154 ON PLANTING ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS IN MASSES. 
may often be very delightfully decorated with plots of shrubs, which 
frequently look better than flower-beds, or groups in which trees, 
shrubs, and herbs are all associated. A Heath-garden, or an American 
garden, also, laid out in a very bold geometrical or irregular style, 
and traversed by grass or gravel-paths, the plants being arranged partly 
in single species and the rest more indiscriminately, is a highly plea- 
surable addition to an estate. There are, moreover, buildings of a 
floricultural or exclusively ornamental character ordinarily found in 
spacious gardens, in the front of which, something of the nature of a 
flower-garden is mostly requisite to connect them with the lawns 
beyond. Flower-gardens, particularly geometrical ones, are, we con- 
ceive, seldom appropriate to such spots, being too gay and artificial. 
And it seems to me that a few well-arranged clumps of shrubs would 
accomplish the harmonizing of so subordinate an edifice with the plea- 
sure-grounds much more satisfactorily ; and their fitness will be ren- 
dered the more complete if they are placed on the turf, instead of being 
separated by gravel-walks. 
In the almost universal rejection of shrubs for such objects as have 
been suggested, it appears to have been forgotten that there are species 
which are nearly as dwarf as any herbaceous plant, and which grow as 
compactly, intermingle as readily, carpet the ground as thoroughly, 
and bloom as profusely, and many of them as durably, as the herbaceous 
hardy and exotic species with which beds are always supplied. They 
have, moreover, or at least most of them, the good quality of being ever- 
green, and thus of keeping the earth constantly and agreeably covered. 
Recurring to the disposition of shrubs in frequent groups, made up 
of separate genera and species, it must be done judiciously, as chance 
and fortuity ought to be no part of a landscape gardener’s dependence ; 
and the admission of a principle in which all must rest on these, should 
be rejected. I allow that with American plants, excellent masses may 
be obtained by properly arranging the species of each genus in detached 
groups. Still, there are exceptions to this, and cases in which a mixture 
of different genera is more suitable, and a merely casual departure from 
the system I recommend is justifiable. 
In regard to shrubs that constitute the boundary of a plantation, 
uniting it with the flower-borders, or making it slope towards the walk, 
the existing practice needs to be greatly modified. The assumption 
that plantations of any description should slope gradually down to the 
exterior edge or margin in an unvarying manner, is erroneous in prin- 
ciple, and unsightly in effect. It is to this mistake that the tame 
banks so common round the outside of shrubberies are wholly attri- 
butable; and to this is due their extreme dulness and meagreness. 
The outline of a mass of shrubs, or of trees flanked by shrubs, ought to 
be as diversified as art can make it. Tameness and uniformity are no- 
where less tolerable. Large bushes, projecting forwards at different 
distances from each other and the verge; others, of various heights, 
standing out with the greatest irregularity in their rear ; and occasional 
limited spaces, destitute of any shrub at all, should break up the flat- 
ness of a bank, and make it truly indefinable. 
At the same time, however, there should be the general aspect of a 
descent to the boundary preserved. The irregularity we have adyo- 
