20 4 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



planned in due relation to its needs and the taste of the owner. 

 The flower garden was laid out in simple beds as shown on 

 the plan, and below these the necessary grass walks lead out 

 towards the open country. Once free of the flower garden and 

 the walks leading to it the ground took its natural disposition 

 again. The kitchen garden had been in its present place originally ; 

 its position could not be changed, and was therefore accepted and 

 walled round with Oak. The whole garden is quite distinct from 

 any other, which in itself is a great point. This garden was, as I 

 think all gardens ought to be, marked out on the ground itself 

 without the intervention of any plan. A plan is always a feeble 

 substitute for the ground, and even if made with the greatest care 

 and cost, has still to be adapted to the ground. The plan shown in 

 the engraving was made after my work was done. 



The new flower garden at Shrubland Park is situated exactly in 

 front of the house and tells its own story. The plan shows the 

 simple form of beds adopted, planned to suit their 

 Shrubland Park, places, in lieu of the complex pattern beds for 

 carpet bedding, sand, coloured brick, and also the 

 change from such gardening to true flower gardening. The names 

 of the plants used are printed in position, but the actual way of 

 grouping cannot well be shown in such a plan the plants are not in 

 little dots, but in easy, bold groups here and there running together. 

 The flower gardening adopted is permanent, i.e., there is no moving 

 of things in the usual wholesale way in spring and autumn. The beds 

 are planted to stay, and that excludes spring gardening of the 

 ordinary kind. But many early spring flowers are used .in the garden, 

 the mainstay of which is summer and autumn flowers, the period 

 chosen for beauty being that when the house is occupied and all 

 beautiful hardy flowers from Roses to Pansies that flower from May 

 to November are those preferred. There is no formality or repetition 

 in the flower planting but picturesque groups, here and there running 

 together, and sometimes softened by dwarf plants running below 

 the taller ones. The beds are set in a pleasant lawn, and there is 

 easy access to them in all directions from the grass. The area of 

 gravel was much greater in the old plan than in the present one, in 

 which what is essential only for free access to the garden is given. 



Bearing in mind the conventional bareness and hardness of the 



common garden of our own day, there is no improvement greater 



than results from breaking into this by permanent 



An evergreen planting of things of a bushy kind. The plan of 



flower garden, this garden shows a choice evergreen garden 



instead of the usual summer planting and autumnal 



death. The beds are simple and planted with choice shrubs, not 



