68 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



Fifty years or more ago formality in gardens 

 took another phase. Those who are old enough 

 may remember still the enthusiasm with which 

 the gay hues of beds and ribbon borders 

 of summer flowers were welcomed, and the 

 eagerness with which every plant that might 

 lend itself to the colour scheme was sought 

 out and propagated. It was the outcome of 

 that other style of geometric garden which 

 came much into vogue with the squares and 

 oblongs and quinquncial planting of the Stuart 

 period and earlier, by some called Italian, 

 by others Dutch, which was usually sunk 

 at a lower level than its surroundings, and was 

 laid out, more or less, to be looked down upon 

 from the height of a terrace walk a style emi- 

 nently in keeping with a stately garden in its 

 manifold and varied aspects, but not, in all circum- 

 stances, appropriate. The mode quickly became 

 universal, for it had manifest advantages, and 

 whether suitable or not to the size and accessories 

 of the position, every owner of a garden plot, 

 large or small, must needs indulge in " bedding- 

 out " the flower borders thereof. It satisfied, in 

 fact, for a time, the natural craving for colour, 

 A wonderful impetus was given to the manufac- 

 ture of glass, for even the small garden required 

 its greenhouse for the preservation of the precious 

 half-hardy plants through the frosts and damps 

 of winter. 



This fashion too had its day, and it was a 

 long one; but at length people began to grow 

 weary of the eternal sameness. Year after year 



