BALANCE IN THE GARDEN 



such thing as the "wild garden," that the name 

 is a contradiction of terms. The one thing I do 

 maintain is that advice, the very best advice, is 

 the prime necessity: for those who can afford it, 

 the fine landscape architect; for those who can- 

 not, the criticism or counsel of some friend or ac- 

 quaintance whose experience has been wider than 

 their own. The time is sure to come when experts 

 in the art of proper flower-grouping alone will be 

 in demand. 



There is no doubt about it, our grandmothers 

 were right when they preferred to see a vase on 

 each side of the clock ! With a given length of 

 shelf and a central object on that shelf, one's in- 

 stinct for equahzing calls for a second candlestick 

 or bowl to balance the first. My meaning may 

 be illustrated by a recent picture in "The Cen- 

 tury Magazine" of Mrs. Tyson's beautiful garden 

 at Berwick, Maine. Charming as is this lovely 

 garden-vista, with its delightful posts in the fore- 

 ground, repeating the lines of slim poplar in the 

 middle distance, it would have given me much 

 more pleasure could those heavy-headed white or 

 pale-colored phloxes on the right have had a per- 

 fect repetition of their effective masses exactly 

 opposite — directly across the grass walk. These 

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