CHAPTER III. 



DESIGN AND POSITION — AGAINST STYLES, USELESS STONEWORK, 

 AND STEREOTYPED PLANS — TIME'S EFFECT ON GARDEN DE- 

 SIGN — ARCHITECTURE AND FLOWER GARDENS — DESIGN NOT 

 FORMAL ONLY — USE IN THE GARDEN OF BUILDERS', AND 

 OTHER DEGRADED FORMS OF THE PLASTIC ART. 



One aim of this book is to uproot the idea that a flower garden must 

 ahvays be of set pattern placed on one side of the house. The wants 

 of flowers can be best met, and their varied loveHness best shown, 

 in a variety of positions, and the first thing to do is to consider the 

 effect of arraying all our flowers in one spot under the same con- 

 ditions, as such a plan can never give us a tithe of the beauty which 

 our gardens might afford. The way has too often been to regard one 

 spot with the same soil and aspect, and with every condition alike, 

 as the only home for open-air flowers, though near at hand there may 

 be positions, each favourable to different groups of flower. 



The first thing is to get a clear idea of the hollowness of much 

 of the talk about " styles." In books about laying out gardens there 

 are many dissertations on styles, the authors going even to China 

 and to Mexico for illustrations. The first thing the writer does is 

 to confuse his readers with words about " styles." What is the result 

 to anybody who looks from words to things ? That there are two 

 styles : the one strait-laced, mechanical, with much wall and stone, 

 with fountains and sculpture ; the other the natural, which, once free 

 of the house, accepts the ground lines of the earth herself as the 

 best, and gets plant beauty from the flowers and trees arranged in 

 picturesque ways. 



There are positions where stonework is necessary; but the beauti- 

 ful terrace gardens are those that are built where the nature of the 

 ground required them. There is nothing more melancholy than the 

 walls, fountain basins, clipped trees, and long canals of places like the 

 Crystal Palace, not only because they fail to satisfy the desire for 

 beauty, but because they tell of wasted effort, and riches worse than 



