16 



BASIC PRINCIPLES OF 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



THE art of landscape gardening is based on certain 

 principles that are easy of application, and they are 

 applicable to all grounds, large or small. It should be 

 understood at the outset that it is just as' easy and just 

 as difficult to lay out small grounds as large, for the same 

 principles are involved in both; with this exception, that 

 on small grounds the lines should be drawn with more 

 care and with more intensity of expression. The little 

 cottage garden can be made just- as charming in its way 

 as the spacious grounds of a lordly estate. Good taste 

 in gardening is not essentially different from good taste 

 in music, sculpture, architecture, or any other form of art ; 

 it is an appeal to the aesthetic nature and cultural refine- 

 ment of man. 



Strictly speaking, there are but two kinds of garden 

 compositions — the natural and the formal. 



Natural gardens, as the 



NATURAL 



GARDENS 



name implies, are designed in 

 imitation of nature and, of 

 course, consist in preserving all 

 existing natural forms that are agreeable; so that by coni- 

 binine: and rearranging them, and associating with them 



colonies of trees and shrubs, ceitain artistic effects are 

 produced that satisfy our taste for beauty. When the 

 ground is level or nearly so, and the treatment is pastoral in tone, 

 such a garden is sometimes called a pictorial garden, and is most 

 admired by people who possess a dreamy and poetic temperament ; 

 when the scenery is broken-and diversified, with rocks and rivulets 

 and pools as major features, it becomes a picturesque garden, and 

 is the especial favorite of the Rooseveltian type of man — the 

 devotee of the strenuous life. What is called a water garden is 

 simply another aspect of the natural garden. In short, the natural 

 garden is the kind that the Lord built during creation week and 

 saw that it was g^ood. 



The formal garden is also good in 

 FORMAL its way and place, but it is altogether 



GARDENS different in style and arrangement. It 



is ])uilt along straight lines and, to a 

 great extent, depends f(jr its charm u]:)on the precision of its 

 geometric forms. What are known as Italian gardens, sunken 

 gardens and old- fasln'oned gardens are but mixlified types oi the 



Plate 4 



A PICTURESQUE SCENE 

 The high terrace and pronounced declivity of the lawn is a bold effect which 

 is pretty in itself, and the treatment has increased the charm. Sturdy, rugged sub- 

 jects, like Oaks and Evergreens, were used, and the whole scene is suggestive of 

 martial music. It is not a restful scene, and yet there is something in it that 

 fascinates, just as we find a charm in the stirring strains of the Marseillaise. A 

 good illustration of unity of composition and of well-conceived design. 



formal garden. When many architectural embellishments are 

 introduced such as balustrades, sun-dials, fountains, etc., it par- 

 takes of the nature of an Italian garden. A sunken garden is on 

 a depressed grade, with terraced banks, and usually contains many 

 carpet-bed ornamentations of fanciful figures. The old-fashioned 

 garden brings together in an orderly way all the old-time garden 

 favorites, and they are bedded in a well-proportioned setting of 

 lawn. But in the last analysis all the above are merely types of 

 the formal garden, and they are most agreeable to people with an 

 orderly cast of mind. Those who are measured and mathematical 

 in their mental processes find much pleasure in the contemplation 

 of formal gardens. 



And there are people with such well-balanced mental organi- 

 zations that they like all kinds of gardens, just as others with 

 cultivateid literary tastes find equal pleasure in the romances of 

 Sir Walter Scott, the war lyrics of Campbell and the love sonnets 

 of Shakespeare. 



