ITALIAN GARDENS. GEOMET1UC GARDENS. H 



gardens are formal in character, edged witli stone (or an 

 imitation of it), and each filled with flowers of one or 

 two kinds. Care and taste in filling the vases are neces- 

 sary, as, if the flowers in them are shabby, it will quite 

 spoil the effect. Plants of a drooping growth, hanging 

 carelessly over the edge of the vases, or light graceful 

 creepers led up the pillars, will assist the general pretty 

 appearance and prevent disagreeable formality. Nume- 

 rous groups of ornamental trees and shrubs should be so 

 placed as to aid the general effect. 



The Geometric Garden, in which the beds appear to 

 have been marked out with rule and compass, to suit 

 which shrubs and evergreens should be kept clipped into 

 form, has given place to the more fanciful symmetrical 

 parterre, in which the beds twist about each other, and 

 fit into each other in set pattern only a degree less for- 

 mal than squares, parallelograms, and triangles. The 

 ancient art of cutting trees and shrubs into curious 

 forms, called Topiary, was done by placing a shape of 

 wirework over the tree to be trimmed, and clipping to it. 



The symmetrical parterre is in small beds, generally of 

 fantastic form, cut out in a lawn or separated by paths. 

 It has of late years become such a favourite that it is now 

 the kind of flower garden most in use of any kind. The 

 beds are of set form, side agreeing with side, and end 

 with end ; and the colouring is massed by planting each 

 little bed with one flower, or with two or three only, set 

 into large patches, or with a centre of one colour and a 

 border of another. In planting this garden the whole 

 of the bed is to be covered, so as to present to the eyo 

 one mass of colour of the shape it bears. Vases placed 

 in set form, and fountains, are in character. In making 

 a plan for a garden of this kind it is well to avoid long 

 sharp angles, and very narrow bits, from the difficulty of 

 keeping the plants within bounds, and also of main- 

 taining the form in clipping the edges. A method that 

 has sometimes been resorted to in diminishing pictures 

 will be found of great help in shaping beds. Draw the 

 plan on paper, taking care that its four quarters, or two 

 sides, as the case may be, agree exactly, which may be 



