C 



J 



HCWER. GARDENS 



BEDS 

 RDERS 



scheme as a 

 whole. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



In the immediate provision for flowering plants, we reach what is, in one way, the 

 culminating point in our subject, for not only are they the finishing touch in the com- 

 position, the feature up to which everything else in the whole scheme leads, but they 

 must appeal to every garden lover, for, unlike many other items of garden equipment, 

 their use is essential to every class of domain, be it large or small. 



Whether the garden be formal or informal they are equally necessary, if it is to fulfil Importance 

 its function worthily, though there is no doubt that the architectural gardener is more f flower 

 entirely dependent on them than the landscapist, for while in his case they form an ^ 

 integral part of the scheme, in the landscape garden they are often incidental and super- 

 added adornment, and may even be intruded in such a way as to detract from the 

 tout ensemble, as when flower beds cut up an otherwise well-arranged lawn. 



It is not too much to say that, while the landscapist could form a garden with the 

 sole aid of trees, shrubs, greensward and water, the formal gardener depends on flowers 

 to clothe his balustraded walls, drape his pedestals, break up his flat areas, give vivid 

 colour contrasts against the dark green of his clipped hedges, and everywhere relieve 

 angularity with the waywardness of all growing things. All architectural gardening is, in 

 fact, designed from first to last either as a background or skeleton for flowers and 

 climbers, as when the arbour is covered with rampant foliage vines, or to stand in bold 

 relief against a mass of greenery like the statuette in its alcove of yew, or to give point 

 and centralization to the grouping like the sundial in the centre of the rose garden ; and 

 this dependence on the best that our gardens can show is to our mind, all in his favour. 



In the landscape garden of fifty years ago, when terracing had fallen almost en- 

 tirely into disuse, garden designers succeeded in obtaining many pretty effects by the 

 arrangement of gently undulating lawns with shade trees on the outer fringe and as occasional 

 groups on the lawn, and such gardens were usually embellished with a series of flower 

 beds arranged in an orderly manner. The same system has been largely copied in 

 American gardens and, it may be added, often with fine effect, especially when the house 

 is in the colonial Georgian style, frame-built and painted white. Under such conditions 

 the strong colours of geraniums, begonias, and verbenas give cheerfulness to the garden. 

 In the British Isles, a similar treatment of beds and lawns is often very effective, but 

 quieter colour effects are to be desired. 



Nevertheless, however informal the planning of a domain as a whole may be, even 

 though wild and rocky gardens predominate, flower borders, being essentially an artificial 

 product, invariably result in a part of it being treated in a more or less formal manner. 

 Indeed, it would almost seem that their use forced the so-called informalist or landscape 



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