252 LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



gardens. It must be remembered that a formal 

 garden does not necessarily mean clipped hedges; 

 there is as wide a range of formal style as of in- 

 formal. 



The style may often become gradually more in- 

 formal as the garden recedes from the house, and 

 in this way may give a gradual transition from 

 natural to artificial features. 



In the horticultural gardens, where the main 

 interest is in the plant material, the gardens may 

 be either formal or informal; but the main deter- 

 mining factors are the kind of soil at hand and the 

 species of plants which it is desirable to use. Of 

 course the garden should be so designed as to dis- 

 play these to their best advantage. Topography 

 likewise enters here in determining the amount of 

 grading which will be necessitated by the type of 

 garden required, and conversely in the adaptation 

 of the garden style to the contour of the existing 

 landscape. 



The informal type of garden is not necessarily 

 more nor less admirable than the formal type; it 

 is, indeed, more often unintelligently used than 

 the formal garden, and consequently is receiving 

 a larger amount of meaningless praise. In fact, 

 the sort of adulation that is often heaped upon the 



