30 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



of Oak, Cedar, or Fir are far higher design than putting trees in 

 lines. There is more true design in Richmond Park and other 

 noble parks in England, where the trees are grouped in picturesque 

 ways and allowed to take natural forms, than in a French wood with 

 straight lines cut through it, which the first carpenter could design 

 as well as anybody else. In our own day a wholly different order of 

 things has arisen, because we have thousands of beautiful things 

 coming to us from all parts of the temperate and northern world, 

 and those who know them will not accept a book pattern design, 

 instead of our infinitely varied garden flora. The trees of North 

 America and Asia form a tree garden in themselves, and it is impos- 

 sible to lay out gardens of any size or dignity without a knowledge of 

 those and all other hardy trees, not only in a cultivated but in a wild 

 state. If anything demands special study, it is that of garden design 

 with our present materials. If that art is to be mastered, the work 

 of a life must be given to it — more than that, a life's devotion — and 

 no less is the sacrifice his own art requires of the architect. 



There is no such thing as a style fitted for every situation ; only 

 one who knows and studies the ground well will ever make the best 

 of a garden, and any " style " may be right where the site fits it. A 

 garden on the slopes about Naples is impossible without much stone- 

 work to support the earth, while about London or Paris there is 

 usually no such need. But these considerations never enter into 

 the minds of men who plant an Italian garden in one of our river 

 valleys, where in nine cases out of ten an open lawn is often the 

 best thing before the house, as at Bristol House, Roehampton ; 

 Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames ; and in many gardens in the 

 Thames valley. And there are right and wrong ways where we 

 cannot have a lawn garden : — Haddon, simple and charming, on the 

 one hand, and Chatsworth on the other ; Knole and Ightham and 

 Rockingham without a yard of stonework not absolutely needed for 

 the house and its approaches, and others with a fortune spent in 

 display of costly stonework, only effective in robbing the foreground 

 of all repose. 



The idea that the old style of building in England was always 

 accompanied by elaborate terrace gardening is erroneous. The 

 Elizabethan house had often an ample lawn in front or plenty of 

 grass near, and such houses are quite as good in effect as the old 

 houses and castles where terracing was necessary and right owing 

 to the ground, such as Berkeley, Powis, and Rockingham. 



The idea that trees must be clipped to make them " harmonise " 

 with architecture is a mere survival. In the old days of garden 

 design, when in any northern country there were few trees in 

 gardens, these trees were slashed into any shape that met the de- 



