CHAPTER IX 

 HOW TO INSURE TASTEFUL EXPRESSION 



AS it is the purpose here to bring before the reader that informa- 

 tion which will best serve him in the proper development of 

 the grounds it would seem that a few "don'ts" might help to 

 prevent a few of the most common mistakes that are made. 



Much the same as in painting a picture, part of the art in garden- 

 ing consists of that ability of realizing when the picture has reached 

 that point where the requirements of composition are satisfied and where 

 proceedure has to be made with caution that the picture may reach per- 

 fection rather than be harmed by the addition of new and inharmonious 

 colors and elements. 



To see and understand what is meant by harming the appearance 

 of the place and street in general, one only needs to drive along any 

 residential street where numerous mistakes and inharmonious practices 

 will be revealed. 



Where there is little opportunity to have any thing in the way of 

 flowers and plants it seems that one's natural tendency is to choose 

 something striking in form or color. The most elementary expression 

 in design makes its appearance in the cherished flower beds which 

 appear on either side of the front walk with both beds gorgeously set 

 off by an edging of sea shells or a painted wire fence. 



Although many of the expressions of that desire to have flowers 

 and plants may take a garish or crude form, it is often the case that the 

 source of the inspiration and the idea expressed is most often taken 

 from some public area or from some supposedly fine grounds. Is it 

 little wonder that) when some man creates a lavish effect by having 

 great beds of red and yellow cannas scattered over his lawn that he 

 influences others and impresses them so thoroughly that the canna-grow- 

 ing industry is given great impetus? 



Simplicity is always the keynote of beauty, and if simplicity is 

 combined with good taste it will mean the doing away with such things 

 as the round geranium bed, the pyramidal rock pile of Gibraltar 

 strength, the iron hitching post, other iron effigies, all of which have 

 their proper place in a museum as examples of an age gone past. Why, 

 oh why, must any old receptacle that will hold dirt be used for a 



