i82 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



slightly different colors, and of subdued hues ; but all this is no excuse 

 for the raucous color discords which we so frequently see in public gardens 

 and parks and often too in private parterres, which may be avoided 

 by any designer with a color sense, since the plants of which the beds 

 are made are well known and their color is predictable with sufficient 

 accuracy. 



It is perfectly legitimate that the shapes in this flat decoration 

 should represent something, should have some significance and asso- 

 ciation of their own, but the associations of the different units should be 

 reasonably congruous and the shapes and colors produced by these 

 pictures or insignia in flowers must still form harmonious parts of the 

 shape and the color of the whole design. Our parks are full of instances 

 where the gardener was so much interested in each pictorial or emblem- 

 atic composition for itself that his total design has in effect no unity 

 except that of a museum of curiosities. 

 Ground In naturalistic scenes the use of low-growing ground cover is subject 



^°^'^ in a general way to the same considerations that apply to the taller- 



growing shrubs and herbaceous plants, but the smaller materials give 

 the designer an opportunity to display and enhance the modeling of the 

 ground and at the same time to give an additional interest and to 

 differentiate area from area by a choice of different and appropriate 

 ground-covering plants. A bed of ferns may grace the foot of a rock, 

 or a mat of partridge vine run over it, the darkness of a dell may be 

 made deeper by a carpet of blue-green myrtle, a sunny open space may 

 be made still brighter by the yellow green of moneywort. The choice 

 of ground cover in naturalistic design is likely to be motived much 

 more by suitability to the growing conditions and the landscape char- 

 acter than by considerations of the form relations of the areas dif- 

 ferentiated by this planting. (See Plates 3 and 20.) 

 Turf The commonest ground cover throughout our works of landscape 



design in moist climates is turf. Having an inconspicuous texture 

 and a most restful color, it subordinates itself to the surface which it 

 covers. It serves as a harmonizing background against which flower 

 beds, shrub masses, tree groups, or structures are relieved. (See Plate 

 30.) Together with paths, in formal garden designs, it makes a definite 

 but subordinate ground work of the pattern in which the flower beds 



