8 THE BOOK OF GARDEN DESIGN 



successor, what do we find ? That the greater part of 

 what we have read is calculated to perplex rather than 

 help, and in the end leave us no whit better able to form 

 opinions as to the right and wrong way of setting about 

 our own business. Putting aside all minor considera- 

 tions, and looking at the matter in the broadest and 

 simplest light, there are, and have been from time im- 

 memorial, but two styles of garden design. On the one 

 hand, we have the artificial, on the other, the natural. 

 The first is generally the offspring of the professional 

 designer, the paper planner, the lover of architectural 

 features, the supporter of the makers of fountains, 

 terracing and statuary. The second can in its truest 

 form emanate only from the garden lover, the man who 

 grows flowers and trees for the sake of their individual 

 beauty, and strives with the materials which Nature 

 lavishly supplies, to make a picturesque and beautiful 

 enclosure near his dwelling. From this it must not be 

 inferred that architectural adornments are wrong, or that 

 a garden can be made in any situation without their aid. 

 The contrary is the case. On a sloping hillside, a garden 

 may only be possible by the aid of terracing : an unin- 

 teresting corner may be redeemed by a well-placed sun- 

 dial or statue : a simple fountain, with the music of its 

 falling water, may by its presence give pleasure during 

 the long summer days. But in spite of all, architectural 

 features must ever be the exception, not the rule, in the 

 well ordered garden, and it is only when they are really 

 needed to further our scheme of "lawn and tree, flower 

 and shrub deftly interwoven," that there is the slightest 

 excuse for introducing them. 



There can be nothing more distressing to the garden 

 artist than the idea of making gardens to a stock plan. 

 We are not dealing in wall-papers, ornamental tiles or 

 mosaic work when we undertake the laying out of a 

 garden ; to this day there are many who think that the 



