CHAPTER II 



NOTES ON THE PLANNING OF THE LITTLE 

 GARDEN * 



THE designer of the great garden has always this much 

 in his favour. The activities of time and the destroyer 

 have been great, but many examples remain of what 

 was done in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

 Despite change of fashion and the ravages made by 

 the Landscape School, there remain scores of noble 

 gardens, such as St. Catherine's Court, Montacute, 

 Westbury-on-Severn and Levens Hall, which show fit 

 surroundings for a great house, and illustrate the 

 growth of garden design. With the little garden it is 

 otherwise. Very few perfect old gardens laid out in 

 small space have survived. It is true there is the 

 exquisite hillside treatment at Owlpen Manor, but the 

 site is unusual, and the wonderful effect is achieved 

 mainly by yew hedges, perhaps two centuries old. 

 Gay little cottage gardens in English villages make 

 their appeal by serried ranks of brilliant hollyhocks and 

 simple borders of bright herbaceous plants, with per- 

 haps a peacock in yew standing sentinel by the road- 

 side gate, rather than by success in conscious design. 

 Like the little house which it serves, the little garden 

 of to-day presents a new problem, for both are the pro- 



* By Lawrence Weaver. Reprinted from Country Life, 

 October 24th, 1914. 

 12 



