GARDEN IMPROVEMENTS 171 



carry out, and he can alter it if necessary when he has 

 gained more skill. 



I am all against elaborate garden improvements. A 

 garden may be spoilt by over elaboration. Simplicity 

 is quite as important as originality, and improvements are 

 not worthy of their name if they lead to undue elabora- 

 tion or complexity of design. Labyrinths of paths add 

 considerably to the complexity of the garden, and in many 

 cases it would be a great improvement to do away with 

 all except those that are absolutely necessary. Com- 

 plexity of the curves outlining borders is bad ; it is often 

 an improvement to simplify them and make them more 

 sweeping and continuous. Complexity in the shape of 

 beds, such as lawn beds is also bad. Beds of all shapes 

 in a small piece of grass look unsightly ; better have them 

 all some fairly simple shape. They are then not only 

 easier to plant, but easier to get the mowing machine 

 round. 



In Chapter XVI I said that paths should wind in and 

 out of flower borders, that they should curve one way 

 and curve back. This is simplicity itself, so long as it 

 is not overdone and the paths are not curved sharply 

 and doubled backwards and forwards unnaturally. 



Summer Thought on Winter Work : In the autumn and 

 winter the gardening papers often print a good deal of 

 matter dealing with garden improvements, but it seems to 

 me that while these times are the best periods for carrying 

 out such improvements, the summer months are the only 

 time when they should be planned. 



This, perhaps, applies less to structural alterations such 

 as the making of paths, the building or extending of the 

 rock-garden, and the position of garden steps. But it holds 

 good in the replanting of flower borders, the extension of 

 existing borders, the re-arrangement of shrubberies, and 

 the placing of new arches, poles, or pergolas. These 

 should be thought out in the summer. 



It requires an old hand to plan good alterations and 

 improvements without first seeing the existing state of 



