THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



The fact that ignorant men, who have never had the chance of 



learning these lessons, make pudding-like clumps in a vain attempt 



to diversify the surface of the ground, and other 



The true test foolish things, does not in the least turn us aside 

 of a from following the true and only ways to get the 



flower-garden. best expression possible of beauty from any given 

 morsel of the earth's surface we have to plant. 

 We sympathise with the landscape-painter's work as reflecting for 

 us, though often in a faint degree, the wondrously varied beauty of 

 the earth, and in the case of the great master-painters full of truth 

 and beauty. We hold that the only true test of our efforts in 

 planting or gardening is the picture. Do we frighten the artist 

 away, or do we bring him to see a garden so free from ugly patterns 

 and ugly colours that, seen in a beautiful light, it would be worth 

 painting ? There is not, and there never can be, any other true test. 



Even if our aim be right, the direction, as in many other matters, 

 may be vitiated by stupidity, as in gardens where false lines and curves 

 abound, as in the Champs Elysee in Paris. It is quite right to see 

 the faults of this and to laugh at them ; but how about those who ' 

 plant in true and artistic ways? In the case we mention there is 

 ceaseless and inartistic and vain throwing up of the ground, and sharp 

 and ugly slopes, which are often against the cultivation of the things 

 planted. 



The rejection of clipped forms and book patterns of trees set out 

 like lamp-posts, costly walls where none are wanted, and of all the 

 too facile labours of the drawing-board " artist " in gardens, first 

 affected in England in what we call pleasure-ground and park, is set 

 down by these writers on garden design as the wicked invention of 

 certain men. No account has been taken of the eternally beautiful 

 lessons of Nature or even the simple facts which should be known to 

 all who write about such things. Thus in " The Art and Craft of 

 Garden Making " we read : 



So far as the roads were concerned Brown built up a theory that, as Nature 

 abhorred a straight line, it was necessary to make roads curl about. Serpentine 

 lines are said to be the hnes of Nature, and therefore beyond question the only 

 proper lines. 



But nothing is said of the fact that in making paths or roads in 



diversified country it is absolutely necessary to follow the line of 



easiest gradation, and this cannot always be a 



Facts of natural straight line, and is, indeed, often a beautiful bent 



beauty the source ,. t ^ ^ ^ r 



*• ^A A^^-,„^ hne. In many cases we are not twenty paces from 



of good design. ,, ,, ^ ,, ^^ c x. 



the level space around a house before we have to 



think of the lie of the ground in making walks, roads, or paths. We 

 are soon face to face with the fact that the worst thing we can attempt 



