IN FLORIDA 7, 
garden perchance. This can be placed to one side and screened 
off from the more natural part by a wide border of planting, irreg- 
ular on the outside and more evenly finished on the inside. 
One of the fine examples of geometrical gardening is the grounds 
of the Casino at Monte Carlo, France. The garden at Mount 
Vernon, the former home of Washington, is an example in our 
own country of the old-fashioned formal style of gardening. In 
it are closely sheared hedges, some of them straight, others made 
into a variety of more or less intricate patterns. 
It may be well for those who have only a city or townlot to adopt 
the formal style of decoration in a greater or less degree. The 
front walk had best run from the main entrance to the road or 
street and at right angles with the house. If desired some kind 
of geometric design could be made on each side of it, either in the 
way of plant beds or a simple affair bordered with some such 
thing as Alternanthera, Alyssum, Echeveria or box. 
To my mind the specimens of sheared trees and shrubs which 
we sometimes see in formal grounds are simply monstrosities. 
They certainly do not represent nature and they are atrocities 
as art. It may be allowable sometimes to shear a couple of 
trees or shrubs at the entrance of a formal garden so that with 
training they will form an arch, but what beauty or sense is there 
in mutilating with the shears an acre or more of trees as is seen 
in some of the so-called Italian gardens? 
Remember that whatever is attempted in formal gardening 
should be honest. Unless one is a master at designing the plan 
had better be simple, and simplicity often marks the work of a 
great designer. The geometrical garden is a picture and the 
picture should represent something; it should not be spoiled by 
frivolities and absurdities. 
