FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol. 



No. 5.] 



AUGUST, 190 3. 



[Monthly. 



THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL. 



HOME LANDSCAPE AND HO 

 In passing by a steep slope of ground 

 in a beautiful valley in Sussex lately we 

 noticed it was clad with old Oak and 

 Larch, the ground being such as one 

 could not plant in any better way, and 

 the effect the best that could be got. 

 But, by some misguided idea of false 

 landscape gardening, men were cutting 

 down most of the trees and destroying 

 all the stately and dignified effect of 

 the wood, with the view, clearly, of 

 making some kind of pleasure garden 

 — in fact, part of the steep slope was 

 already planted and dotted with the 

 usual Copper Beech, Syringa, Pampas, 

 and any shrub that would make a dot, 

 arranged in such a way that, from first 

 to last, no good effect could ever arise 

 from the spot. Now there is good and 

 bad landscape gardening, and some may 

 ask what ought to be done. The right 

 way would have been to have kept the 

 trees, or the best of them, in a grouped 

 and dignified way, with open walks 

 of the easiest gradients, and to have 

 planted beneath the trees groups of Aza- 

 leas, Rhododendrons, or other shrubs, 

 as it is a mistake to suppose that these 

 will not grow in shade and partial shade 



ME WOODS.— LOST EFFECTS, 

 as well as they will in the open. At the 

 same time was going on the fatal and 



stupid mistake of isolating the trees so 

 as to get the "specimen" look which 

 spoils everything to the artist. Occa- 

 sionally a specimen of a very fine tree 

 is admirable in a park, but by far the 

 best way is the grouping one, which 

 by no means involves the weedy way. 

 Planters in seeking to avoid the scraggy 

 tumble into the commonplace, while 

 artists and those who look for form see 

 the error at once, because their work is 

 to study and draw form. With poets 

 too, it is the same, from Horace, with 

 his true observation of the effect of Wil- 

 lows, to Tennyson, with his " Olive-sil- 

 very, Sirmio." Here we are not trying 

 to make any distinctions in the common 

 pseudo-scientific way between artists 

 and poets and other people, but rather 

 to show the unity of natural and pictur- 

 esque ways with the views of the poet 

 and artist. From the variety of form 

 occurring in one tree we may judge 

 how much the trees of the northern 

 and temperate regions of Europe, Asia, 

 and America may influence the beauty 

 of a landscape, and how much we have 



