NGE >> The Arts >> Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and
Historic Preservation >> Landscape >> Gardens >> Vernacular
Gardens Vernacular gardens, by definition, are gardens of
ordinary people, not those designed by professionals or owned by
the elite. The vernacular garden is a result of community-held
beliefs about gardening aesthetics and utility as well as the
traditional use of space and how it should function. A General
Homestead Plan Some southern regional generalities can be seen,
but no set pattern in Georgia becomes evident, other than a
distinction between coastal and mountain locales. In the rolling
hills of north Georgia, dooryard paths were often lined with
privet hedges to prevent erosion, but in the lower regions of
the state, the yard was traditionally swept bare to avoid giving
snakes and other pests a place to hide. In the twentieth
century, with the advent of the lawnmower, the dooryard evolved
into a grass lawn. No description of a southern rural farmhouse
can omit the porch—a shady pla