32 COME INTO THE GARDEN 



going to deal; for the conventional planting is 

 so well known that time spent in advice con- 

 cerning it would be wasted. 



First, let us take the attitude that the ground 

 plot, or plot of ground, right up to its bound- 

 aries, is a plane or flat surface whereon some 

 interesting motif is to be executed. Regard it 

 in the same way that the cover of a book or the 

 top of a box or any other sharply defined object 

 would be regarded, if it fell to your lot to orna- 

 ment such; disregard entirely at first the fact 

 that it is ground, that it is your suburban lot. 



It is not necessary to be an artist, nor even a 

 student of design, in order to observe one or two 

 things concerning it which are fundamentals. 

 One of these is the presence of a border in all de- 

 signs of definite limitation. All-over patterns 

 lack the border, but other designs, if they are 

 good ones, do not. It may be only a broad line 

 or a series of parallel lines, but it is invariably 

 present when the design is made to conform to 

 a certain place and space and form, framing the 

 figures of it, holding them strongly together. 

 So a border must confine the design that is to 

 be executed upon the ground. What this border 

 is to be made of need not be considered just yet; 

 that there is to be an inclosure of one kind or an- 

 other, a definite and defensive barrier between 



