12 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
Plans may often be changed so as to leave what is wrongly placed 
to grow and form part of a perfect whole. 
Don’t plant trees in rows unless they are put along a straight 
road or path and never under any circumstances alternate one 
species with another in a row along a road or anywhere else. It 
is the fashion in places to put out a California fan palm and a 
Chinese Hibiscus or a Coconut and some low growing shrub 
alternating in rows, and it seems to me that no greater atrocity 
in planting can be perpetrated. I can not conceive how the idea 
ever originated in the brain of any human being. 
In laying out and planting a place of any considerable size it 
is often possible to make a vista, a view of some pleasing object 
at a distance such as a group of trees, a fine building, or water. 
This vista may be cut out through a forest or made by judicious 
planting of trees and shrubbery. Its borders should be irregu- 
lar and of varied forms and foliage. Such views may open out 
upon a landscape that stretches for miles away or it may only 
extend for a few rods, and if they are managed right they will 
always be surprising and charming. 
Notwithstanding the fact that one encounters many draw- 
backs and discouragements in laying out and developing a home 
in Florida the whole process is a delightful one. What can be 
pleasanter than daily contriving and making plans for buildings, 
walks and roads, for the disposal of one’s trees and plants so 
that they shall produce the best effects? What a pleasure it is 
to put a rustic seat here, to open out for, or so to plant trees that 
he may have a lovely view there. Even one’s mistakes are not 
so bad after all for they help to teach him useful lessons. What 
a joy it is to watch the plants grow and develop under one’s lov- 
ing care, to realize, that, as the years roll by his home is becom- 
ing more and more beautiful, more and more a part and parcel 
of his very life. 
