You may find, for example, that near the house you need two balanced foliage masses of considerable size. Obviously these will have to be trees, for nothing else will be high enough, but what sort of trees you care at the moment not at all. You may feel that the whole property, or a portion of it, needs enclosure, and so you will decide that here a hedge, there a shrub border, and somewhere else a group of small and large trees with a few evergreens added are what is required.

Still you are not concerned with exactly what these may be. You may decide that elsewhere a low mass of planting, with plenty of color, is what the composition requires, but whether this means a bed of geraniums, or a mixed perennial planting you do not yet decide. We cannot sufficiently stress this "evolve" method in contrast to the "plant-first" method, which results in all kinds of trouble in making plants harmonize and carrying out the basic design. (See Plate 2.)

Only after these two decisions as to location of masses and the general planting they will contain have been made are you ready to say, "Yes, here is where that mass of trees is to go. I will use oaks, dogwood, and pines; in fact, three pin oaks about twenty feet tall, five white dogwoods, four to five feet high, and two ten-foot white pines to create an interesting group of the right size, shape, and height to carry out my design."

Again, the right method is not, as many amateurs think, to go to the nursery and buy a lot of plants and then come home and try to place them so that they will make an effective com- position. Planting design must carry out the basic landscape design. It will only do this when you think in terms of plant masses rather than in terms of individual plants.

Although the making of a good-looking planting plan is in itself a pleasure, it need not be a finished piece of draftsman ship. What you want is something useful. The plan should be big enough, accurate enough, and legible enough to use easily.

The plan should show the location of each specimen. A circle containing a single key number will indicate this. Plant masses should be shown to scale and their outlines accurately drawn. Masses can then be subdivided to show relationship between the various plants used in them. These can be indi cated by a key number followed by a dash and then a quan tity number, as 2-5, to mean five dogwood, No. 2 being dog wood on the planting list, which will be made to accompany the plan.