H ouse and Garden 
A BORDER OF HARDY FLOWERS AND ANNUALS IN MOUNT ROYAL 
If properly placed such a use of flowers is not inconsistent with the beauty of a landscape park 
necessary for the convenient use of the ground. (4) 
To avoid everything that is out of character with 
the genius of the place. (5) To hold attention in 
directions where the finest views will be seen to the 
best advantage and to furnish them with more har¬ 
monious and better composed foregrounds. ” That 
these purposes were wisely conceived and adequate 
seems beyond question. They show just the right 
regard for the conditions, both of the city and the 
mountain, a proper consideration for the needs of 
the people, and for those fundamental principles of 
art which must underlie every successful design. 
The first law of a work of art, either on canvas 
or on the earth, is to be a whole. This is the most 
fundamental principle of landscape design, as it is 
of all design. Without it unity is impossible. But 
unity does not mean monotony; unity should be 
combined with harmony and a controlled variety. 
Mr. Olmsted applied this principle to “Mount 
Royal” in a marvellously successful manner. He 
recognized and developed the distinctive character 
of each topographical division and then merged 
them harmoniously together in one consistent moun¬ 
tain, one unified landscape effect. In the case of 
“Mount Royal,” he achieved this result more per¬ 
haps by his treatment of vegetation than in any other 
way. He selected as the materials for new planting, 
or the plants to be saved, those which nature unas¬ 
sisted might have selected, hut he emphasized such 
selection, idealized it and made it more apparent. 
For example, we find in one of his letters instructions 
to plant from 2,000 to 5,000 indigenous trees, such 
as beech, ash, hop-hornbeam, yellow, black, gray 
and canoe birch, elm, butternut, moosewood, bass¬ 
wood, cornels, and thorns; and such hardy native 
shrubs as sumachs, choke-cherry, witch-hazel, vibur¬ 
nums, alders, shadbush, button-bush, clethra, and 
purple-flowering raspberry; and all the native vines 
and creepers, poison ivy only excepted. For “The 
Crags” he recommended that trees of a low and com¬ 
pact sort be chosen, and that the native growth of 
low shrubs and particularly of vines, brambles and 
bracken be encouraged and supplemented. All 
the rocky land which he calls the “Fells” was to be 
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