FORMAL GARDENING. 317 



Boundary "Walls. — In formal gai'dening tliere is fre- 

 quently used what is called a lia-ha fence, the object of which 

 is to prevent a view from being interrupted by a wall or 

 c<jmmon fence ; this is made by digging a trench five or six 

 feet deep, and building a wall up to the surface only, and 

 outside the wall the earth is removed altogether in a sloping 

 direction ; so that on the outside any one may walk clown the 

 slope to the foot of the wall, and there he is as far off getting 

 in as he would be if the wall were on the surface, and as 

 much above him. By means of this ha-ha fence we are 

 enabled to appropriate the land beyond the fence to cattle, or 

 to any other purpose, without having the space confined, or 

 the view interrupted, by a wall above the surface. 



In planting these formal gardens, the greatest care must be 

 taken to plant such trees and shrubs as are adapted to keep 

 up a uniform gTOwth ; because, unlike the landscape, where 

 the difference of growth and foUage, however uncouth that 

 growth may be, in some cases rather heightens the natural 

 beauties of wood, the formal garden wants uniform growth — 

 a mixture of wood, imless it be a uniform mixture, would 

 destroy the harmony and keeping of the place ; a clump of 

 shrubs on one side must be opposed by a like clump on the 

 other ; rhododendrons should not only be put opposite rhodo- 

 dendrons, but the like kind of rhododendrons ; and in the 

 management of these uniform clumps the knife must restrain 

 the too vigorous growth of any that, by exuberant shoots, bid 

 fair to spoil the uniformity. After things have attained a 

 tolerable size, and got well hold of the ground, these will not 

 vary much. The clumps of flowers, or rather the flower-beds, 

 must not only be uniform, but they must be furnished in a 

 uniform manner. If there be a round bed on each side, they 

 must be filled with flowers of the same kind and colour. 

 Nine-tenths of the geometrical gardens are spoiled in the 

 planting; for, even in the instructions which some flower 

 gardeners have published, tliere is a direction what to grow in 

 each compartment, mthout the slightest attention to uni- 

 formity of colour ; and we have recently been through a 

 garden where the beds are uniform and not even the colours 

 alike. This borders upon downright ignorance of princijDle, 

 because if we desire uniformity — which we show we do by 

 making the beds uniform — it should be carried out by plant- 

 ing the same things in all corresponding beds. If, for in- 



