Formal Gardening 
gardening and naturalistic gardening are 
deadly rivals, each of which must put the 
knife to the other’s throat if it wishes itself 
to survive. There is no real opposition be- 
tween the two systems, widely apart though 
their extreme results may lie. 
“ Natural gardening ” is a term we often 
hear ; but I have tried to avoid it because 
it is so inexact that it may well move to 
contumely any lover of the formal styles. 
No gardening result is natural. At the 
most it is only naturalistic. “ True, be- 
hind all the contents of the place sits primal 
Nature, but Nature •' to advantage dressed,’ 
Nature in a rich disguise, Nature delicately 
humored, stamped with new qualities, .fur- 
nished with a new momentum, led to new 
conclusions, by man’s skill in selection and 
artistic concentration. . . . Man has 
taken the several things and transformed 
them ; and in the process they passed, as it 
were, through the crucible of his mind to 
reappear in daintier guise ; in the process, 
the face of Nature became, so to speak, hu- 
manized ; man’s artistry conveyed an added 
charm. ... A garden is man’s tran- 
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