THE NEW CITY GARDEN 213 



four or five years after its foundation I found nothing 

 more than a waste to represent " Howard Park," and 

 meantime numbers of well-meaning but inexperienced 

 residents had been making mournful attempts to convert 

 their enclosures into something worthy of the name of 

 garden. If they had had some public example of good 

 work, carried out under a trained and competent com- 

 mittee to guide them, they would have secured better 

 results with less labour and expenditure. 



If any Garden City is to deserve its name we ought to 

 find in it a garden such as would afford useful lessons to 

 the most ignorant amateur gardener. It ought to be so 

 designed that it would afford instant help to such a 

 person. I cannot conceive anything floricultural more 

 wholly uninteresting, uneducational, and uninspiring than 

 the majority of public gardens, and I cannot imagine 

 anything more stimulating and uplifting than a city 

 garden wherein a series of small areas were laid out in 

 such ways as would give beautiful and satisfying effects 

 around small villas. 



When I visit the large parks where what is considered 

 the best flower-gardening is carried on I find much to 

 admire. I see a glorious coup d'ceil of beds, often taste- 

 fully planted and nearly always distinguished by good cul- 

 ture. So far good. But when I ask myself what practical 

 lessons can be learned from these displays, whether by 

 villa gardeners or by owners of large places, I am reduced 

 to a few notes of colour schemes that as often as not teach 

 by showing what should be avoided. The beds are 

 generally large, and are grouped together in a mass 

 covering from a quarter to three-quarters of an acre of 

 ground, thus putting out of court instantly the villa- 

 garden student ; and they are usually planted with such 

 a medley of hardy and tender, herbaceous and shrubby 



