The Formal Garden 
“ORDER IS HEAVEN’S FIRST LAW” 
BY Grace T a b o r 
Photographs by Mary H. Northend and Jessie T. Beals 
Editor's Note.— Most people have some peculiar prejudice in favor of a certain type of garden. This may be inducnccd by persivial tastes or by the c.-iigcncics of loca¬ 
tion. But the fact remains that there are different kinds of gardens to choose from as well as there are different styles of architccLVre.^ Jihe^ ^pnrfosf, ,0f this series is to 
show -what types are available. This article describes the garden laid out in conventional lines. Previous articles zvere The ijtilityf Gardi\ildnd Tiho SafSen of 'Annuals. 
Other types will follozv in subsequent issues. o '■ 'v ^ 
I T is always a real pleasure to talk about something for which 
one cherishes enthusiasm — especially when there is to be no 
talking back, at least not until the say is said. So I shall now 
proceed to enjoy myself, not¬ 
withstanding the fact that I 
am forced, by a popular and 
unthinking prejudice, into an 
attitude of seeming defense 
which my spirit resents It is 
my firm conviction that the 
kind of garden which I am 
here allowed to discuss needs 
no defense — that it is the peo¬ 
ple who condemn it who need 
that. I believe in it with all 
my heart; its beauty is so re¬ 
fined, so seemly, so complete, 
that it is in the nature of pre¬ 
sumption to say that argu¬ 
ment is required to support its 
claims. Nevertheless, it is 
very true that it is a beauty 
which is very often unappre¬ 
ciated- — more often than not, 
perhaps — and that there is a 
general reluctance to admit what we may' call the formal garden 
idea. 
Whv? What is the objection usually raised ag'ainst a formal 
garden? Invariably that it is 
unnatural—or better, perhaps, 
not natural. And certainly it 
is not natural; but neither, 
for that matter, is anything 
else about our dwellings; 
neither is the painful and slav¬ 
ish copying of nature which 
some practice. This indeed, 
of all artificialities, is the most 
to be condemned, for it is 
wholly false. ,a most wretched 
sham, a shoddy, cheap imita¬ 
tion. 
We cannot have any kind of 
garden that is truly natural, 
for even the one that repro¬ 
duces nature most nearly is 
built up by a process of selec¬ 
tion and idealization; it is its 
builder’s conception of the 
natural, but not by any mean.s- 
Reproduced with the permission of “Architecture.” 
The Villa Picolomini at Frascati, exemplifies a formal garden of box 
(19) 
