240 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



mere blossom-producing machines, we are not likely 

 to be content with any timid use of them. Nor can 

 we content ourselves with a timid use of all those 

 earlier flowering shrubs and trees which make the 

 glory of late spring in large gardens, and in garden 

 cities like Oxford with Hawthorn pink and white, and 

 Laburnum, and Lilac and the Guelder rose, and all 

 the Cherries, and Apples, and Plums. We cannot 

 forgo the rapture and abundance of these any more 

 than we can forgo the innumerable twinkling of Cro- 

 cuses and Squills and Daffodils in the grass. But the 

 question remains, how are we to have them without 

 injuring the other beauties of our gardens; and that 

 question is not easy to answer. Where the garden 

 is very large the problem is easiest. There, flowering 

 shrubs may be planted in broad masses and com- 

 binations on the wilder outskirts, and more sparsely 

 and carefully nearer to the house. An occasional 

 flowering shrub may be placed with artful irregularity 

 even in the most formal parts of a garden. Nothing 

 looks better than a single Hawthorn or Laburnum 

 placed, as if by accident, in the corner of a cloister, 

 and it may be used in the same way in a garden close. 

 But there must be no regularity in the planting of 

 such things, or it will distract the eye from the reg- 

 ularity of the main design. To plant a Hawthorn 

 in each corner of a cloister or a garden close would 

 be a fatal absurdity. What is needed is a contrast 

 between the general order and symmetry and a single 

 beautiful accident, for there should be some one ap- 



