SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS 



is I have stated in my Chronicle of a Cornish Garden," 

 but I am sufficiently broad-minded to recognise that 

 other styles of gardening appeal to other gardeners who 

 are quite as competent to form opinions as myself. 



A garden should, as I believe, be an emanation from 

 the spirit of its owner, and, just as some men are formal 

 and some informal, some prim and some Bohemian, some 

 careful and some rash, so should their several gardens 

 vary in style and feeling. 



I have laid down no laws as to the arrangement of 

 flowers with a view to producing colour schemes," 

 for I have never seen colour schemes which surpass 

 those chance effects of the hedgerow and the meadow, 

 or of those pleasant gardens where the gardeners' sole 

 aim is to grow plants from the plants' point of view, 

 that is to say, with the sole aim of growing them 

 healthily and well. Of course, occasionally, a bad colour 

 shows itself, but the remedy is simple and obvious. 

 Occasionally, also, a colour discord will be perceived 

 in bed or border, but a spade will cure the trouble in 

 five minutes. Indeed, there is some small risk at the 

 present moment that the individuality of beautiful plants 

 and flowers may be too frequently sacrificed to the 

 production of effects." This was the deadly fault of 

 the bedding" system, and should be guarded against. 

 The bedding system has made such beautiful flowers 

 as geraniums, calceolarias and lobelias stink in the 

 nostrils of some of us; just as the disgusting invention 

 of Dr. Gregory has been successful in making raspberry 

 jam a source of nausea to tens of thousands of English 

 boys and girls. 



Let us as gardeners beware of being too clever and 



artistic"; Nature may be a hard mistress, but she is 

 not a fool. 



