THE FLORAL WORLD 



GAEDEN GUIDE. 



SEPTEMBER, 1867. 



PAILUEES m SMALL GARDENS. 



direct attention to failures, and the causes of failures, 

 in the management of small gardens, may be of some 

 service to many of our readers. We are not at all in 

 the spirit of fault-finding, and, when needful, will defend 

 the English gardens, large and small, from any possible 

 detractors. But in travelling about in all parts of the country, 

 seeing gardens everywhere, large and small, conversing with all 

 classes of cultivators, many things come under our notice that are 

 less perfect than they might be, though their possessors are not 

 always aware of their imperfections. Perhaps in some things we are 

 disposed to be hypercritical. AVhen the mind is intently occupied 

 with one class of observations — when it runs in a groove, so to 

 speak, it is apt to attach undue importance to trifles, and to descend 

 to hair-splitting, instead of ascending to nobler work. Should such 

 appear to be the case with the writer of this, free forgiveness is 

 asked of our readers generally, more especially if any remarks which 

 follow seem to be directed against any particular person or place ; 

 for it may as well be said at once, that the ideas which now occur to 

 us have no personal or local connection whatever, so there can be no 

 proper reason for any one to be hurt. 



Failure as to general effect is a common occurrence. IJsually 

 this is the consequence of attempting more than is fairly possible in 

 the space at command. It is scarcely possible to construct a garden 

 which shall give an air of comfort, dignity, and cheerfulness to the 

 dwelling, unless there is in the foreground some breadth of open 

 space with grass turf, with trees beyond and about it, in such plenty 

 as shall enrich the scene with their fine forms and shadows, without 

 contracting or confusing it. The universal and commendable love 

 of flowers tends, in a great measure, to restrict the adoption, in 

 small gardens, of features of abiding interest ; where there might be 

 a beautiful free-breathing carpet of grass, distinctly dotted with a 

 few elegant coniferous trees, and a few clumps beyond, to give a 

 true gardenesque tone to the scene, we have, perhaps, an inordi- 

 nate complexity of flower-beds, so numerous and so close together, 



VOL. II. — NO. IX. 17 



