The Natural Style in Landscape Gardening 



ture. 



The social group will usually be a mass planting, 

 though some of the large groups, containing a dozen 

 or more individuals, may be constructed on the 

 social principle. This social or ecological principle 

 is discussed at greater length elsewhere (see page 

 51) so that for the present we need only call 

 attention to it as one of the methods of group com- 

 position. 



Having now considered the various types of 

 groups from the structural standpoint it is impor- 

 tant to discuss the relation of the group to the 

 larger elements of landscape structure and to other 

 principles of composition. 



It must be pointed out first of all that these vari- 

 ous groups are all perfectly natural forms. Nature 

 uses all these groupings. It is possible, as all of us 

 sadly realize, to construct any of these groupings in 

 a very unnatural and artificial manner; but it is 

 possible also, no matter how difficult it may be, to 

 present them in a perfectly naturalistic and agree- 

 able character. In fact, the grouping of plants is 

 one of the first principles in nature's own methods 



102 



