While it is a very simple matter to shape up a small grass plot,
renovating it as to soil and all that is necessary to lay the foundation
of a successful lawn, it becomes another matter when large areas are in
question. Here it requires taste, experience, and familiarity with
prevailing conditions to enable one successfully to get out of the
problem all that there is in it. If we have not had the necessary
experience, it would not be safe to venture upon doing the work without
expert advice.
Developing a large area means the making of a picture that, year in and
year out, is to be before our eyes, and unless there is a most
harmonious relation of all accessories--trees, contours, vistas, roads,
and so on--there is sure to come a time of wearying monotony, caused by
a realization of the fact that we had not been quite equal, through our
lack of experience, to develop the place as it might have been
developed.
A piece of ground in the rough must first be shaped up by draining,
removing trees or stones, planning roads and such things, before the
smoothing process can be attempted, and it is in this roughing-out
process where the future landscape picture is either made or destroyed.
Here is where the professional landscape man can save you many dollars
and much disappointment. I have seen so many sad results in cases of
land development where too much confidence has been the stumbling-block
on the road to success, that I feel justified in harping on the
necessity of asking advice from those who are competent to give it.