PLACING OF THE GARDEN 



sense of restraint. It does not call forth the desire 

 for intimacy. It forms, nevertheless, a picture delight- 

 ful to the eye. If it were entirely without flowers, 

 its setting is still so pleasing that it would serve its 

 purpose and produce a feeling of repose in contrast 

 to the incessant motion of the water. In plan, this 

 garden is very simple. 



Often the simpler the internal arrangement of a 

 formal garden, the more pleasure it gives. In such 

 instances, it is the plan as much as the planting that 

 strikes the eye and soothes the taste. In many of 

 the famous Italian gardens, flowers are conspicuously 

 absent, yet there are few other examples of planting 

 grounds that give the same restful sense of being at 

 peace with nature. At Bar Harbor, Newport, South- 

 ampton, and other places near the sea, there are many 

 formal and extensive gardens, while those in imitation 

 of the gardens of Italy have been handled most skil- 

 fully. It is not at every seaside home, however, 

 that there is opportunity for a really formal garden, 

 one stately and complete in outline. 



More general by far than those purely formal are 

 the so-called old-fashioned gardens, placed to suit 

 the convenience and filled with hardy perennial plants. 

 Such gardens were the pride of the early settlers of 

 America. The New England colonists, especially, 

 brought with them to the New World the conception 

 of such flower gardens as then prevailed in the home 

 country. These gardens, while placed for the most 

 part at short distances from the houses, seldom 

 approached them closely. In arrangement they were 



[105] 



