WHERE TO PLANT WHAT 



In Northampton nearly all of our hundreds of 

 gardens contesting for prizes are plays of only 

 one or two acts. I mean they have only one or 

 two buildings to garden up to and between and 

 around and away from. Yet it is among these 

 one-act plays, these one-house gardens, that I 

 find the art truth most gracefully emphasized, 

 that the best foot should not go foremost. In a 

 large garden a false start may be atoned for by 

 better art farther on and in; but in a small gar- 

 den, for mere want of room and the chance to 

 forget, a bad start spoils all. No, be the garden 

 a prince's or a cottager's, the climaxes to be 

 got by superiority of stature, by darkness and 

 breadth of foliage and by splendor of bloom 

 belong at its far end. Even in the one-house 

 garden I should like to see the climaxes plural 

 to the extent of two; one immediately at the back 

 of the house, the other at the extreme rear of 

 the ground. At the far end of the lot I would 

 have the final storm of passion and riot of dis- 

 closure, and then close about the rear of the 

 house there should be the things of supreme rich- 

 ness, exquisiteness and rarity. 



93 



