Garden design and recent writings upon it 5 



in like spaces by the gardeners of Nebuchadnezzar, 

 judging by what evidence remains to us. He no more 

 than I mistook bad carpets for flowers, but enjoyed vine 

 and fig and flower as Heaven sent them. All this weari- 

 some misunderstanding comes from writers not taking 

 the trouble to grasp the simplest elements of what they 

 write about. 



The flower garden near the house is for the ceaseless 

 care and culture of many and diverse things, often tender 

 and in need of protection, in varied and artificial soils, 

 staking, cleaning, trials of novelties, study of colour 

 effects lasting many weeks, sowing and movings at all 

 seasons. The wild garden, on the other hand, is for 

 things that take care of themselves in the soil of the 

 place, things which will endure for generations if we 

 suit the plants to the soil, like Narcissi on a rich orchard 

 bottom, or blue Anemone in a grove on the limestone in 

 Ireland. The garden is a precious aid to the flower 

 garden, inasmuch as it allows of our letting the flower 

 garden do its best work because relieved of the intoler- 

 able needs of the ' bedding ' system in digging up the 

 garden twice a year. 



Misuse of terms. Very often terms of gardening are 

 misapplied, confusing the mind of the student, and the 

 air is now full of the 'formal' garden. For ages gardens 

 of simple form have been common without any one call- 

 ing them 'formal' until our own time of too many words 

 confusing thoughts. Seeing an announcement that there 

 was a paper in the Studio on the ( Formal Garden in 

 Scotland', I looked into it, seeking light, and found only 

 plans of the usual approaches necessary for a country 

 house, for kitchen, hall door, or carriage-way. We 

 gardeners of another sort do not get in like the bats 



