GARDEN DESIGN. 



563 



the site. The house and garden must, therefore, be considered as 

 indivisible parts of one composition, towards which the architect and 

 landscape gardener should work hand in hand. They must under- 

 stand each other's proposals and the effects aimed at. The influence 

 of the house is dominant. It is the raison d'etre of the garden and the 

 heart of the whole scheme. It usually occupies the centre of the 

 most striking picture, it overlooks the fairest scene, and should be 

 displayed in its most favourable aspects. The important purpose of a 

 garden is to provide a setting in sympathy with such a house, and the 

 style of the building must influence all garden features of an architectural 

 character. The unity of the composition will be emphasized by the 

 extension of the axial lines of the house into the garden, either in the 

 form of main walks or by central vistas, and by every other expedient 

 which will grasp the best features of the situation. The landscape 

 gardener will be the more loyal servant of his art if he remembers 

 that the garden is made for the house, and not the house for the garden. 

 The house will always be placed in a way to take the best possible 

 advantage of distant views, but some discretion in this respect is 

 necessary. An important effect should not be made to rely too com- 

 pletely upon a vista likely to be spoiled in the future by building or 

 other operations, otherwise, when the necessity arises for planting 

 out anything objectionable, the proportions of the garden picture will 

 be disturbed. In the arrangement of a vista care should be taken that 

 the dominance of the main view should not be weakened by the opening 

 of side vistas on such a scale as to compete with, and distract the eye 

 from, the principal line of sight. Some persons make a fetish of their 

 objection to the sight of any building whatever in the view beyond 

 the garden, even at a great distance. There are many fine prospects 

 enjoyable enough for their repose and freedom, which would be all 

 the better from an artist's point of view if they contained some 

 distinctive object which would serve to focus the picture. 



Many writers on gardens from the architect's standpoint object to 

 what they describe as the confusion of the garden with the landscape, 

 and insist on the desirability of very definite boundaries, even though 

 such boundaries may necessitate the drawing of a hard cross-line in a 

 fashion which no painter would tolerate in the centre of one of his 

 pictures. The idea of assimilation has been ridiculed in an other- 

 wise admirable article on gardens by an architect, the writer suggesting 

 that it is as foolish to make your wall-paper blend with your pictures 

 as to combine gardens with landscape. It would be well to leave the 

 matter at that point if nothing more effective could be said against it. 

 A landscape gardener soon learns the danger of dogmatizing, but it 

 will surely be conceded that the principle of gradation from the refine- 

 ment of a made garden into the naturalism of surrounding woodland is 

 one which offers a charm rarely given by the employment of a visible 

 boundary wall, fence, or hedge, and my first endeavour would always 

 be to make either form of boundary as inconspicuous as possible. 



Naturally, however, a good deal depends on the form of the garden 



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