FIG. 327. 







THE FORMAL ARRANGEMENT OF TREES. 



Yet another formal arrangement very similar to the last is the yew alley or bower Bower 

 walk which should be found in every garden of moderate dimensions, whether formally walks. 

 or informally planned. Probably the best known of the old examples is the " Dark 

 Arbour " at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire, and such scale and perfect arching must always 

 be the result of many years of careful clipping and training, but nevertheless a good 

 effect can be obtained in reasonable time if a start is made with large plants under 

 favourable conditions. These walks can often be arranged where a grove or ordinary 

 pleached alley would not be successful. They give sufficient seclusion from without 

 and yet keep open the garden vistas within, affording shade from burning sun or 

 sufficient protection to give an impression of shelter when winds are boisterous. 



Those who have studied the architectural drawings Formal 

 exhibited at the Royal Academy during recent years hedges. 

 must have been struck with the number of designs in 

 which trimmed hedges form part of the scheme, some 

 of them being largely dependent on the hedges for 

 their interest. Their definite lines and the accom- 

 panying walks assist the architectural groupings and 

 furnish an extended base to the main building ; they 



impart an idea of shelter in most weathers and suggest screen for half-hardy flowers. 

 They do more than this however, for they emphasize the varying colour and form 

 values of haphazard picturesque groupings of foliage and give the necessary contrast, 

 binding the whole together by the strong sweeping line which they present. 



In the modern garden, however, hedges are seldom recognized as possessing any 

 artistic qualities. Occasionally, a trim, compact hedge may be met with, dividing the 

 kitchen garden from the pleasure grounds, or as a screen to back premises, but both its 

 planning and treatment, or rather lack of distinctive treatment, make it obvious that 

 it is merely considered as the lesser of two evils a brick wall or a hedge and that 

 the owner, being unable to 

 bear either the idea or the 

 cost of the former, has 

 adopted the latter. No at- 

 titude could be more disas- 

 trous to good garden design, 

 and with the wealth of old 

 examples which escaped the 

 general destruction which 

 befell the beautiful old for- 

 mal gardens in the early- 

 Victorian era, there can be 



FIG. 328. 



no excuse for the purely utilitarian treatment of these aesthetic factors. The wonderful 

 hedges at Holm Lacy show what can be accomplished by the use of green fences, while 

 the well-known green arches at Broom Hall, Norfolk, suggest many arrangements which 

 may be used where an ordinary hedge would give too shut in an appearance. 



As a rule, the simpler forms of clipped hedge are most satisfactory, because they Design of 

 express their purpose without pretence and are much more likely to be kept in shape yg w hedges. 

 than those requiring great skill in clipping, but as simplicity may be expressed in many 

 ways, there is no reason why there should be any lack of variety. Even a hedge 

 bounded entirely by straight lines may be diversified in many ways, by the ordinary 

 square crenellations or by pilaster projections arranged at intervals of about twenty feet, 

 or to mark the sides of an opening made to admit a pathway. There is also the usual 

 form of straight " jump " or alteration in height made to meet the fall of the ground or 



255 



