Shrubs 113 



have the instinct which adopts the right form and rejects the 

 others. The diagram appended shows the principle, and the 

 manner in which the plan serves as a guide to the profile. 

 Notice that wherever the border deepens on the groimd, it rises 

 higher in the elevation. By determining the grovmd plan first 

 therefore, the elevation will rise from it almost automatically, 

 with no trouble to the designer and no confusion. And a glance 

 at the elevation shows exactly where the tallest and the lowest 

 shrubs must stand, and the intermediate ones as well. 



Make your plan therefore first, in rough sketch form; then 

 develop the elevation or profile above it on the paper — this for 

 convenience in carrying the distances and lines directly from one 

 to the other — and then proceed to the planting detail. This 

 matter of lines and forms sotmds very dry and technical I know 

 when one is longing for lilacs and roses and all the summer's 

 sweetness, and I can well imagine the impatience with which 

 many a heart will bum at the idea of calculating beauty in so 

 tinpoetical a fashion. 



But the most careful calculation is all that genius is. really 

 — an "infinite capacity for taking pains" — and no lovely garden 

 ever just happened. I have said it before but it will bear repeat- 

 ing, many a time and oft. For it is so little reahzed — and so 

 true. Consciously or unconsciously the creator of every beautiful 

 garden has calculated every effect of line as well as color, of back- 

 ground as well as foreground, of light and of shade. 



And so I have placed the emphasis on plan and line especially, 

 for just the reason that the thought of them is so hateful to so 

 many. They are classified in the adult mind about as scales, 

 and five-finger exercises, and grammar are in the mind of the 

 child — things to be slid over and gotten around by hook or crook 

 if possible. But you cheat yourself on your garden, by such 



