TOPIARY AND THE LABYRINTH 165 



ments the hedge can be massed into central or flanking 

 towers of green with which we can vary the scenic 

 background indefinitely. 



Detached trees cut into simple pyramids, cones, 

 cubes, or spheres, planted alone, in pairs, or in a long 

 series, form excellent material for the designer. To 

 mark and graduate the long terrace or walk, to 

 emphasise the salient points of a formal enclosure 

 or lawn, to furnish a flat, level site which would 

 otherwise be bare and featureless, and to stand as 

 green pillars beside a gate or archway, a seat or 

 flight of steps, — for all these purposes they have 

 no rival. And where some further licence is 

 permitted, we may group our clipped yews, uniting 

 them in single arches, open cages, cross hoops, 

 pagodas, and terminate them with a finial of bird or 

 beast, such as used to adorn the stone gables and 

 oak stair-newels ' of the Early Stuarts. Grown out 

 of the natural tree, these shapely forms elude the 

 restrictions of our artificial scale, and look well 

 whatever their size or bulk. The giant sentinels 

 at the cottage gate do not dwarf the low whitewashed 

 walls, nor do a full assembly of these sombre forms 

 impair the enclosures of the largest garden. 



