178 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Arrangement of 

 Plants in 

 Relation to 

 Time of 

 Bloom 



the bed. The central part of a free-standing bed, the back of a bed 

 against a boundary, is usually the best place for the taller plants. The 

 corners of a bed may well be planted with something of close texture 

 and definite form and of greater height than the plants occupying the 

 sides between the corners. The ends of beds may sometimes be accented 

 in the same way to good effect. (See again Drawing XXI.) 



In planting a formal garden, symmetry of important balanced 

 points is desirable, but as in all formal design, symmetry is undesirable 

 or at least ineffective if carried beyond the point where it can be per- 

 ceived. The planting of one subordinate side bed need not echo that 

 of the corresponding bed on the other side of the main axis, unless the 

 two beds tell in balance in the composition. Indeed we may often 

 for local reasons have the beds themselves different in form and not 

 spoil the general composition. 



We must plan for a succession of plants in bloom if we intend to 

 have the bed interesting at all times. We can do this in two ways : we 

 may plant perennials throughout in such a way that one kind of flower 

 after another comes into bloom ; or, we may plan to remove certain 

 plants when they are through blooming and to replace them by others, 

 in which case we should be dealing in part with annuals raised from 

 seed elsewhere and put in when ready to take up their share of the work. 

 When one flower is removed and replaced by another there is a tem- 

 porary lack of height in the bed. If this takes place in the middle of 

 the bed, the mass effect is likely to be bad. It is therefore often good 

 practice to choose for the middle of the bed strong-growing perennials 

 which are good in foliage when not in flower, for example, peony, or 

 Pennsylvania anemone. 



In either case there are two possible conceptions of the arrangement 

 of the plants within the bed. We may so intersperse our plants of 

 different times of blooming that when one dies down, another springs 

 from beside it and practically occupies the same space when it, In its 

 turn, comes to bloom. Or, we may have certain considerable areas 

 devoted to one plant, which when the plant is out of bloom, either 

 remain green with its foliage, or, after a brief period as brown earth, 

 are again filled with some other plant. In this last case, in formal 

 beds, it will often be necessary to arrange the individual plants for- 



