THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN- 

 MAKING. 



*T may fairly be laid down as the first essential 

 in the planning of a garden that there 

 should be some sort of direct connection 

 between the kind of surrounding which is 

 given to a house and the architectural 

 character of the house itself. To treat the 

 garden as an entirely separate affair, unre- 

 lated in any way to the building to which 

 it is intended to serve as a setting, is neither 

 judicious nor artistically expedient. Such a separation would 

 inevitably produce an unpleasant effect, and would suggest a lack 

 of intelligence on the part of the garden designer. In a rightly 

 conceived plan it is not only the outlook on to the garden from 

 the house that is taken into account ; at least as much considera- 

 tion is given to the views which are to be obtained in different 

 directions from the garden itself, and obviously the house must 

 be reckoned as a vitally important feature in any scheme which 

 is devised to make these views fully effective. A thatched cottage 

 surrounded by an elaborate Italian garden with terraces, statues, 

 and fountains, would look absurdly out of place, and there would 

 be no less incongruity in putting a palace in the middle of a wild 

 and uncultivated field ; either arrangement would be opposed to 

 both good taste and common sense. But if the garden is made, 

 as it should be, an appropriate adjunct to the house, and is designed 

 in a style that is consistent with the architectural characteristics 

 of the building, the result is agreeably harmonious, and has that 

 air of completeness which makes convincing all-round artistic 

 achievement. 



If the importance of this connection is recognised by the garden 

 designer he can reasonably be allowed a free hand in the carrying 

 out of the work entrusted to him, for he will have a sufficiently 

 sound knowledge of his subject to prevent him from lapsing into 

 any fanatical preference for one particular type of garden-making. 

 Much of the harm done in the past by the men who destroyed 

 the work of the earlier gardeners, and replaced it with what they 

 imagined to be modern and up-to-date, was due to the fact that 

 these iconoclasts did not realise that there was any necessity to 

 bring the house and garden into strict relation. They adopted a 

 fashion merely, a fashion which was supposed to be capable of 

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