THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN 



phloxes cry aloud for balance, placed as they 

 seem to be in a distinctly formal setting. 



So it is in the formal flower garden. I have 

 come to see quite plainly, through several years 

 of lost time, that balanced planting throughout 

 is the only planting for a garden that has any 

 design worth the name. It is difficult to con- 

 ceive of that formal garden in which the use of 

 formal or clipped trees would be inappropriate; 

 and these we must not fail to mention, not only 

 because of the fine foil in color and rich back- 

 ground of dark tone which they bring into the gar- 

 den, but because of their shadow masses as well and 

 their value as accents. And that word "accents" 

 brings me to the consideration of the first impor- 

 tant placing of flowers in a garden which like my 

 own is, unlike all Gaul, divided into four parts. 



Two cross-walks intersect my garden, causing 

 four entrances. To flank each of these entrances, 

 it can be at once seen, balanced planting must 

 prevail. In the eight beds whose corners occur 

 at these entrances, this planting is used: large 

 masses of Thermopsis Caroliniana give an early 

 and brightly conspicuous bloom. Around these 

 the tall salmon-pink phlox, Aurore Boreale, much 

 later; below this filling out the angle of the 

 68 



