no The Landscape Gardening Book 



specimen, in a garden or for the adornment of grotmds, is an 

 anomaly. Groionds are not adorned nor ornamented by shrubs 

 of this kind, for it is the shrub itself which holds attention vmder 

 these circumstances. Wonder and perhaps a certain crude ad- 

 miration are excited by it — but the idea of the place as a whole, or 

 of a garden, is lost sight of completely. There is no impression 

 of charm and beauty resting upon all ; of a dwelling rising from 

 a suitable setting ; of an outdoors that appeals and satisfies ; of 

 a picture that is complete. These things are all sacrificed to a 

 monstrous something calculated to draw an astonished "oh!" 

 from the beholder. 



With the resolution always to mass " shrubs" until they form 

 "shrubbery" and to always plant them so near together that 

 they will interfere and encroach upon each other outrageously, 

 firmly and immovably fixed so that nothing can shake it, let us 

 examine first the points that come up in laying out the ground 

 plan of such border or mass. The ground plan naturally takes 

 precedence whether it be gardening or architecture that one is 

 engaged upon; consequently it is upon that that the gardener 

 must concentrate in the beginning. 



Regularity, so far as that implies planting in rows or squares, 

 is of course to be avoided in an informal shrubbery border. 

 But haphazard, grotesque, zig-zagging is not the way to avoid 

 it, neither is what nurserymen call "staggering." A carefully 

 worked out plan is the only way, with an equally careful transfer 

 of it from the paper to the ground. Such a plan is made by 

 first drawing in lightly the general large curves, representing the 

 inner line of the shrubbery — the line next to the lawn. It is 

 assumed of course that the plot to be planted has been laid oif to 

 scale on the drawing paper, with all existing features shown. 



Then, starting at either end, the first shrubs are located at 



