THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



"naturalistic" planting is as sure to look artificial as rouge 

 on a woman's face. I remember a place on which the owner 

 had spent millions, where an irregular "natural" boundary 

 was interpreted by a succession of huge scallops, purple Prunus 

 Pissardii at the points, golden elder in the centre, where a 

 "loose undergrowth of rhododendrons" was represented by 

 stuffing the space under lovely roadside trees with highly 

 colored hybrid rhododendrons of wildly dissimilar colors, as 

 tightly packed as bunched asparagus. To imitate nature 

 isn't the simplest thing in any art. In gardening as elsewhere 

 it requires rare skill. 



Sometimes these differing view-points are united, and we 

 have the grounds harmonized with the landscape by skilful 

 planting, while next the house is the garden proper, definitely 

 enclosed (with hedge or wall or whatever one likes best), while 

 from the outside the fact that it is enclosed may be disguised 

 by planting. 



The chief value of the "naturalistic" planting lies in con- 

 cealing the limitations of a place and making it look far more 

 extensive than it really is in making one feel that the grounds 

 are closed in by woodland into which one might go if he liked, 

 rather than by the hard and fast borders of a "lot." In this 

 veiling and enhancing of distances the Japanese are past 

 masters, and it is from them that we shall have to learn the 

 art. 



In making an irregular boundary the important considera- 

 tion is, How far from the house is the boundary? How 

 dressed, in character, are the grounds ? Because planting that 

 looks admirable from a distance seems near at hand ragged and 

 unkempt, while a planting of shrubs well enough for a fifty- 

 foot suburban yard is hopelessly inadequate at a hundred and 

 fifty yards. The Judas-tree, for instance (which some land- 



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