PLANTING DESIGN OF PARKS 



Unfortunately, the smaller the park, the greater the tendency to 

 make the planting not only exotic but all-inclusive. The small size of 

 a park is frequently due to a very central location, which thereby makes 

 it the cynosure of many eyes, and a temptation to the planter to make 

 it redound to his personal glory. Let him beware lest it become like 

 the garden of Tartarin where " les cocotiers n'etaient guere plus 

 gros que des betteraves, et le baobab (arbre geant, arbor gigantea) 

 tenait a I'aise dans un pot de reseda." 



HORTICULTURAL SUPPRESSION 



It is advisable that the nmnber of varieties in any one park be 

 kept reasonably limited. No single park, unless it be of very great 

 extent, should serve as a horticultural garden or an arboretum. A 

 park scene is to be viewed, not catalogued. Also, if the kinds of trees 

 and shrubs to be used in a park be kept very limited in number there 

 will be less danger of their being lined up for display like prize animals 

 at a country fair. A large number of varieties results in " dotting." 

 A dot is an accent, and one cannot compose with accents. It would be 

 like an opera score composed of nothing but high notes. Successful 

 park planting must be composed in large masses, the number of 

 varieties kept limited so as to compose as a whole and not as a collec- 

 tion of dots. If there is no idea of composition in a park planting, 

 the effect is bound to be an insensate and inchoate jumble. 



A surprisingly beautiful effect may be obtained in small parks 

 with plantation of shrubs of but one or two varieties, edged with flower- 

 ing perennials of low growth and strong leaf value. A very beau- 

 tiful park in Italy, the Lizzi at Siena, probably has not a dozen 

 varieties of trees and shrubs altogether ; and a planting list of twenty- 

 five names would cover the entire material used, including the flower- 

 ing perennials. The result is not in any sense one of monotony, as 

 might possibly be the case in garden work, but wholly that of park 

 simplicity and unity. 



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