324 
The Garden Magazine, July, 1921 
GARDEN-HOUSE AT 
DEAUVILLE 
Drinking afternoon choc- 
olate in this rose-draped 
shelter would be rather 
like living in a fairy story; 
indeed, it almost seems 
as if flower-kirtled, be- 
powdered, beautiful dames 
might at any moment step 
out of its cool recesses. 
(Garden of Madame la 
Baronne d’Erlanger) 
hedges and flanking borders of trees, an ample latitude of ap- 
plication was revealed which would facilitate the adoption of 
the plan by gardeners here. 
Loving their forests and educated as they have been to exten- 
sive lawns, it was not strange that the gardeners of France and 
England should evolve the informal park, with clumps of trees 
and shrubs sprinkled picturesquely over the turf. In this, 
the gardeners of England and America have progressed farther 
than their French associates may care to go. Possibly the 
remark attributed to a French gardener is more than an expres- 
sion of individual opinion: 
“Nothing is easier to lay out than an English garden. One 
has only to make the gardener drunk, then follow his meander- 
ings.” 
F ROM the informal gardening practised by the modern 
Frenchman much is to be learned. Diversity of surface 
and water ornament seem to be essentials. Broken contours 
are easily achieved, the mound being a common device. To 
heap soil two or three feet high in a corner or along an unsightly 
wall or building is a task as simple in America as it is in France. 
Again and again such mounds have been constructed to give a 
pleasantly rolling surface to the otherwise level Champs-Elysees. 
The summits of the mounds are usually planted with shrubs, 
serving as a background for flowers. The neighboring lawns 
extend upward along their sloping sides. The elaboration of 
this idea in the garden of an American in Brittany offers a hint 
of the possibilities of such embankments. A mound was raised 
between two trees, the twisted branches of which meet overhead. 
The top of the elevation was shaped into a level circle and 
covered with gravel. Low hedges of Privet surround it, with 
entrances from the lawn and the flower garden on either side. 
The circle is used as a lounging place and for serving afternoon 
tea. 
Nor does water-ornament offer serious difficulties. Its use 
is among the oldest of garden traditions. It was an invariable 
accessory of the old Italian gardens, where a small volume of 
the fluid passing over the terraces and through fountains and 
basins on the different levels produced an amazing variety of 
decoration. The more extravagant water-works of the great 
French and English parks were imitations of the fashion. 
Again the inspiration may be found in the phrases of Florace, 
describing his ideal of a garden. 
“This is in my prayers,” wrote the poet, “a piece of ground 
not too large, with a garden, and near to the house a stream 
of constant water and, beside these, some little quantity of 
woodland.” 
The use of water-ornament by the French in smaller gardens 
may be readily adopted by Americans, such arrangements with 
them being often extremely simple and easy of achievement. 
One charming example, I well remember, was in a very small 
and very secluded garden framed by a gateway in an ancient 
wall. Close to the dwelling lay a gravelled oval where the 
family coach might draw up to the entrance, or women and 
children lounge and play. Walls of shrubbery pressed close 
about the open oval and merged with a dark grove. In the 
deepest shadows of the copse lay a pool of water, so shallow and 
crowded with water grasses that it seemed to be little more than 
a silver saucer to catch a fugitive sunbeam. Yet it fulfilled the 
dream of the French gardener; in it peace and refreshment lay- 
reflected. 
I N THE French gardens, the American is confronted by 
apparent contradictions between massed plantings and re- 
strained isolation. The underlying artistic motives are not 
hard to grasp; the details are, however, best left to the imagina- 
tion and ingenuity of the individual gardener. Isolation, as 
the French gardener understands it, may be translated into a 
rule for planting specimen plants. Such must be very un- 
usual in form, foliage, and beauty to win a place apart from the 
surrounding shrubberies. And paradoxically enough, while the 
specimen plant must be unique, the beauty of common things 
also may be enhanced by the isolation of single plants, like a 
Tulip or an Iris, in wild or unexpected surroundings. 
A word of protest is not amiss regarding the thoughtless 
use of lawns in this country. Many an American seems to feel 
that his duty is done when his land is planted in grass, orna- 
mented with a border of shrubs, a sun-dial, flagstaff or a circle 
