300 
The Garden Magazine, July, 1920 
lip® 
53bS 
so much to create the delight- 
ful atmosphere of informality 
and abundance so peculiarly 
fitting to this form of garden. 
1 prefer bricks laid in sand, 
with cinder and flagstones as 
second and third choices, re- 
spectively. The regularity of 
brick, in a simple bond pattern, 
or even in a more elaborate ar- 
rangement, enhances by con- 
trast the informality of the 
planting, while irregularly 
shaped flagstones are likely to 
detract for the opposite reason 
and tend to confuse the whole 
design. 
The opportunity to observe the 
small groups of individuals on 
either side is the double border’s 
delightful offering 
Here at the path’s end is a most 
effective setting for a piping 
Pan, a nymph, or Phocis, the 
garden’s patron 
ever, from the very nature of the case, as this strict unity of 
design will be less effective so its principles need be less rigidly 
followed. Not that conscious design and careful 
grouping are uncalled for here, but the method has 
changed with the point of view. The whole must 
form a pleasing picture as seen from either end, 
but >t is the smaller group of a few plants at a time 
that catch the eye, now on this side, now on that, 
as one goes down the central pathway, that have 
the greater importance. 
This inspection from near at hand calls at once 
for a larger variety of plant form and color and 
texture of leafage, as well as subtler and possibly 
more startling combinations of flower color than 
are permissible in the necessarily simpler single 
border; for here the eye is continually shifting 
from one group to another and looks for precisely 
the variety and stimulation this sort of planting 
will furnish. The difference in these two types of 
planting indeed is very nearly the difference be- 
tween an impressionistic painting of, say, a heather 
covered hillside or a grain field glowing with scarlet 
Poppies, and one of those dear old flower paint- 
ings, where the canvas seems filled with all the 
vivid forms and colors the gardens of the time 
could muster. 
But before going on to detailed consideration 
of the planting, it might be well to give some 
attention to the possibilities of the general layout 
of these double borders. The pathway or walk 
itself is the first necessity. This should be not 
less than three nor much more than six feet wide. 
If it is over narrow, two people cannot walk 
abreast along it, and so half the enjoyment is lost; 
if too wide, the pleasure of the closer inspection is 
sacrificed. Six feet is very nearly the ideal width, 
provided the walk can be proportionately long — 
perhaps thirty yards or upward. A shorter path 
I should make somewhat narrower. A width of 
five or six feet will allow for two persons walking 
abreast and still give room for that occasional 
spilling out of bloom into the pathway which does 
A curve tends to rouse curiosity 
yet when it is openly treated, 
as on the page adjoining, this 
tendency is overcome 
