28 The American Flower Garden 



A garden is no less a garden because it defies all limitations 

 and conventions. And the artistic spirit likewise refuses to be 

 bound by the fads and fancies of the gardener's craft. Art out- 

 of-doors is universal, like nature herself, and knows no predilection 

 for Italian gardens above wild gardens, for informal or naturalistic 

 ones rather than for the prim, box-edged flower beds of our 

 grandmothers, for the water garden in the humid East above the 

 cactus garden of the desert. Fitness and beauty suffice. Happily 

 every garden site is a law unto itself to which the gardener must 

 submit. No two gardens, no two human faces, were ever alike. 

 Both have individuality as their chief charm. 



But it is generally conceded that every garden picture is 

 improved by a frame. The sea, a wood, a tree-girt lawn, a lake, 

 a hedge, a wall, a court yard, a pergola, a terrace, a hillside, or 

 the house itself, any or several of these, and some other boundaries, 

 natural and artificial, may set off the garden's own peculiar beauty 

 to the best advantage. The needs of plants are so various that 

 their loveliness can best be shown in a variety of situations and 

 settings. 



