JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XL. 1915. 

 Part III. 



INFORMAL AND WILD GARDENING. 

 By James Hudson, V.M.H. 



[Read October^6, 1914 ; Dr. F. Keeble, F.R.S., in the Chair.] 



I DO not wish in any way to condemn formal or set gardening, but I 

 think we still see too much of it. Formal gardens, no doubt, have 

 their place in the wide field of horticulture, but they soon cease to 

 charm. Many of the garden designs of the seventeenth, eighteenth, 

 and nineteenth centuries appear set and formal. The most prominent 

 feature in them generally is the elaborate architecture, frequently most 

 costly both in design and upkeep. This is perhaps not so much the 

 case in our own country as in France and Italy, especially the latter. 

 The most formal of these gardens might almost be kept in order by 

 a machine, no room being left for the true art of gardening. The 

 formal or the geometrical garden has a tendency to make those who 

 look after it quite formal too. In such gardens every plant must be 

 in its exact position to an inch, and every one must correspond with 

 or stand in strict relation to another. 



Again, in the formal garden there is generally too much repetition. 

 This may produce a gorgeous blaze of colour, but it is not in the 

 best sense effective. Where there is too much repetition there must 

 necessarily also be waste of material. When the system of bedding 

 out was at its height, the glass-houses through the spring months 

 were crowded to excess with bedding plants, to the injury and 

 weakening of the permanent plants therein. A vast amount of labour 

 was spent over this work, labour that might have been employed in 

 far more profitable ways * and labour is a serious item in these days. 



VOL. XL. 2 c 



