ON GROUPING ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 
183 
practice needs to be greatly modified. The assumption that plantations of any 
description should slope gradually down to the exterior edge or margin in an 
unvarying manner, is erroneous in principle, and unsightly in effect. It is to this 
mistake that the tame banks so common round the outside of shrubberies are 
wholly attributable. And to this is due their extreme dulness and meagreness. 
The outline of a mass of shrubs, or of trees flanked by shrubs, ought to be as 
diversified as art can make it. Tameness and uniformity are nowhere less tolerable. 
Large bushes, projecting forwards at different distances from each other and the 
verge ; others, of various heights, standing out with the greatest irregularity in 
their rear; and occasional limited spaces, destitute of any shrub at all, should 
break up the flatness of a bank, and make it truly indefinable. 
At the same time, however, there should be the general aspect of a descent to 
the boundary preserved. The irregularity we have advocated may seem incom- 
patible with any such appearance ; but the desired slope is easily produced by 
letting the minor plants predominate, and making those which are to diversify it 
the fewest. It is surprising to persons unaccustomed to such work, how trifling a 
quantity of larger specimens will serve to give boldness, and undulation, and 
variety to a shrubbery border. And the greater the number of species that is 
employed, the more perfect will be the fulfilment of that object. The correct 
estimate of beauty in this respect may be derived from analogy with another 
branch of the natural kingdom. In a rocky district, or an artificial rockery, it is 
not a straight slope from the walk or point of observation which pleases the eye. It 
is rather to rising eminences, and rugged protuberances and projections which 
almost impend over the observer, that he yields his admiration ; while (except in 
the case of precipices, which are totally removed from our present consideration) 
a perceptible descent is actually maintained from the back to the foreground. 
How this illustrates what we have advanced, will be readily perceived. 
That the extent to which our remarks are borne out may not be misunderstood, 
we may state that they are not adapted to all circumstances, without some 
qualification. Where beds of low shrubs, not more than twelve or twenty feet in 
diameter, stand out alone on a lawn, or, indeed, where any group, the dimensions 
of which can be seen at a glance, is planted on turf, the outside of such beds or 
group ought to come down to the grass, so that the two may, as it were, insensibly 
pass into each other. To introduce higher shrubs around the edges of beds of that 
sort would be completely unwarrantable and subversive of good taste. Yet, the 
surface of the group ought not to appear as regular as if it had been cast in a 
mould, and the destruction of its formality by placing two or three taller plants 
near the middle, and a few more within two or three feet of the grass, so as to 
leave room for smaller plants to complete the slope to the latter, will be both proper 
and desirable. 
As to the ground outline of masses of shrubs, that must be decided by 
the nature of the locality, and the express purport of the group. In a geometrical 
