146 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



kinds, arranged together in one place. In either case 

 there will be some formality in his arrangement. 

 Some of the most eloquent advocates of natural gar- 

 dening have devised the most elaborate and often 

 excellent schemes for the planting of borders, and, 

 the better their schemes are, the more formality there 

 is in them. They protest against the word formality, 

 because it makes them think of carpet bedding and 

 ribbon borders; but these are only coarse and art- 

 less examples of formality. A fine formal design does 

 not catch the eye and drag it along a long line of dis- 

 cordant colours. It has its splendours and its quiet 

 places, its multitudinous and solitary beauties, its 

 contrasts and its harmonies both of form and of colour, 

 like a picture by Titian. It may not look formal, 

 but, if it is both restful and exciting to the eye, rais- 

 ing expectations only to gratify them, we may be 

 sure, and we shall discover by a little analysis, that 

 it has a formal basis, like a great piece of music that at 

 a first hearing may seem to be a wilderness of beauti- 

 ful sound. The present writer has always found that 

 any arrangement of plants which has struck him by 

 its beauty has been based upon the repetition of cer- 

 tain dominant features, and such a basis is formal, 

 although it is also found in the best effects of nature. 

 Nature supplies motives for design as she supplies 

 material, but because they are accidental in her we 

 are not to suppose that they will come by accident 

 in the garden. So far we have spoken only of design 

 in the arrangement of flowers, on the assumption 



