CHAPTER II 
NOTES ON THE PLANNING OF THE LITTLE 
GARDEN * 
THE designer of the great garden has always this much 
in his favour. The activities of time and the destroyer 
have been great, but many examples remain of what 
was done in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
Despite change of fashion and the ravages made by 
the Landscape School, there remain scores of noble 
gardens, such as St. Catherine’s Court, Montacute, 
Westbury-on-Severn and Levens Hall, which show fit 
surroundings for a great house, and illustrate the 
growth of garden design. With the little garden it is 
otherwise. Very few perfect old gardens laid out in 
small space have survived. It is true there is the 
exquisite hillside treatment at Owlpen Manor, but the 
site is unusual, and the wonderful effect is achieved 
mainly by yew hedges, perhaps two centuries old. 
Gay little cottage gardens in English villages make 
their appeal by serried ranks of brilliant hollyhocks and 
simple borders of bright herbaceous plants, with per- 
haps a peacock in yew standing sentinel by the road- 
side gate, rather than by success in conscious design. 
Like the little house which it serves, the little garden 
of to-day presents a new problem, for both are the pro- 
* By Lawrence Weaver. Reprinted from Country Life, 
October 24th, 1914. 
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