22 LANDSCAPE GARDEN SERIES 



other architectural features as rippling fountains and urns and statues 

 placed against shrubbery and trees for accent. The whole arrange- 

 ment was such as to set off or display such decorative and unusual 

 plant material as weeping trees and shrubs, bright foliage, such as 

 golden syringa, and copper and purple beeches. 



A Victorian house with its decorative horticultural style of land- 

 scape gardening (the enclosed type) left little to the imagination and 

 when occupied with tracing out the winding paths the visitor's attention 

 was seldom allowed to wander to open country views. The style be- 

 came a good fore-runner to the name "Show Place," that was for 

 many years the achievement that the nurseryman held up to the owners 

 of country places as the one thing that was desired. 



To steep oneself in tradition and then to set to work to invent new 

 forms which shall be guided by the principles and contain within them- 

 selves the boundaries of the old, is the right method in designing land- 

 scapes, and is the only way to design successfully. This makes for a 

 continuity of tradition and leads one away from a too exclusive study 

 of nature and an attempt at imitating natural scenery with unsuitable 

 materials where conditions are not fitting for such imitation. 



A certain arrangement of trees and shrubs as arranged by nature 

 may look well within the midst of natural conditions, but when trans- 

 ferred to the middle of a city loses its real meaning. Rocks, as 

 arranged by nature, have a meaning different from a grouping of stones 

 aided by cement and an unnatural grading of the soil unless the scale 

 of the problem is such both by size and use as to warrant the particular 

 scenic effect. 



In landscape architecture, as in all other art, there have been periods 

 when the traditions and great designs of the past have been forgotten 

 in an attempt to invent a new style. The real reason for this has 

 been a lack of real understanding of the underlying principles of 

 design, by the so-called landscape designer, rather than a deliberate 

 attempt for originality. These several "styles" can be traced directly 

 to an attempt to emphasize some feature, such as horticultural material, 

 and the resulting style known as the "decorative" in which we have 

 an arrangement of plants for themselves alone as in the "clump", "belt" 

 and "dot" system of planting and the present or "natural" type, in 



