Hous E. 



LAWN. 



FIG. 143. 



FLOWER GARDENS, BEDS AND BORDERS. 



gardens are quite formal, others more or less informal, which latter method seems more 

 suited to the character of the plants, which, while allowing of good grouping effects, are 

 more closely related to wild nature than to the highly-dressed parts of the garden. Such 

 arrangements are usually called American gardens, and may often with advantage be laid 

 out near the outskirts of the grounds, or in connection with the pinetum where one exists. 

 Herbaceous We have spoken of the formation of 



borders. herbaceous gardens in the kitchen garden in 



Chapter XV., but there is one consideration 

 which specially applies to their planning 

 in relation to the point from which they are 

 to be viewed. This has more force when 

 they form a part of the ordinary pleasure 

 grounds. Owing to the long flowering season 

 which is usually attempted, there must 

 necessarily be large areas of soil or flowerless 

 plants in every border, resulting in a some- 

 what patchy and unsatisfactory appearance.* 

 Many devices have been resorted to, to 

 obviate this tendency of the herbaceous border, 



such as filling in the interspaces with annuals and biennials, and indeed, whatever plan 

 is adopted to overcome this defect later on, some such arrangement as this will be 

 necessary for the first year. Undoubtedly the best method of preventing the defect is so 



to plan the borders that they are usually seen 

 from one end, and not at right angles to 

 the line of sight. The result is that, the 

 perspective being foreshortened, the occasional 

 large masses of bloom are, so to say, bunched 

 together, the intervening spaces of soil being 

 hidden. This means that, where a border is 

 to be seen from one of the windows of 

 the house, or through an open gateway, or 

 the door of a summer-house, it must recede 

 from the beholder. Of the two accompany- 

 ing sketches showing herbaceous borders in 



relation to the front of a residence, the first (111. No. 143) shows the correct method 

 of doing this, while the second (111. No. 144) shows the opposite, or wrong, way. These 

 remarks do not apply, of course, to borders running along the bottom of a terrace wall 

 parallel to the front of the house, as in the 

 third sketch (111. No. 145), for, in this case, 

 the border would be hidden from the house, 

 and the principal point of view would be at 

 the foot of the central flight of steps leading 

 from one level to the other. The two accom- 

 panying photographs of such borders (111. 

 Nos. 141 and 142) will show what is meant. 

 An To illustrate most of the points dealt 



example. with in this chapter, a plan is given of the 



gardens recently laid out by the Author at Warren House, Hayes, Kent, for Sir Robert 

 Laidlaw (111. No. 147). This instance is exceptionally suitable for our purpose, as 



* Some writers seem to suggest that a well-planted herbaceous border can bloom for eleven months out of 

 the twelve. 



FIG. 145. 



114 



