SIMPLE EFFECTS. 



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SIMPLE EFFECTS. 



Though lovers of plants will always do their 

 best for every plant under their care, only such 

 gardens as are unusually favoured by both na- 

 tural and other advantages are fitted to be fa- 

 vourable to a large number of plants. For one 

 such collection there are many gardens in 

 which conditions of soil and aspect, climatic 

 conditions, — which are often strangely local, 

 whether upland, valley, or coast, — are all causes 

 that may act against a great variety of plants. 

 In such gardens the aim may be just as high, 

 but circumstances forbid the highest success 

 in most directions, but because people do not 

 realise these limits much care and labour is 

 wasted in trying to induce plants to do well in 

 spots unsuited to them. Thus it often comes 

 about that the plants which thrive best are 

 neglected because they never give any trouble, 

 in order that at much pains a poor result may 

 be got from others less suitable. Now this is 

 reversing what should be the case, and in a 

 way that is bad from every point of view. 

 There may be a certain amount of satisfaction 

 in toilfully preserving plants which, if left 

 alone, Nature would at once wipe out of exist- 

 ence, but one may well ask whether the labour 

 so spent would not be far better used if turned 

 to more likely subjects. The method may 

 seem hard, but to get the best results we should 

 weed out from our gardens the crowd of crip- 

 pled failures often much in evidence, the plants 

 which only reward us at rare intervals, and all 

 the weedy shrubs and nursery rubbish so com- 

 mon everywhere ; everything which after a 

 fair trial fails to give return in real beauty. 

 Thespace and the care thus set free might then 

 be given to such lines of effort as are often 

 prompted by Nature herself ; in other words, 

 let each one find out what his or her garden 

 will best grow, and leave doubtful plants to 

 those better placed for dealing with them. 

 Gardens are, in the main, a repetition of each 

 other, the same plants a little better or a little 

 worse grown, the same dabs of colour in beds 

 and borders, a like medley in shrubbery and 

 background. This is also, in part, the fruit of 

 talk that all should grow this, that, and the 

 other, concerning in turn every plant upon the 

 market ; a process which works out as " grasp 

 all,loseall," so faras concerns beauty and effect, 



because too much is undertaken to be done 

 well. In such a garden one may wander with- 

 out being impressed by a single thing, or bear- 

 ing away any distinct idea, one's own mind as 

 confused as the plants passed in review. Some 

 will say that one charm of the garden is its 

 variety, and this is true where quality and 

 quantity go together, and the blending of 

 effects is done with the artistic insight which 

 underlies a right use of good garden effects. 

 Where means, space, and experience are limi- 

 ted a far safer variety at which to aim is that 

 of form and grouping as between garden and 

 garden, a plan, which, while allowing for in- 

 dividual taste is far more certain of good re- 

 sults, if only because it is easier to succeed with 

 a few things than with many. Then again, the 

 choice of plants is now so bewildering that few 

 can hope to do justice to more than a part, and 

 often a small part, of the whole. On every 

 ground, therefore, since choice there must be, 

 let it be of those plants which are most certain 

 to give good effects, to the neglect of such as 

 need what is imperfectly at command. It is 

 true that such a choice must be, in itself, the 

 fruit of experience (perhaps of experiment and 

 failure), but if the work is rightly carried out 

 there is not a doubt as to the final reward. 

 Some of the most beautiful gardens, and often 

 those in which one can learn the most, are those 

 of just such limited aim and choice ; gardens 

 in which the grower knows what he can do 

 well, and in which one sees nothing but good 

 results, with no need to apologise for cripples 

 here, or explain failures there, nothing but 

 simple effects of things that visibly enjoy their 

 existence, and nothing doubtful used in quan- 

 tity until it hasstood trialinsome quiet corner. 

 Small gardens must of necessity show some- 

 what of a mixture, but in larger ones it is easy 

 to so vary matters as to avoid sameness even 

 with are stricted choice. This may be done in 

 many ways, and two of the best are studies, or, 

 where space is at command, to go in for broad 

 effects, by massing many plants of one sort into 

 such groups as form a striking feature, and this, 

 not in tender exotics — which can at the best 

 only last for a few weeks, and represent a great 

 yearly waste of effort — but in hardy plants 

 which increase in beauty year by year, and 

 once put in, need the least care and expense. 



