USE AND ABUSE OF EVERGREENS 159 



the arborvitse, which is sometimes called white 

 cedar, and the red cedar — the first being Thuya 

 occidentalis and the second Juniperus communis. 

 Out of the countless nursery varieties of these it 

 is possible to get a considerable variation in ap- 

 pearance — if this were desirable. But variation 

 of this character is exactly what the best stand- 

 ards of planting avoid, for reasons which I will 

 try to make clear, though standards are some- 

 times difficult things to explain definitely. Just 

 why one thing is good while another is bad 

 positively defies expression in words, now and 

 then. 



But in general I think a safe guide in garden 

 standards is the sense of repose. No design or 

 planting which is not restful and unobtrusive, 

 is good; and no design that is dominated by con- 

 trasts is either of these. Above all else indeed a 

 garden must have unbroken mass — not kaleido- 

 scopic variety; and it must be true mass, else 

 it will almost certainly degenerate into mess. 

 The groups of small evergreens of which I spoke 

 at the beginning of the chapter, for example, are 

 called masses by their advocates and admirers 

 — and they are of course a mass of evergreens. 

 But they are all different in kind; therefore they 

 are not what I term a true mass. To be this the 

 group must be confined to one variety only. 



