358 Design for a Flower- Garden. 



another, than 3 ft. The simplicity of the circular form is a great 

 recommendation to it, both in point of beauty in itself, and in re- 

 gard to setting off the flowers to advantage, each circle being 

 as it were a nosegay ; it is besides the most convenient form for 

 culture, and for renewing the soil. The different diameters of 

 the circles, and their different disposition on the turf, will pro- 

 duce a variety of intricacy and outline that cannot be attained by 

 any other means whatever. To produce the greatest intricacy 

 from objects of the greatest simplicity, is a most agreeable and 

 satisfactory kind of beauty; whereas to produce intricacy and 

 variety by an endless number of anomalous shapes, is never 

 entirely satisfactory ; for the question still recurs, why was one 

 modification of irregularity adopted rather than another ? For this 

 reason, it may be laid down as a principle, that irregular forms 

 are never satisfactory when planted entirely with flowers. When 

 planted with flowers and shrubs, or with shrubs only, the entire 

 form is never seen at once ; and the intricacy and variety of the 

 outline being all that occupies the mind, as far as form is con- 

 cerned, the result is generally a pleasing one. 



If the foregoing remarks are founded in truth, gardeners will 

 do well, when they form irregular beds in flower-gardens, always 

 to have both shrubs and flowers in them, to such an extent as 

 that the former may prevent the entire outline of the figure from 

 being seen at once. 



They will also do well, when the beds which they form in 

 flower-gardens are either regular figures, or when they combine 

 with other figures so as to form either a regular or a sym- 

 metrical whole (the two being quite different), to plant only 

 flowers ; unless the beds are large ; and, if they are large, then 

 to plant only shrubs. 



A third point deserves their notice. When beds of one form 

 only are employed, and these forms are of a great many different 

 sizes, they must be connected by a common principle. In the 

 design,^^-. 51., the principle is that of no one bed being nearer 

 to another than 3 ft. 



In general, circular beds of different sizes, irregularly disposed 

 and connected together, as shown xw. Jig. 51. will, in the hands 

 of gardeners who are not artists, form a much more satisfactory 

 flower-garden than can be done by the use of irregular shapes 

 only, or by irregular shapes and regular shapes mixed together, 

 which are almost always bad. 



One of the most common errors in ornamental gardening is 

 that of mixing herbaceous flowers with shrubs and trees. If we 

 were called on to point out what we consider to be the greatest 

 defect in almost every garden or shrubbery in England, we should 

 cei'tainly point to this; but we shall recur to the subject in a 

 future Number. 



