4 FLOWER GARDENING 
borrowing and adapting of ideas is judicious, the 
garden will have a personal character—in nine 
cases out of ten better than a slavish reproduction 
of one of the endless number of kinds. It is 
better in point of appropriateness and better in 
point of enjoyment. 
To borrow and adapt judiciously is relatively 
easy if common sense be kept in the foreground. 
Art matters less than good taste and need not 
seriously disturb the amateur so far as strict ad- 
herence to set rules, and all that, is concerned. 
These rules are for the professional makers of 
gardens bearing high-sounding names. 
The more a garden is so broken up that the 
eye cannot grasp all at once, the more kinds may 
be drawn upon. At the end of the main path 
there is, perhaps, a stone bench backed by small 
evergreens; this from an Italian garden. A curved 
bypath discloses a little Japanese scheme, a bank 
of thyme is from a Shakspere garden, while an 
herb garden suggested the walk lined with burnet. 
This sort of garden-making is always worth 
doing and the beauty of it is that the working out 
of the idea may be of gradual growth. On the 
other hand, a named garden is not worth while 
at all unless it is substantially what it purports 
to be. That means careful study, to the end that 
there may be consistency of design and materials. 
On top of the study will come much labor and, 
more likely than not, much expense. 
Of the four kinds of gardens that are classed by 
