184 Landscape Gardening 



For smaller plants and even for annuals the plan is fully 

 as suitable. Every one is now aware what splendid displays 

 are created by the various kinds of half-hardy plants with 

 which gardens may be decorated in masses during summer. 

 Some things in fact which would when solitary be almost 

 contemptible acquire a marked showiness if collected into a 

 group. And many annuals that are straggling and poor as 

 individual objects become in broad patches (which is the 

 best way of growing them) highly ornamental and handsome. 



5. The Study of Shadows. — ■ When planted on the sunny 

 side of a garden or of any part thereof, trees and shrubs pro- 

 ject a variety of shadows, which an artist would rightly 

 esteem some of the most decided beauties of a landscape. 

 Light and shade is what an architect of sound feeling always 

 aims to procure in the exterior of his building, and the plan 

 that secures a due admixture of these will be most praised 

 and admired, other things being equal. In a garden scene, 

 too, although this is a matter very little considered, an 

 immense deal of the beauty will depend upon the nice arrange- 

 ment of parts to secure these. 



Open bursts of sunsliine are not more essential, and are 

 generally less effective, than shadows in a landscape. It is 

 during showery weather, when gloom and sunhght are con- 

 tinually succeeding each other, and nature is shrouded in 

 dullness one moment, but briUiantly illuminated the next — 

 when the outHnes and motion of the clouds are faithfully 

 pictured on the earth as they hurriedly sweep over hill and 

 valley — ■ that beautiful scenery becomes far more lovely and 

 pleasing. And there must be a compounding of the same 

 elements of light and shade in a garden to give it its last 

 finish. 



It will, however, be chiefly on the west and southwest 

 sides of a place that the shadows will be most interesting. 



