302 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



of walk and road making, a jobbing gardener, and others without 

 any training may offer to do the work. 



But how are we to know a landscape gardener? By this sign 

 among others that he will study the ground first and bring no 

 plan in his pocket. Office plans are poor substitutes for the thing 

 itself, but the custom of plans on paper is so fixed that it is not easy 

 to get this truth accepted. There can be no true work in landscape 

 save by one who knows trees by heart, and there is no royal road 

 to that knowledge save by life study. 



The relationships of nurserymen to garden design is a delicate 



one. A nurseryman's business is a wholly different one, and an 



honourable one, and if he does his own work well 



Nurserymen and he has not the time to act as a designer of gardens. 



garden design. And in his case where is the control which should 



be exercised in all expensive work ? 



The garden designer should be free to go anywhere for his 

 trees and plants. No one nursery has half the plants or trees he 

 may require. He should not accept a fee from any tradesman and 

 should be paid only by his employer, whilst free to reject all goods 

 supplied which he does not think as specified, just as the trust- 

 worthy architect rejects all inferior building material. Professional 

 control is as essential in this as in any other work, and happy is the 

 owner who himself takes a living interest in trees and landscape 

 views, as he will save himself from stereotyped designs and bad 

 planting. All trees have historical associations, form and habits, 

 likes and dislikes, which should be known to one hoping to get from 

 their use any artistic result. 



The most evident mistake made in design of landscape work 



is the want of repose or breadth seen in so many parks and 



pleasure grounds. In the Home Counties one can 



Breadth and scarcely see a piece of modern park land with- 

 repose. out the trees being in rings and in dots here and 



there spoiling all the breadth and simplicity of the 

 scene. Such planting spoils landscape effect, does no good to the 

 trees, and the dots are too small for shelter. The best way by far 

 is to keep such green spaces open and plant ground that is no 

 good for Grass or Arable. Sometimes a single Pine spoils the middle 

 of a lawn or an oak tree the middle of a ploughed field. The 

 lawn-like beauty of park or garden is the most precious thing we have 

 for giving us air, sky, and space, and grouping and massing is the 

 right way. 



How to remove the defect in park-like ground is difficult, but one 

 may unite two or three groups into one whole, and so get rid of the 

 spotty effect, but often the best way is to remove the dotted trees and 



