xiv INTRODUCTION 



The third matter to be dealt with is the character of 

 garden flowers; and this is more controversial even 

 than the first two. The writer's remarks on this sub- 

 ject have already provoked some controversy and met 

 with more agreement. He repeats them here because 

 they are based upon the general principles which he 

 has tried to express in all his theoretical articles, and 

 because they still seem to him as true as when he 

 first wrote them. But we will begin first with the 

 most important matter, and that is 



THE PLANNING OF GARDENS 



Nothing in gardening is so difficult as the planning 

 of a garden; and it is peculiarly difficult now, because 

 we are still in the midst of a revolution, a return to 

 nature, which has upset all the old ideas and conven- 

 tions of garden design both good and bad. This re- 

 turn to nature has done much good in destroying 

 some of the worst fashions of fifty years ago. It has 

 taught us to love plants for their natural beauty and 

 to grow them so that their natural beauty may be 

 shown to the best advantage. It has, indeed, revived 

 the whole art of horticulture, which in the gardens of 

 the rich had shrunk, a generation or two ago, into the 

 cultivation of a few dull bedding plants under the 

 most unnatural conditions. But it has not taught us, 

 nor can it teach us, the art of garden design. For a 

 garden is, and always must be, something quite dif- 

 ferent from a wild paradise of flowers, and no art can 

 turn it into one. Flower borders are artificial things, 



