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HORTICULTURE. 



May 4, 1907 



A Plea for the Picturesque in Landscape Gardening 



(A paper read before the Gardener's and Florists' Club of Boston by B. K. Howard.) 



In this paper I speak of landscape 

 gardening from my own point of 

 view. I look at nature as far as I 

 can as a picture maker and not in any 

 way as an expert in horticulture. 1 

 shall try to point out some of the 

 things that make a landscape beauti- 

 ful and paintable and hope it may be 

 of service to some of you in arranging 

 things of beauty in nature itself. 

 First, -we are to consider the different 

 styles of landscape gardening and the 

 different results obtained therefrom. 

 The first garden we hear of is the 

 Garden of Eden and probably that 

 would take first prize, even today. It 

 had its defects however. It was lonely 

 for the one poor man who first in- 

 habited it, so the Lord made him a 

 companion from one of his spare ribs 

 while he slept. This would have been 

 all right if he had removed the tree 

 of knowledge, which grew in the centre 



Flowers were bedded in every con- 

 ceivable and horrible geometric pat- 

 tern or rug or bed spread or baker's 

 confectionery and these inartistic and 

 daylight horrors stil exist to the pres- 

 ent day in Europe and America. We 

 shall see plenty of it in the Public 

 Garden when the season arrives. The 

 Italian gardens are less ugly than 

 most of the formal gardens. Many of 

 them have beautiful white or stucco 

 work buildings with red tile roofs, 

 which give a fine setting for the 

 cypress trees and the formal garden. 

 Some of the Italian gardens are very 

 beautiful, which is very often due to 

 the fineness of the location. Near the 

 mansion in a private estate, it is gen- 

 erally well to have the gardening more 

 formal in order not to make the break 

 too sudden in going from the formal 

 architecture of the mansion to the 

 freedom of the rest of the estate. 



Unity 



of the garden. This goes to show that, 

 even at that very early date, a little 

 judicious thinning out would have been 

 beneficial. This garden contained 

 everything to delight the eye and 

 produced food in abundance and there 

 was no work required; no pottering 

 and digging and planting and Adam 

 didn't have to study geometry or per- 

 spective. Life in this garden was all 

 the color of a rose, but the crash 

 came and great was the fall thereof, 

 and Adam and his spouse had to go 

 forth and work for a living and make 

 their own gardens and grub and sweat 

 in sun and rain for the little they got 

 in return. (For further information 

 relating to the garden of Eden, read 

 the Bible or "Extracts from Adam's 

 Diary" by Mark Twain.) 



Most of the old-style gardens were 

 very formal, purely geometric in every 

 way possible. Every tree and shrub 

 that could be pruned or tortured into 

 a fantastic shape was thus treated. 



Downing divides landscapes into 

 two large divisions, namely: the beau- 

 tiful and the picturesque. The former 

 is characterized by roundness and 

 smoothness and by curving lines, the 

 latter by roughness and irregularity 

 and accidental effects. The beautiful 

 is the artificial from his point of view 

 and from my point of view the pictur- 

 esque is the beautiful and natural, [f 

 a thing is not paintable, to me it is 

 not beautiful. By studying good 

 landscapes by the best masters, such 

 as Davis, Corot, Rousseau, Claud Lor- 

 raine, Ranger, you will learn more 

 about what is truly beautiful in land- 

 scape than in any other way, because 

 these men are and were masters and 

 know what is best to choose and that 

 which will best combine into unity, 

 harmony and variety. Every landscape 

 has some particular expression and it 

 should be seen and understood by the 

 landscape gardener and his work 

 should be along that line and the fin- 



ished garden or park should contain 

 that predominating expression. So 

 much of the landscape gardening that 

 we see is almost exactly alike; no in- 

 dividuality of expression. Instead of 

 taking each individual park or estate 

 and studying it to find out what it 

 already has in the way of natural 

 beauty and sympathetically developing 

 it upon these lines, the whole business 

 is thrown into a grand display of land- 

 scape architecture, by a lot of crack- 

 a-jack draughtsmen, who show a 

 mighty little sympathetic feeling for 

 nature. By too much pruning and 

 blasting and leveling, a once spirited 

 landscape may become perfectly tame 

 and insipid. 



One should be familiar with nature 

 in all her moods. Be observant and 

 when you see a beautiful thing in na- 

 ture seize upon it and try to reproduce 

 it in a garden or park; only make it 

 even more spirited and more expres- 

 sive if possible. There is a beauty of 

 nature and a beauty of art. Art em- 

 phasizes the beauty of nature. The 

 secret of all beauty is character; there 

 is no beauty without character and ex- 

 pression. Things which have char- 

 acter are distinct and distinguished, 

 and make a lasting impression upon 

 the beholder. Develop the leading 

 character of an estate or park, and, if 

 the area is sufficiently large, each 

 separate scene may be given its sepa- 

 rate character or expression, and the 

 art will be to unite the whole into 

 harmony. 



Landscape gardening and painting 

 are nearly allied. The thing is to 

 know your materials and arrange and 

 cast out and add just as a painter does 

 in composing a great canvas. This land- 

 scape gardener must have patience, for 

 trees and shrubberies and flowers will 

 not grow in nature as rapidly as they 

 do on canvas, so he must plan well and 

 observe nature carefully, and before 

 he cuts down and casts away he must 

 be very sure that he is cutting down 

 and casting away the right thing. 



There are many expressions that 

 might belong to either the beautiful or 

 the picturesque; simplicity, dignity, 

 grace, elegance, gaiety, etc. A few 

 fine trees scattered over a smooth lawn 

 will give a character of simple beauty. 

 Lofty trees of great age, hillfe covered 

 with rich forest, an elevation com- 

 manding a wiile country, stamp a place 

 with dignity. A number of bright blos- 

 soming shrubs and flowers express 

 gaiety. If a person has small grounds 

 to improve it is best not to attempt 

 loo much. A few fine trees and shrubs 

 well placed and, if the house is of sim- 

 ple colonial architecture, quite a lot of 

 roses and climbing plants can be used 

 to great advantage. 



The three most important qualities 

 to be embodied in landscape architec- 

 ture are; Unity, harmony and variety. 

 Unity or the production of a whole or 

 leading expression; a defect in unity 

 might be illustrated by grounds having 

 two or more characters of landscape, 

 which were all right in themselves, but 

 failed to unite in one expression, like 

 effects that would be as incongruous 

 as putting flowers and vegetables to- 

 gether on the lawn, or cast iron statu- 

 ary among noble trees. There should 

 be variety sufficient to give varied color 



