate choosing of a masonry wall in place of a living wall of green may be necessary for protection or screening in limited areas, or may be most consistent with the style of architecture of the house. The expense of such architectural treatment, however, hardly justifies it in the average development. Masonry walls are almost certain to be quite expensive and in climates where the winter season is severe they require foundations and reinforcement. Only in the most elaborate developments should they be considered. Where there is a difference in levels, however, the rock retaining wall is desirable and a development with different levels is apt to be more interesting than one that is absolutely flat. The least expensive of retaining walls and often the most pleasing are those laid up of stratified rock with dry joints, occasionally constructed so as to permit the growth of certain rock plants along the face.
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