2 
THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
paths all round the garden. A path up one side is sufficient, 
the rest being turf and border. Fig. i shows the usual plan 
of laying out a suburban garden, with a border of narrow 
width, and paths all round — the wrong way to lay out a garden. 
Fig. 2 shows a similar plot with ample border space on the 
south or sunny side, and only one path. The dark shaded 
portions are the borders. In a garden thus fashioned there is 
ample room to grow flowers successfully. At T (Fig. 2) 
flowering trees may be planted to give shade and beauty. At 
the west end a summer house and rockery are shown, the 
whole being a more pleasing arrangement than the stereotyped 
design depicted in Fig. 1. 
Features to avoid in garden fashioning are : using wire 
arches too freely; placing the formal ready-made summer 
houses in too prominent a position ; placing too many vases 
about ; fixing stone fountains in the middle of a lawn ; using 
tile edgings too freely, and generally making the garden too 
trim and neat. 
Now-a-days, true garden lovers strive to fashion their gardens 
after some of the many charming examples to be met in some 
of our English landscapes. Thus the lawn is carpeted here 
and there in bold masses of daffodils or snowdrops in spring ; 
shady banks clothed with coloured and yellow primroses ; 
hedge banks and woodlands or shrubberies decorated with 
bluebells ; shady nooks and corners made beautiful and 
interesting with ferns ; ugly trees beautified by the rambling 
shoots of clematises or roses wreathed in blossom ; the con- 
formation of the surface broken up by pleasing undulations 
and planted with groups of pretty trees and shrubs, so as to 
form charming grassy glades and pretty spots to wander in, 
and so on. See Fig. 2. 
The chief point to bear in mind in fashioning gardens is to 
make them as beautiful as possible. This can only be done 
by studying Nature’s ways and relying as little as possible upon 
the skill of the geometrician. After all a garden is, or should 
be, a home for cultivated vegetation, and each plant, or tree, 
or shrub should have its requirements studied so that it can 
yield its natural beauties to the most pleasing effect. We use 
rustic or wire arches in our gardens not for the sake of any 
beauty they may possess, but as a means of supporting 
climbers, the beanty of which we do admire ; and so it is not 
