74 COMMON SENSE GARDENS 



be useful in suggesting the shape of the garden 

 and the best materials to use for the enclosure, and 

 he may be better able than you to see the possi- 

 bilities of the natural features of the land, because 

 his eye is trained to such work and is ever on the 

 alert. Do not follow his suggestions about plant- 

 ing, however, but do that the first year at least 

 yourself. 



In a garden of the kind under consideration too 

 much conventionality should be avoided. The 

 formality will blend with the semi-wild planting 

 of the garden in such a manner that it will be 

 absorbed. Your own ideas of colour and mate- 

 rial will have full play, just as in the furnishing of 

 any other room of your house where the formal 

 background of walls, windows, trim, mantelpiece 

 and so forth, only serve as a setting for your in- 

 dividual taste in hangings, pictures, rugs and 

 chairs, to say nothing of the minor ornaments. 

 If the same room were left to a decorator to "do" 

 in the style of Louis XV or of Charles I the result 

 would doubtless be very correct, but it would also 

 be very conventional, and you would never feel 

 much at home in it, unless you were in a con- 



