The Right and Wrong Kind of "Show Garden"— By w. Mill 



WHY EVERY BEGINNER INSTINCTIVELY BUYS VARIEGATED, CUT-LEAVED AND WEEPING TREES 

 -WHY HE PLANTS THEM IN A FLASHY WAY— THE ONLY REFINED AND ARTISTIC METHOD 



I WAS once in danger of becoming a 

 common scold; trying to persuade 

 people to buy green-leaved evergreens in- 

 stead of golden and silver evergreens, plain 

 maple instead of cut-leaved maple, and ordi- 

 nary beech instead of weeping beech. 

 Every young crusader tackles the job of 

 reforming human nature. One might as well 

 be Canute and bid the sea hold back. 



For the people leap instinctively at "horti- 

 cultural varieties," and clasp them to their 

 hearts, as if they were jewels. They will 

 be buying them by millions when the earth 

 turns cold and the stars grow old, simply 

 because they are showier than the more 

 natural varieties. There is nothing wrong 

 about these plants in themselves, any more 

 than there is in diamonds. The trouble 

 comes from using such things in a flashy way. 

 And that is just what most people do with 

 Colorado spruce, Japanese maples, purple 

 beech, pink dogwood and cut-leaved weeping 

 birch. For the regular thing is to scatter 

 showy specimens about the yard or over the 

 landscape, instead of using them sparingly, 

 or making them into a garden of specimens. 



The encouraging thing is that most people 

 are perfectly innocent in their intentions. 

 People who would never think of over-spic- 

 ing their food are unwittingly led into over- 

 spicing their grounds. They have no desire 

 to commit an artistic sin. They never even 

 suspect that they are committing a costly 

 blunder; that their taste will change; that 

 more than half of these precious trees and 

 shrubs may have to be cut out just when it 



hurts most; that the whole place may have 

 to be rearranged to avoid the charge of bad 

 taste and vulgar display. I believe that 

 most people mean to have the best of every- 

 thing that life has to give. 



Well, then, I know you will be dehghted to 

 hear that there is a better way of arranging 



these treasures — a way that may give you 

 about five times as much pleasure, avoid all 

 that heartache, prevent the tearing up of 

 your grounds and, consequently, save a 

 great deal of money. Nor shall I rob you 

 of a single tree that you admire, if only 

 you will agree to make out of such material 



The right kind of show garden— Col. Holford's. The plants not scattered over the lawn, but grouped in 

 a garden that makes a series of pictures and does not interfere with the landscape 



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Notice this tall blue conifer (Cedrus Atlantica, var. glauca ) in this and the next two pictures 



not an outdoor museum, but an artistic 

 garden ! 



But first I must explain why all these 

 plants I have named, and thousands more 

 that apparently have nothing in common, 

 except showiness, really belong to one great 

 class. They are all "horticultural varie- 

 ties" — not the original forms of nature. 

 Most of these would perish if man did not 

 protect them. Hundreds of plants with 

 variegated foliage would die if abandoned 

 to nature, for they are generally weaker 

 growing than their green prototypes. Most 

 of these varieties originated in nurseries; 

 they are eloquent of man's handiwork, not 

 nature's. And they are all subject to a 

 what might be called "Manning's law," 

 to wit: Horticultural forms originated in tJie 

 garden; they should he restricted to it, and 

 not allowed to dominate the landscape. 



The right way to use showy specimens 

 is illustrated by a garden at Westonbirt, the 

 home of Colonel Holford, at Tetbury, 

 Gloucestershire, England. Look at the 

 first picture. You can see the whole idea 

 at a glance — a lake encircled by rare ever- 

 greens and costly plants of all kinds. The 

 first conception of it was obviously a stroke 

 of genius, for water doubles the number of 



