34 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
landscape gardening I know little about it, and second, what 
little I think I know is directly contrary to the modern teachings. 
I believe that nature is a pretty safe guide in the matter of 
laying out and planting grounds; at least she points out the way 
for us. She plants forests, she leaves open glades which stand 
for our lawns; she joins the forest to the glade by making an 
irregular border of lower growth between them. Wild animals 
make paths through the woods and along the open spaces, and 
these are always made to be used; they stand for our paths and 
roads. They usually lead along the lines of least resistance, and 
though they are not often made in straight lines they are usually 
reasonably direct. They teach that curves and deviations are 
not to be indulged in merely for ornament. Nature leaves bold 
ledges and scoops out depressions and grottos, she lays out the 
courses of rivers and streams, she makes pools and lakes. She 
makes some mistakes but not many. It has always seemed to 
me that she blundered when she developed the Australian Pine 
in the tropics. 
Nearly all the art that is required in the natural style of land- 
scape gardening is to show the best of nature and to show nature 
at her best. Aside from the building of our dwellings and out- 
buildings we need to do but little that nature doesn’t do some- 
where and in some way. As Downing has said, ‘Landscape 
gardening is an union of natural expression and harmonious 
cultivation.” 
We hear a great deal about massing trees and shrubs for effect, 
of matching colors in planting, of harmony and discord and of 
many kinds of plants that should never be put near each other, 
and it seems to me that those who are so insistent about these 
things only use plants as a means to an end; that to them these 
beautiful things, which to me seem to have souls, are merely 
what soldiers are to a commanding general ona battlefield. They 
remind me of the society woman who must have a nurse whose 
complexion harmonized with that of her baby. I love each tree, 
shrub, vine and plant for its own sake; to cut one down or even 
trim it seems almost cruel. I am interested in them all from the 
time they are set out, as they build leaf after leaf and growth 
after growth until they grow old and die. They are my friends 
