THE PRINCIPLES OF GARDEN-MAKING 



same laws by which the artist is guided in dealing with his canvases. 

 Form and colour have certainly to be taken into account by the 

 garden designer, and he must have a thorough understanding of the 

 manner in which composition lines should be adjusted so as to pro- 

 duce their proper decorative effect. In arranging the forms of his 

 garden he must choose those trees and shrubs which by their variety 

 of shape and growth will give what is required in the way of con- 

 trast of outline, and he must decide where masses of vegetation are 

 necessary, and where single trees or groups of trees should be placed 

 to diversify open spaces which would look bare and empty without 

 some details to break their regularity. In devising colour effects he 

 must consider not only what can be done by the use of flowering 

 plants, but also how he can play upon that scale of tints which is 

 provided in the foliage of the trees with which the large masses of 

 his design are composed. He has a wide range within which to 

 work, and he has only to refer to nature to see what scope there 

 is for the exercise of his faculties as an artist. 

 In the adjustment of his composition lines he is obviously limited to 

 a great extent by the necessity for making the best of what beauties 

 the site on which his garden is to be laid out possesses naturally. 

 But his sensitiveness to refinements of form will enable him to judge 

 how these beauties can be emphasised and how the additions he 

 proposes can be kept in character with what already exists. Restless 

 lines, or lines that are irregular merely for irregularity's sake, imply 

 insufficient consideration, and are the mark of inefficiency in design : 

 there must be, not only in the ground plan of the garden, but in 

 its elevation and sky-line too, a real suavity and elegance, a true 

 grace of proportion, and a studied ease of arrangement which con- 

 ceals the artifices by which the naturalistic result has been attained. 

 There is clearly no place for narrow conventions in the right kind of 

 landscape gardening ; what is needed is rather largeness of view 

 and that ready adaptability which comes from study of nature 

 and from the cultivation of aesthetic instincts ; the man who works 

 by rule and depends upon a preconception only is inevitably doomed 

 to fail. 



This is in some measure true of the formal gardener as well, though, 

 perhaps, in this branch of the art there is less possibility of breaking 

 away from ancient tradition. But in formal gardening there is 

 ample scope for the exercise of a just perception of form and a real 

 love of colour, and there is the fullest opportunity for displaying 

 ingenuity of design. Only it is the architect's mind that is needed 

 here rather than that of the landscape painter the architect's instinct 



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