7 



The American Flower Garden 



to let a day labourer compose what should be to them the most 

 important picture of all -- the home garden ? The rule may have 

 sufficiently rare exceptions to prove it, but I have never seen the 

 gardener who, if left to his own devices, would not cut up a lawn 

 into stereotyped flower beds of geometric exactness circles, 

 stars, triangles, squares and ellipses - - and fill them with 

 variegated coleus sheared to a level, or with cannas, or with 

 prim rows of deep pink and purple china asters, or with 

 screaming scarlet geraniums, or with very Dutch bulbs; the 

 tulips or hyacinths invariably arranged in zones of sharply 

 contrasting colours within the same bed. Such excrescences 

 on a fair green lawn can be likened only to pimples on the face 

 of Nature. 



Even the large-minded Thackeray admitted that he liked to 

 be observed by his friends when walking down Piccadilly button 

 holing a duke. Similar gratification seems to elate the gardener 

 who has the proud privilege of serving a gentleman with an 

 imitation deer on his front lawn. The man s ideas of elegance 

 and his fellow gardeners are completely fulfilled by the sight. 

 But, as &quot;the Monarch of the Glen&quot; gazes upon the geometric floral 

 horrors at his feet, no wonder his face wears a chronically startled 

 expression. How far away from nature have men, in their 

 ignorance, departed! And for how many crimes against art out- 

 of-doors are not the seedsmen s catalogues responsible! 



This chapter sings the charms of the naturalistic treatment of 

 a place where unintelligent formality, stereotyped monotony and 

 insincerity cease. It does not encourage the attempt to imitate 

 wild nature on our lawns and about our houses, which would be 

 absurd; but this is not to say, either, that this area may not be 

 treated in the naturalistic spirit or that the wild and rough parts 



