26 The American Flower Garden 



the Japanese water-garden of many storks, stones and bridges, to 

 be fed from an old Florentine fountain on the other side of the 

 house. The idea of giving her Elizabethan house a suitable setting 

 in which the shades of Lord Bacon or Shakespeare himself might 

 feel at home, could not enter such a head unaided by a tactful 

 professional gardener. 



The style of architecture of the house may be a limitation or a 

 great opportunity, whichever one is pleased to consider it. Infinite 

 variety is possible with the historic method. It is not necessarily 

 stereotyped. 



There are cases, perhaps, where a better architectural effect 

 may be had by bringing an unbroken stretch of lawn to the very 

 foundations of a house where vines and a fringe of shrubbery 

 might be their only screen; but in order that it may give the most 

 I pleasure, the garden should be conveniently near the dwelling. 

 Then it may be lived with and lived in, enjoyed without effort, 

 seen from the windows by busy workers indoors, tended with the 

 least trouble, quickly robbed of some of its wealth for vases by 

 the mistress of the house, its interests safeguarded by every 

 member of the family, as well as the hired man. Only by living 

 with one's garden can its beauties be fully realised, for every pass- 

 ing cloud changes the effect of light and atmosphere the most 

 potent factors of beauty out-of-doors. A garden by moonlight 

 becomes a new revelation. Then every defect is concealed, 

 glaring colours recede into nothingness, and only the white flowers 

 the long fragrant trumpets of nicotine, spires of foxgloves, tall 

 white lilies, a Milky Way of cosmos stars, snow balls of phlox 

 and peonies or a foam of boltonia have their loveliness enhanced 

 by the night. 



If we must walk through wet grass to a distant part of the 



