158 Landscape Gardening 



must be strewn with a liberal hand. They should be planted 

 by thousands, — not by dozens. 



10. Specimen Plants. ■ — Where a place is so small that 

 there cannot be many single plants grown upon the lawn, to 

 exhibit their full beauty and proportions, it will be a judicious 

 plan to treat a number of the plants in the beds or groups 

 mainly as specimens, that they may show themselves better 

 and that the natural desire for individuahzing objects of 

 attention and watching and tending them during their prog- 

 ress may be duly gratified. Besides which, by thus making 

 each plant a more or less perfect one, a way will be prepared 

 for subsequently covering more of the soil in the bed with 

 turf, and so increasing the size of the lawn, or ultimately 

 turfing over the whole and leaving the best plants to stand 

 on the grass. 



The method of rendering individual plants shapely and fit 

 to stand by themselves is very simple. It is not by planting 

 so thinly in the first instance; for, however that plan might 

 succeed in some soils and climates, it will more generally be 

 found serviceable to plant rather thickly, in order to afford 

 encouragement and shelter. It is by early and annual atten- 

 tion to thinning, and by preventing any one plant from 

 intruding on another, whether as to light, air, or nourishment 

 from the soil, that the best specimens can be reared. And 

 though it may be prudent to put in at first such kinds of 

 plants at such distances as will finally be required for fixtures 

 and fill in between them with commoner sorts for a tem- 

 porary purpose, it will be wise in thinning to choose rather 

 those which have made a good healthy growth, and are not 

 really inappropriate, than mere sickly objects which may 

 have been intended to remain, and have not individually 

 made progress enough, or do not exhibit sufficient promise 

 to justify their retention. 



