CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE ARCHITECT IN THE GARDEN. 



ARCHITECTS as such have no knowledge of our garden flora, and for 

 ages gardens were disfigured owing to their endeavours to conform 

 trees to the lines of buildings. 



We see something of the work of the architect as a gardener in 

 front of Buckingham Palace; in first of all meaningless stone piers, 

 and then a flower garden out of place, planted with one flower the 

 scarlet Pelargonium. The spot was wholly unfit for a flower garden. 

 There are many flower gardens in the near parks. It was planned 

 to cut up the little park near by and make a spectacular display of 

 architecture out of place, but, fortunately, some men in the " House" 

 heard of it and knocked the scheme on the head. 



The worst outrage on Nature and on Art is the destruction of the 

 forms of our noblest trees. The old gardens, 

 Loss of tree form, many of which still exist, were in the hands of 

 architects who clearly did not know a tree from a 

 shrub, and who planted forest trees in positions where their beauty 

 and stature could not develop, and this led to their distortion 

 through ceaseless clipping. In Vienna may be seen men perched on 

 ladders 50 feet high endeavouring to clip Hornbeam and Beech into 

 hideous shapes. Many English and Scottish gardens are disfigured 

 by our finest evergreen native tree, the Yew, being carved into ugly 

 shapes. With our present wealth of trees and shrubs there is not 

 the slightest reason for putting a forest tree into the flower garden, 

 but every reason against the practice. 



It would be easy to fill a comic journal with the ugly monstrosi- 

 ties of the " Topiarist." Northiam and Levens are among the many 

 gardens disfigured by these distortions of mis- 

 Topiary work. placed forest trees. Topiary work, from beginning 

 to end, is inherited from the architect and his 

 practice of clipping trees to conform to the lines of building. Many 

 places are spoilt for the artist by the hard black lines of Yew, and 

 not a naturally grown Yew to be seen. It is easy to get good 

 dividing lines without disfiguring trees ; lines that call for clipping 

 mean the destruction of all form and grace. The labour and time 



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