A FOREWORD AND A PLEA 



A garden is preeminently a place to indulge individual taste. 

 . . So regardless of doctors, let me say that the best general 

 rule that I can devise for garden-making is: put all the beauty and 

 delightsomeness you can into your garden, get all the beauty and 

 delight you can out of your garden, never minding a little mad 

 want of balance, and think of the proprieties afterward. 



John Sedding. 



In gathering together these notes, I have no desire, 

 nor am I competent, to undertake a dissertation upon 

 styles or schools of gardening, to pose as an expert upon 

 garden design or the science of horticulture, or to be 

 understood as laying down the law upon any subject 

 whatsoever. My wish is simply to answer for others 

 some of the questions which sorely perplexed me in my 

 early gardening days and to tell the story of my own 

 experiences with this happy craft to those who may be 

 treading the fragrant way a pace or two behind me, not 

 that they may miss a single step in the fascinating path of 

 personal experiment and achievement, but only that they 

 may enjoy a sense of friendly fellowship without which 

 no experience, however delightful, proves quite satisfying. 



