ON THE DISPOSITION AND FORM OF SHRUB BEDS 

 IN THE DRESS GROUND. 



I will next make a few observations on the form and disposition of shrub 

 beds on the lawn about the house and pleasure grounds, which I propose 

 making after the modern system. Shrubs, whether planted in masses, groups, 

 or as single bushes, are not to be estimated merely by the elegance and 

 variety of their forms, or the beauty and fragrance of their blossoms, but as 

 embellishments indispensably necessary for completing the composition or 

 combination of the home, middle, or more remote scenery, and as screens for 

 masking out disagreeable objects. As shrubs naturally thrive best in du" 

 compartments, the beds should be of the neatest forms and of various sizes ; 

 never formal and lumpy, but rather long than otherwise, and with deep 

 hollow bends and bold prominent curves and juts, rather than with numerous 

 indentations; and they should be so arranged as not to appear in a cross 

 direction to one another, especially when near together. Although, too, they 

 may not be exactly opposite each other, yet they should in some degree (as I 

 have said respecting the flower beds) appear parallel, the convex bend of one 

 seeming to fit into the hollow of another, and those beds that are near to the 

 walks harmonizing with the walks. Moreover, all these beds should be 

 so disposed as to associate with each other, rather than be at equal distances 

 all over the lawn, but in a manner to create intricacy, so as not to show the 

 real extent of the ground, and to exhibit some bold and free glades of lawn 

 on which the eye may repose. (See General Plans.) Caution should also be 

 used always to leave the narrowest part of the lawn sufficiently broad for the 

 mower to work on freely, — a tiling not sufficiently attended to by some of our 

 celebrated professors of Landscape Gardening, as may be observed in various 

 publications, as well as in places actually laid out, where in the forms of 

 the beds (as well as in the space between the beds) we find some of the 

 indentations so narrow and deep, that it is impossible to mow them 



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