3l8 ^ GARDEN PLANNING 



plants in a way to develop their special habit, 

 instead of pinching and cutting them into 

 some conventional form foreign to their nature. 



To make the point clear I may instance a 

 herbaceous border in which the best general 

 effect is produced when there is no rigid sys- 

 tem of grading the plants in height. Though 

 the rule should be to put the taller and more 

 robust plants to the back, it is essential to the 

 best results from a picturesque point of view 

 that this rule should be broken occasionally, 

 by here and there reversing it. One or more 

 bold clumps of fiow^er brought to the front at 

 irregular intervals gives a character to the 

 border that would be unobtainable in any 

 other way. 



The gardener who prides himself on a tidy 

 garden may resent the intrusion of a massy 

 clump upon his path or grass edge, and will 

 keep it within bounds by ill-judged mutila- 

 tion, till the poor intruder becomes a maimed 

 wreck. It is by this kind of gardening that 

 plants are shorn of their beauty, and the 

 border is made a stiff and formal detail. 



The next point is to see that each plant has 

 sufficient elbow-room to develop without 



