PLANTING DESIGN 177 



be definitely located. On the other hand, he may get a succession of 

 bloom apparently in the same place, by setting narrow beds of plants 

 at right angles to the view, one behind another, so that each when out 

 of bloom will be concealed from the eye by its neighbor in bloom. 



If the herbaceous bed forms a part of a shrub mass which is informal 

 though not naturalistic, it may be well to have the bright color of the 

 flowers form a definite spot in a composition in which the separate parts 

 of the shrub beds as well may have definite lines of demarcation. In 

 plantations in which there is any considerable feeling of naturalistic 

 design, however, the flower masses may well be blended into each other 

 and into the shrubbery as the shrubbery masses are blended into each 

 other and into the trees. The areas of brilliant color due to the grouped 

 blossoms of any particular kind of plant should be large enough to be 

 effective in the composition, and they may indeed be very large with- 

 out being for that the less natural in appearance, but their edges should 

 not be definite as they commonly are in the beds of a formal garden. 

 Among the shrubs there may be summer lilies and fall asters, and 

 perhaps in front of the shrubs in places not contiguous with the main 

 flower beds there may be little subordinate colonies of bloom. 



A flower bed in a garden should have a boundary with a degree Flower Beds as 

 of definiteness in scale with the whole composition. In a thoroughly * r j f a 

 formal design the beds may be defined in architectural lines by edgings inclosed 

 of stone or brick or concrete. In a less rigid scheme the beds may be 

 edged with grass strips, or even, exceptionally, with rows of small 

 stones. In a consistently loose-textured garden the flowers may, as it 

 were, spill out of the beds on to the walks. This is usually best done 

 when the walks are of brick or stone. A grass edging would be de- 

 stroyed, and a stone edging or anything similar would be at least for a 

 time concealed. Often it seems well to mark the boundary line of the 

 bed by planting, that is, to use some kind of plant edging. This may 

 be something which accents the line and form to the maximum and does 

 little else, for example, box ; or, usually at the sacrifice of some definite- . 

 ness of form, it may itself carry flower, for example, sweet alyssum, iris, O f Plants in 

 peony. Relation to 



The arrangement of plants in a formal bed should be such that the f 

 form of the plants accents the form which is created by the outline of Plants 



