IMAGERY IN THE GARDEN 
STEPHEN F. HAMBLIN 
Instructor in Plant Material, School of Landscape Architecture of Harvard University 
Approached Timidly Heretofore or Altogether Neglected, This Matter of Expressing an Idea Through 
the Garden, Precisely as Concepts Are Expressed in the Other Arts, Unfolds Limitless Possibilities 
“For the things which are seen are temporal; 
But the things which are not seen are eternal.” 
B HAT do the trees and flowers of your garden say of 
things that are not biological, of things unseen and 
eternal? Art has its eternal unseen as well as religion. 
And imagery is very present in other arts, as figure of 
speech or song motif in literature or music, and directly, in the 
objects themselves, in sculpture and architecture. Why not 
metaphor and personification in the garden, and symbol and 
suggestion? The furnishings of the garden may and do contri- 
bute to the hidden meaning to be sure, particularly as the sister 
arts are brought in; but may not the plants themselves contribute 
in a way no other feature can? They have character and each 
is the embodiment of an idea, considered from one aspect. 
The fact that it is not the usual aspect from which we view 
them is no valid reason for disregarding it. 
The garden is art, and the plants are in part the objects 
through which this art finds expression. Of all places the garden 
is the spot where plants speak to us directly, where they express 
not only their own life story but certain sentiments from asso- 
ciation with man. A plant growing in a garden should have 
meanings and associations that a similar plant in a nursery or 
AGAINST MOONLIT SKY AND SEA THE EVERLASTING PINES 
Everywhere in the gardens of Japan this, their image of immortality, uplifts the soul, not 
alone with the marvellous beauty of its tracery but with the lofty thought which it inspires 
