Garden design and recent writings upon it 1 5 



thing can be; there is an absolute difference between 

 living gardens and conventional designs dealing with 

 dead matter, be it brick or stone, glass, iron, or carpets. 

 There is a difference in kind, and while any pupil in an 

 architect's office will get out a drawing for the kind of 

 garden we may see everywhere, the garden beautiful 

 does not arise in that way. It is the difference between 

 life and death we have to think of, and never to the end 

 of time shall we get the garden beautiful formed or 

 planted save by men who know something of the earth 

 and its flowers, shrubs, and trees. I would much rather 

 trust the first simple person, who knows his ground and 

 loves his work, to get a beautiful result than any of those 

 artificers. We have proof of this in the gardens of 

 English people abroad that escape from the too facile 

 plans of the office ; far more beautiful gardens arise, as 

 in the Isle of Madeira, where every garden differs from 

 its neighbour and all are beautiful. So it is in a less 

 degree in our islands, where the more we get out of the 

 range of any one conventional idea for the garden the 

 more beauty and freshness and happy incident we see. 



