The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



they possessed personalities like our own; and cer- 

 tainly two persons of like character always stand 

 well together. It is the human feeling that "two 

 is company, three is a crowd." I am sure that the 

 works of the painters and artist photographers will 

 show that two trees properly related have great pic- 

 torial value, and this type of grouping ought to be 

 more frequently used by landscape planters. 



The group of three, on the other hand, seems to 

 have a special fascination for the landscape gar- 

 dener, like a bright light for wild animals. Look 

 over the planting plans and planting lists in any 

 office, and how many hundreds of groups of three 

 shall you find! The funny song about "The Three 

 Trees" might have been made for their particular 

 use. There are literally thousands of entries such 

 as "3 Red Maple," "3 Tupelo," "3 Honey Locust," 

 "3 Lilacs" or even "3 Hydrangea p.g." 



This is, I suspect, a psychological phenomenon, 

 but we need not stop now for psychological expla- 

 nations. We can be sure, I believe, without such in- 

 vestigations, that the group of three has no such 

 pictorial value as its strangely frequent use would 



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