PLANTING DESIGN OF PARKS 



and fantastic shapes, some inordinately thin and tall, others extraor- 

 dinarily branched, will give an effect of consciousness to a park, an 

 appearance of being trapped out in tinsel and finery as though per- 

 petually en fete. One is reminded of the English maid in Italy, who, 

 disgusted at the number and frequency of the festival days, the word 

 for which in Italian is "fiesta" remarked to her mistress: " What a 

 foolish country; they are always a-festering." Many of our parks are 

 always a-festering. 



To avoid an appearance of artificiality, the planting material of 

 parks should not be composed of what the lay mind regards as " orna- 

 mental." Any plant that is attractive to the eye and there are few 

 that are not may be considered as suitable material for park work. 

 That a plant be unusual or foreign looking should not recommend but 

 challenge it. Moreover, ornamental plants need not be of exotic 

 origin. A client of the writer objected to the use of trailing honey- 

 suckle in the planting of steep banks bordering his driveway, for the 

 reason that it was " a d n weed." The only answer, of course, which 

 could be made to him was that " Everything is a weed in its native 

 habitat." The fact that a plant is exotic does not make it ornamental; 

 and the unappreciated indigenous material of a locality may often 

 possess all the elements that are needed for a beautiful planting 

 composition. 



One recalls in this connection the amusing satire of Alphonse 

 Daudet, who, in describing the garden of his gentle hero, Tartarin, in 

 which there was to be found " not a tree of the country, not a flower of 

 France," says: 



!""' " T 



" O le jardin de Tartarin, il n'y en avait pas deux comme celui-la en Europe. 

 Pas un arbre de pays, pas une fleur de France; rien que des plantes exotiques, 

 des gommiers, des calebassiers, des cotonniers, des cocotiers, des manguiers, des 

 bananiers, des palmiers, un baobab, des nopals, des cactus, des figuiers de 



Barbarie, a se croire en pleine Afrique centrale, a dix mille lieues de Tarascon." 



228 



