THE THEORY OF GARDEN DESIGN 145 



so far as it concerns the arrangement of plants, and 

 then at once he finds that the naturalistic theory fails 

 him. He cannot imitate nature in the arrangement 

 of plants that have their native homes in different 

 continents and may never have made each other's 

 acquaintance until they meet in his garden, and, if 

 he attempts no arrangement at all, he will find that 

 he has produced a chaos far uglier than the worst 

 failures of nature, which are often ugly enough 

 the kind of chaos which is found in the ordinary mixed 

 shrubbery of a suburban garden. It is plain, there- 

 fore, that even the gardener who cares for nothing 

 but his flowers, and thinks of his garden only as a 

 place to grow flowers in, must yet consider design, if 

 he is to display them to the best advantage. The 

 original and true meaning of design is merely pur- 

 pose. The gardener who designs his garden has an 

 aesthetic purpose, and therefore goes further than 

 nature, which, in the arrangement of plants, so far 

 as we can tell, has no aesthetic purpose at all. But 

 directly he begins to consider the design, even if he 

 consider it only from the point of view of his flowers, 

 he will find that he can have no design without some 

 degree of formality. He wishes, for instance, for some 

 contrast between two plants of very different char- 

 acter, so that the beauty of both may be enhanced. 

 That contrast will probably be insignificant in only 

 one example. He must either, therefore, repeat it 

 at intervals along a border, or else emphasize it by 

 the use of a good many plants of the two contrasting 



