152 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



To design with purpose, therefore, and to express 

 your purpose clearly in your design, is in one way 

 much more difficult than to make an arbitrary arrange- 

 ment of flowers, grass, trees, and shrubs; but in an- 

 other it is much easier. It is more difficult because 

 the main lines of the design must be clearly thought 

 out and fixed before a sod is turned, and because there 

 must be a good reason for all of them. It is easier 

 because, when once these main lines are determined, 

 the details of decoration will be more or less clearly 

 suggested by them, and so the problem of flower and 

 shrub arrangement will be very much simplified. In 

 a garden well planned for use and pleasure there will 

 be room for flowers of all kinds arranged in many 

 different ways. If, for instance, there is a nut walk 

 for shade or any kind of alley made by deciduous 

 trees, there may be Bluebells or Solomon's Seal, or 

 any other suitable flowers, planted naturally under 

 the trees. There will be no incongruity in them merely 

 because the trees are regularly arranged. 



When there is a straight path leading to a summer- 

 house it will be natural to have a border on each side 

 of it, since it is one of the pleasures of a garden to 

 walk between flowers. According to the principles 

 of naturalistic gardening, summer-houses were de- 

 signed to be homes for earwigs rather than for human 

 beings, and, considering their ugliness and incon- 

 venience, it was only right that they should be hidden 

 away, as they usually were, where no one could see 

 them. But if a garden is to contain a summer-house 



