HOUSES AND GARDENS 



house are often still further depleted by the hire of the professed gardener, 

 whose ideas of gardening as an art are expressed in terms of bedding-out and 

 general grooming, clipping and tidying. For such a household the best type 

 of garden would be one which maintained its beauty with a minimum 

 expenditure of labour. The growing of vegetables, in most cases where the 

 labour is not supplied by the householder, will be found to be somewhat an 

 expensive luxury. The lawn, too, will demand constant attention to keep it 

 in order. Gravel paths will require weeding, and hardy annuals will require 

 the preparation of the soil, the sowing of seed, and the removal of the 

 plants after they have flowered. The whole situation seems to point to the 

 natural or wild garden, with those departures that may justify themselves by 

 their usefulness or beauty, secured without undue cost of maintenance. A 

 visit paid to a copse in the spring, carpeted with primroses and anemones, 

 followed by blue-bells, and later with groups of foxgloves, may, perhaps, 

 suggest the thought that this kind of beauty can only be outdone by garden- 

 ing of the more ambitious kind when it is at its very best. The woodland 

 copse, moreover, demands absolutely no labour, and is a product of Nature 

 unassisted by the art of man. 



And so the small householder, in forming his garden, will do well to take 

 Nature into his counsels and make a virtue of developing the local character- 

 istics of his land. 



On sunny hills, where purple heather grows, purple heather shall be the 

 dominant note in his garden scheme ; or by the sea, the thrift which blooms 

 on the cliff shall be invited to lend its pink blossoms to edge his paths ; and 

 Nature, thus included in the garden, will be assisted and directed and raised 

 to the nth power, so that it will seem but the apotheosis of the beauty of 

 the country-side, and by the help of man in the battle for survival the coarser 

 weeds will be severely handicapped. On these principles it will be possible 

 to secure a garden which does not require constant grooming, and, once 

 established, will take care of itself. Whatever labour may be given to it will 

 be an investment repaid with compound interest, instead of that futile 

 tidying and clipping which must be constantly repeated to keep Nature 

 at bay. 



But, apart from the wild garden, the orchard must find a place in the 

 type of garden suggested for the smaller house. The trees, once planted in 

 the grass, will require but little attention. Few things are more beautiful 

 than the masses of blossom in the spring or the ripened fruit in the autumn. 

 Under the trees the grass need not be constantly mown, and if the crop of 

 hay is not profitable, it will at least repay for the labour of the scythe. In 

 the spring the drifts of daffodils and crocuses will show to much greater 

 advantage than if planted in flower-beds, where, on the bedding-out system, 

 it will be necessary to remove them to make room for the next garden 

 effect. It is in the orchard that use and beauty are most happily wedded, 

 and the planting of fruit-trees should form an essential part of every garden 

 scheme. 



Having thus agreed to design the garden for the small house on natural 

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