; 18 : ' : THE -NEW GARDENING 



forth a form took its place which was free, graceful, and 

 unaffected in a word, that there was a sudden cata- 

 clysmic change from the false to the true. 



In looking round for evidence I see much that is 

 significant and striking, as I shall presently endeavour to 

 show, but I see nothing to establish the claim that a 

 revolution has been effected in garden style. For ex- 

 ample, I do not see, I never expect to see, and I may add 

 that I have no wish to see, what has been termed the 

 formal style banished from the great mansions. What 

 I do see is remarkable enough, but it is not a revolution 

 in style. I see a great wave of garden love spreading over 

 the civilized, and particularly perhaps over the English- 

 speaking, nations. I see thousands of people putting 

 plants where they had not hitherto thought of placing 

 them. I see gardens coming into being round innumer- 

 able homes. I see sites made into rock-gardens which 

 hitherto have been bare slopes. All this is clear enough, 

 but I doubt if it can be expressed in terms of " style " 

 that it denotes a triumph of the " natural " over the 

 " formal." 



The vast majority of flower-lovers refrain from worry- 

 ing themselves about style in gardening, just as they do 

 about literary form. It is only the few who have time, 

 training, and opportunity for studying the niceties of 

 technique. But if they did so far concern themselves 

 with certain supposititious garden styles as to inquire 

 to what extent they had altered in England it would be 

 found that there had been no real change at all. In the 

 great places what is termed the " formal " system still 

 prevails. The fact that Roses, Carnations, and Phloxes 

 are massed in beds which once contained Zonal Pelar- 

 goniums does not transform the style. 



'Where the scheme of architecture spreads from the 



