Embellishments 125 



distant walk in the pleasure-grounds, where it would be 

 more necessary that the flower-garden should be in keeping 

 with the surrounding plantations and scenery than with 

 the house. 



Where the flower-garden is a spot set apart, of any regu- 

 lar outline, not of large size, and especially where it is 

 attached directly to the house, we think the effect is most 

 satisfactory when the beds or walks are laid out in sym- 

 metrical forms. Our reasons for this are these: the flower- 

 garden, unlike distant portions of the pleasure-ground 

 scenery, is an appendage to the house, seen in the same 

 view or moment with it, and therefore should exhibit some- 

 thing of the regularity which characterizes, in a greater or 

 less degree, all architectural compositions; and when a 

 given scene is so small as to be embraced in a single glance 

 of the eye, regular forms are found to be more satisfactory 

 than irregular ones, which, on so small a scale, are apt to 

 appear unmeaning. 



The French flower-garden is the most fanciful of the usual 

 modes of laying out the area devoted to this purpose. The 

 patterns or figures employed are often highly intricate, and 

 require considerable skill in their formation. The walks 

 are either of gravel or smoothly shaven turf, and the beds 

 are filled with choice flowering plants. It is evident that 

 much of the beauty of this kind of flower-garden, or indeed 

 any other where the figures are regular and intricate, must 

 depend on the outlines of the beds, or parterres of embroid- 

 ery, as they are called, being kept distinct and clear. To 

 do this effectually, low growing herbaceous plants or border 

 flowers, perennials and annuals, should be chosen, such as 

 will not exceed on an average, one or two feet in height. 



In the English flower-garden, the beds are either in sym- 

 metrical forms and figures, or they are characterized by 

 irregular curved outlines. The peculiarity of these gar- 

 dens, at present so fashionable in England, is, that each 

 separate bed is planted with a single variety, or at most 

 two varieties of flowers. Only the most striking and showy 

 varieties are generally chosen, and the effect, when the selec- 



