PARK AND CCMETER'i' 
253 
right and proper in its way, only it should be sub- 
ordinated to, as well as co-ordinated with, other 
compositions of color throughout the entire system 
of planting on any special lawn. Color, for al- 
most everyone, is a great and positive delight. 
This delight may be more sensuous and less 
purely intellectual than that inspired by agreeable 
form, but it belongs more truly, nevertheless, to 
the restful physical pleasure associated with the 
lawn. 
A knowledge of plants, and the possession of an 
adequate supply, does not always insure a satisfac- 
tory grouping and massmg of them. There is 
needed an artistic sense of form and color effects 
that, if not inborn, comes only with observation, 
reading, and an innate love of the beautiful. * * * 
In addition to this special fitness, there must be 
a general plan, carefully studied, as to its applica- 
tion to the locality and surroundings to be treated. 
A ground plan should be made, drawn to a 
scale, of the locality to be embellished, the beds or 
groupings located, and carefuMy studied as to per- 
spective and outline. The plants should be se- 
lected with reference to height, form and color for 
each individual bed, simply considered as a part of 
the general scheme for the whole plan of decorative 
work. In this way only can a complete and satis- 
factory result be secured. 
The same careful study should be made by the 
gardener for any plan of ornamental planting, 
either of trees and shrubs or of purely sub-tropical 
and floral decoration. 
In the smaller city parks or places such a gar- 
dener would construct as direct and broad lines of 
transit as would be consistent with easy and grace- 
ful lines; he would secure ample lawns and um- 
brageous trees; he would mass the shrubberies, if 
used, in groups of a kind for effects of color in 
flower and foliage; and, if flowers are used, he 
would harmonize these, by the introduction of sub- 
tropical or foliage effects with the other features of 
the park, without too glaring a transition from the 
natural to the artificial form of embellishment. 
To do all this involves a careful study of the 
growth and habits of plants, the proper composi- 
tion of soils to produce the best results, a know- 
ledge of form and color to properly group and 
blend the many combinations of leaf and flower, 
that modern introductions have made available, so 
as to combine effects that will be in harmony, and 
present a picture that will heighten, and not mar, 
the main features of the garden. 
Where detached masses of color are desired, this 
effect is secured by massing larkspurs, hollyhocks, 
sunflowers, tall phloxes, lilies (candidum and aura- 
turn), and pyrethrums, in solid blocks, each variety 
in a bed or bny by itrclf, thus securing color effects 
long after the shrubberies have ceased to bloom. 
In these borders and generally throughout the 
park, (Washington Park Albany, N. Y.) the plants 
or groups are properly named, thus affording the 
public an opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
the many varieties of plants used. 
The term sub-tropical is popularly given to 
flower gardens embellished by plants having large 
and handsome leaves, noble habit or graceful out- 
lines. It simply means the introduction of a rich 
and varied vegetation, chiefly distinguished by 
beauty of form, to the ordinarily flat and mono- 
tonous surface of the garden. 
Selection of the most beautiful and useful from 
the great mass of plants known, is the gardener’s 
pride, and in no branch must he exercise it more 
thoroughly than in this. Some of the plants 
used are indispensable — the different kinds of Ri- 
cinus, Canna in great variety, Colocasia, Palms, 
many fine kinds of Dracaenas, Yuccas, Agaves, 
Cycads, Pampas grass, Arundos, Rheums, Acan- 
thuses, Wigandias, Rhus-glabra-laciniata, Aralia 
Japonica; all of these, and more, are used to good 
advantage. 
Where such plants are not available, by a judi- 
cious selection from the vast number of hardy peren- 
nial plants now grown in this country, and by as- 
sociating with these flowering shrubs selected for 
special grace, height and beauty of outline, a per- 
manent garden can be secured that will, with but 
little care, outrival in beauty any attempt at for- 
mal bedding upon the old lines of carpet work, 
and never cease to be a “thing of beauty and a joy 
forever’’. 
The true motive is for a restful, quiet arrange- 
ment of border planting and grouping, for harmony 
in color, and not for glaring, striking, effects. 
Much of this effect is secured by the aid of foli- 
age plants, and not with flowers. 
. The design of this paper has been to moderate 
or curb the tendency of too generous a use of flow- 
ers, arranged in geometric or formal designs, either 
in urban or suburban parks: to concentrate 
such effects, when used, to localities especially a- 
dapted and heretofore suggested for such displays, 
and to blend such exhibits with their immediate en- 
vironment, by shading down the tones, so that, to 
the observer, the transition may be gradual, from 
the natural to the artificial, or vice versa, without 
too sudden a change in form or color; furthermore, 
to use fewer flowers and more foliage plants. 
Scattered, detached effects are to be avoided. 
Treat the garden as one composition, each bed 
or group of plants being a necessary and integral 
part of the whole picture, 
