70 



House & Garden's 



Against solid Trails of dark yew have been groii'h specimen statues carved in juniper. 

 This forms the termination of the canal, and is placed in such a relationship to the 

 water thai the sombre coloring of the yew is intensified, and the light tones of the 

 juniper made stilt more lovely. The garden was designed by Mr. Romaine-Walker 



A N 



ENGLISH 



TOPIARY 



GARDEN 



hi a Slight Thirty Years This Garden Has Been Grown — 

 // Rivals Some of the Most Ancient Gardens of England 



HALF-WAY between 

 the formal, archi- 

 tectural garden of Le 

 Notre, the garden of 

 which Versailles is the 

 splendid model, and the 

 so-called "English" gar- 

 den, with its less geo- 

 metrical pattern and its 

 absence of architecture, 

 stands the topiar)- or 

 sheared garden. 



The builder and the 

 architect had as great a 

 hand in the making of a 

 foniial garden as the hor- 

 ticulturist. Terraces, sta- 

 tues, walls, and arches 

 were more important in 

 these elaborate creations 

 than growing plants. 



The topiarist makes 

 the best of botii worlds. 

 He is both liuilder and 

 architect, but the mate- 

 rials he uses are living 

 trees instead of inani- 

 mate stone. 



Where the ordinary 

 gardener must necessa- 





On a dry, arid bank is a thick plantation of laurels, clipped to an even surface, 



while at the lop come the finer foliage and forms of yew. The way leads by these 



stone steps from the forest up to the level open stretches of the garden 



rily work in irregular 

 broken masses, the topi- 

 arist can employ straight 

 lines, plane surfaces and 

 all the forms of solid 

 geometr}'. .'^t the same 

 time his green masonry 

 has this advantage over 

 the architect's stonework, 

 that it is alive and diver- 

 sified by the innumerable 

 intricate details of a liv- 

 ing organism. A flat sur- 

 face that is composed of 

 countless little leaves is 

 more interesting, richer 

 in quality than the flat 

 surface of a stone in kn'- 

 ing out, etc. 



In laying out this to- 

 piary garden the de- 

 signer has made some 

 interesting experiments 

 in color variation — yew, 

 juniper, Irish yew, lau- 

 rel, golden yew, bo.\, and 

 ivy have been mingled so 

 as to relieve the unvaried 

 sombreness of the plain 

 yew hedge. 



