268 COMMON SENSE GARDENS 



and in them the use of pleached trees and shrubs 

 was carried to extremes, as it was in the time of 

 Pliny the Younger, when there was more excuse, 

 for cultivated flowers were rare. 



In England, in the seventeenth century, gardens 

 became more important than they had ever been 

 before and enormous sums of money were expended 

 on their design and upkeep. The Italian fad was 

 overdone in many instances, as most fads are, and 

 when finally it died many of the inappropriate in- 

 novations were eradicated and only the most sub- 

 stantial and worthy retained. These were the 

 terraces, the balustrades, the flights of steps and 

 the fantastically clipped trees, which in time be- 

 came identified with features that were developed 

 from the mediaeval closes, such as the walls, the 

 marking out by definite boundaries, the green 

 walks, the alleys, the covered paths and knottes 

 of flowers, the labyrinths, the mazes, fountains, 

 etc., that are familiar sights in the English gardens 

 of to-day. 



The most striking thing about the English gar- 

 den is its substantialness, its obliviousness to the 

 march of Time. Fads of garden-making have come 



