66 
GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 
by the best gardeners), too long a look ahead must not be 
expected of children, for experience has not yet taught them 
foresight. As a rule they are only interested in the details of 
the near future. And yet just such work as this should help 
them to become excellent planners. On every occasion they 
should be encouraged to view their grounds in imagination 
from this angle or from that, from a window or a flight of 
steps. Experienced gardeners, when arranging flower beds, 
picture them as vividly as possible during the procession of 
months, painting them in their true colors and foreseeing 
just where gaps are likely to be left when certain plants stop 
blooming. The best places for the permanent shrubs and vines, 
whose beauty will often consist of berries and fruit as well as 
blossoms, like the bittersweet and the barberry, will, as far as 
possible, be decided now, though it is not probable that all 
will be set out the first year, nor is this desirable. 
According to one of his friends, Saint-Gaudens had a 
delightfully simple method for the effective laying out of 
flower beds. He would lay down laths to indicate where the 
paths should be, then move them nearer together or farther 
apart to widen or narrow the paths until the beds " looked 
right.” Carrying this practical method a bit farther, some 
stick up bits of brush where shrubs are to be. This is, as it 
were, ” trying on the garden’s dress.” ^ It certainly helps 
wonderfully in training the garden imagination. 
While children show a good deal of independence in their 
choice of plants, they constantly ask the opinion of grown 
people, particularly in regard to flower beds ; and their eager 
questions open ways truly to befriend them by a few wise 
hints, for there are some underlying principles in landscape 
gardening which everybody should know, and which may well 
be learned early. Some of them are embodied in the following 
1 Miss Frances Duncan. 
