PLylNTING DESIGN 



171 



As the two sides of a hedge are parallel, a hedge bounding a formal 

 area is formal also on the outside. This gives rise to a difficulty if the 

 area outside the hedge is not intended to be formal, and the hedge makes 

 a considerable part of its boundary. It becomes necessary to introduce 

 informal planting outside the hedge, in spite of certain difficulties of 

 upkeep which such an arrangement often causes, in order to avoid what 

 would almost certainly be ugly, — a relatively small inclosed area, with 

 nearly half of its inclosure formal and the rest informal. 



When hedges are low enough to be readily seen over, their function Low Hedges 

 in design becomes somewhat different. They no longer bound and '^"^ Edgings 

 terminate the composition, they define and accentuate the boundary 

 between two masses within the same view. (See Tailpiece on p. 23.) 

 Both masses being visible at the same time, both forms must be studied 

 in the composition. The low hedge, or at a still smaller scale the edging, 

 bounds not only the flower bed, but also the grass-plot or path or what- 

 ever other area lies next it. Usually the edging forms a part of the 

 mass of the bed, but, being of a closer texture and more definite form, 

 gives crispness and definition to the bed outline. Sometimes the 

 edging rises higher than the interior of the bed, or is, by its color or 

 density, much more conspicuous than the material of the bed, so that 

 the edging takes on itself a more individual function as a linear unit 

 in the design. Sometimes the edging is so low — as, for instance, a 

 grass edging — that it hardly tells as a part of the planting of the bed, 

 but rather as a definite boundary- to the cultivated soil within it. A 

 conspicuous formal edging may sufficiently formalize a bed, the other 

 plants in which are loose in texture and various in form or color; but 

 close texture and continuity of material are seldom desirable in an 

 edging about an informal mass, and almost never so if there is any 

 naturalistic feeling in the design, as witness the unfortunate treatment 

 in some of the French parks, where a naturalistic shrub and tree group 

 is strangled with a rope of geraniums. 



A single foliage mass, if it is to stand as an independent unit in a Specimen 

 landscape scene, must have of itself unity and individuality to make it Tr"s <ind 

 worthy of its place in the composition. Such individuality may be 

 attained by a mass or close group of plants, as in the case of some shrub 

 masses, tree groups, and notably flower beds, but it is usually more 



