CRUSADE AGAINST TOPIARY 
‘¢The Dutch Garden in front of Hampton Court Palace is unob- 
jectionable, because it is in character with that part of the building 
and as a royal garden it ought to remain as it is, were it only to 
serve as an illustration of the style of gardening in the time of 
William and Mary.”—Charles M‘Intosh. 
WHENEVER a fashion runs to extremes its end is not 
far to seek. On the one hand, a fashion becomes too 
general for those who have a taste for novelty, and 
especially for those who can afford at almost any cost 
to have something not available to the general public. 
On the other hand, a fashion carried to excess becomes 
inconvenient and ridiculous, therefore it at once becomes 
offensive to those who are regarded as having good 
taste. And so it came about that when Topiary work 
had spread itself over all the gardens of the time and 
could hardly go further either in extent or design, there 
came the inevitable reaction. ‘The same sort of thing 
has happened even in quite modern times. 
One need not be very old to have seen the famous 
trained specimen plants that used to grace the highly 
successful exhibitions at the Royal Botanic Society’s 
Bardens, at the Crystal Palace, and elsewhere. Yet 
these giants have passed away, and in their places we 
have larger stocks of smaller and more easily grown 
subjects—in other words, the fashion has changed. 
‘« Bedding-out” reached such a height of fashionable 
popularity that it threatened to exclude the beautiful 
hardy perennial flowers from many a garden; it taxed 
the patience and ingenuity of the gardener and the purse 
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