Clear Boundaries at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

WITH GARDENS a sense of enclosure is important. On small lots the boundaries may be those of the property or even plantings or other pleasant features on a neighbor's property, for when I speak of boundaries I mean not those of the lot but those that limit the view. On larger grounds the boundaries to views may be well within the property lines.

Other factors affecting currents are the configuration of the ocean bed and the shapes of land masses. For example, in the Atlantic Ocean, the North Equatorial Current flows towards the West Indies. Most of this current is channelled into the Gulf of Mexico where it veers northeastwards, bursting into the Atlantic between Florida and Cuba as the Gulf Stream. (The term "stream" is used for currents with fairly clear boundaries.)

Boundaries are of many kinds. Never install one that gives any suggestion of being a spite fence. Many American communities are characterized by a complete absence of fences, walls or hedges around front yards; and grounds of all houses on the street merge into one delightful park-like picture of lawns, trees and shrubbery. If you live in such a community think well before you introduce what is likely to be an incongruous note by sharply defining lot boundaries seen from the street. The mere suggestion of definition by the skill-ful use of a flowering tree, shade tree, evergreen or clumps of shrubs is the most be done and ev.en then great restraint is needed.