PLANTING DESIGN 173 



the scene is subordinate, like the centuries-old flowering cherry tree in 

 the court of a Japanese temple. A similar composition might ex- 

 ceptionally be made of a magnificent group of flowering shrubs, a 

 fine old oak tree, a weeping mulberry made into a summer house, 

 standing in the midst of a small lawn, protected, and enframed by 

 the boundary plantations. But so great dominance as this in com- 

 position is rarely assumed by a plant form. Specimen trees or shrubs 

 in formal compositions are more commonly well used ranged in rows 

 along a walk or road, standing sentinel on each side of a garden 

 gate or an entrance walk, or giving strength and definiteness to the 

 corner of a bed. In informal or naturalistic compositions, specimens 

 may stand free just off a promontory of a border plantation or they 

 may arise singly or in groups from a projection of the planting which 

 must be emphasized or from an area of planting which must be diversi- 

 fied. In any case, whether in formal or non-formal design, their func- 

 tion is to draw attention to themselves and so to the place where they 

 are, and they should be such and so situated that this attraction of 

 attention makes for harmony and not for restlessness in the whole 

 composition. (See Plate 6.) 



Isolated groups of trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants should be Tree and 

 influenced in their position in the scene by the same general composi- ^^"""^ Groups 

 tional considerations which we have just discussed in relation to speci- 

 men trees, but the group will have less individuality than the specimen, 

 it will be larger on plan in proportion to its height, it can less afford to be 

 very different in appearance from the rest of the composition, and it will 

 therefore be found more often closely related to other groups and to the 

 boundary masses, and playing a less individually dominant part in the 

 composition. One reason for so much of the ugliness of "Capability" 

 Brown's "clumps," was the fact that, occupying important situations, 

 they did not have sufficient individuality of form to be worthy of their 

 place.* 



In naturalistic plantings, equally important with the considerations 

 of pure composition is the consideration of natural relation of the speci- 



* "We have, indeed, made but a poor progress, by changing the formal, but sim- 

 ple and majestic avenue, for the thin circular verge called a belt ; and the unpretending 

 ugliness of the strait, for the affected sameness of the serpentine canal : but the great 



