GARDEN ACCESSORIES. 25 



is applied by the unthinking to any kind of garden that has in the 

 least degree a formal layout. Of course it is on the hillside that 

 this sort of garden is built in Italy. A flat situation calls for a 

 different treatment, and, although walls are often used with success 

 in level gardens, they are walls that are quite different from the 

 heavy retaining-^ all of the Italian garden; they are used more as 

 one would use a hedge. Walls and terraces are to a garden what 

 the walls of a house are to its interior. Their excuse for being 

 should be for support or for giving an air of privacy and protection. 

 I think you will agree that such gardens have a charm quite dis- 

 tinct from all others. 



Other accessories that serve a useful purpose and are much 

 admired for their ornamental qualities are well-curbs, urns and 

 pots, tables, sundials, gazing-globes, and figures. I have seen 

 many little gardens where one of these decorative pieces served 

 as a keynote to the entire situation, around which paths and flower 

 beds were arranged in such a manner as to make an agreeable 

 picture of the whole. x\t the intersection of paths, at the end of 

 a walk or pergola, or in front of a garden-house are some of the 

 situations where these pieces may be placed so as to give one the 

 impression that they must be where they are or else the garden 

 would lose much of its charm. The relation that these smaller 

 garden ornaments bear to their surroundings must be as carefully 

 studied as the placing of the larger accessories. 



I should like to take up in detail each of these smaller accessories 

 but the time allotted for this lecture is not sufficient. However, 

 I want to call your attention to the great possibilities in this field 

 of garden accessories as applied to the city back-yards. These 

 yards, as they exist for the most part in the homes of our well-to- 

 do people, are a disgrace to the community. Neat, some of them 

 may be, but what ugliness is to be seen when one looks out of a 

 dining-room window and sees an assortment of clothes and clothes- 

 lines, ash-barrels, garbage-boxes and the like, all up and down the 

 line. 



To convince you that these yards can be made beautiful, and 

 at the same time practicable and serviceable, let us look at some 

 illustrations of two Boston yards that have been successfully 

 remodeled. 



