CHAPTER XXXIV. 



DESIGN IN PLANTING. 



IN a book on the English Flower Garden and Home Landscape it 

 is quite in place to deal with the elementary mistakes made in 

 landscape even in the best parts of the home counties. That little 

 thought is given to so important a matter is seen when unmeaning 

 clumps are planted in the middle of park-like spaces, in iron fences 

 where live fences should be, in the laying down of roads and walks 

 many times too many, in stretches of fine landscape shut out by trees. 

 It is nothing extravagant to say that the beauty of half the country 

 places in England is hidden from view by over-planting and 

 thoughtlessness. 



Who is to help? I believe the best results can only be got by 

 the owner who knows and loves his ground. The greatest evil is the 

 stereotyped plan, the results of which are evident 

 Design in on all sides. But the man must love the work 

 planting. and know one tree from the other, and feel that 

 his pictures can only come from constant thought 

 as to the ground itself. Lessons? Yes, from Nature mainly. A 

 few days in one of the valleys in the Tyrol or any beautiful mountain 

 land will tell us more than many books, also pictures of the great 

 landscape painters like Corot, Daubigny, Constable, and R. Wilson 

 when free of the conventions of his day. The breadth, air, forms, 

 foreground, and values that interest painters, the atmosphere of 

 Corot, skies of Diaz, water of Daubigny, and Nature's trees, land- 

 scape, and atmosphere should teach us much. It is ours to make 

 such use of them as will give us better pictures than ever were 

 painted. 



This must be studied in the way of the good leader of soldiers, 

 and there is also the quality of the soil to be thought of, as soil 

 useless for rich cultivation may give us fine trees. 

 The lie of the With hardy trees in the landscape, views, air, 

 ground. and distances also must be studied, not only in 



the place but from it to the neighbourhood. 

 There is no organised profession to help. Any one may call him- 

 self a landscape gardener ; a navvy who has some experience 



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