HOUSE AND GARDEN 
186 
When flower beds are used in a formal way they are much more 
effective if they are extremely simple in outline 
one way, the most precious of all—the diamonds of the collection, 
that enhance the colors of all they are brought in contact with 
and at the same time reconcile them one to another, when they 
are inclined to clash. 
But this I mention only in passing; the questions that have to 
do with color are premature just here, for the first proposition 
must deal with the locating of flowers in the garden—with the 
manner of determining their place in any particular garden design. 
FLOWER BEDS 
Sometimes it is easier to find out what to do by eliminating 
the things that ought not to be done, and I think this is especially 
true of gardening, from the landscape or pictorial side. We have 
grown so accustomed to doing it wrong that the habits are fixed, 
and we cannot oust them by the accepted plan of ignoring them 
and cultivating the right ones in their places. They simply will 
not be crowded out, even though the better ideas are acquired, but 
crop up continually like noxious weeds. So up by the roots let us 
drag them and start anew. 
First, here is the flower bed habit, almost the greatest abomina¬ 
tion of them all 1 It is going to die hard even with those who truly 
wish to kill it—and many there are who will not wish to, for its star 
and crescent and circle and triangle forms have so impressed 
There is a place for flower beds but it is not there, where the 
unrelated units spoil a perfectly good lawn 
May, 1910 
themselves upon its victims that they cannot see a stretch of 
smooth and velvet turf without an instant temptation to fall upon 
it and carve some one of these figures from its heart. 
But lest I seem unduly prejudiced let me hasten to say that 
there are places for flower beds—a few places — and that, in their 
place, 1 am not objecting to them in the least, although I have never 
been able to see any beauty in the gimcrackery which shapes them 
on the elaborate lines that good, wise old Bacon dismissed con¬ 
temptuously with “They be but toys; you may see as good sights 
many times in tarts. ” He spoke of the parterre filled with colored 
sands instead of flowers, to be sure — but the fancy beds of to-day 
are the direct descendants of these sanded parterres, “knots or 
figures with divers-coloured earths.” 
A flower bed brings us again to the flowers’ likeness to jewels, 
for properly placed, a bed occupies a position in the garden corre¬ 
sponding to the position of a properly used jeweled pin or buckle 
on a robe. (I say “properly used” to evade the dictum of fashion 
which is sometimes known to strain a point for the sake of adding 
a little extra trimming.) 
A study of the costume of any well clad race will show at once 
that pins clasp two portions of a garment together or hold the folds 
of some drapery in place; that buckles buckle something. Indeed 
by going back to derivatives the idea can be emphasized still more, 
for “buckle” comes from “bode,” which is the boss at the center 
of the ancient skin-covered, wicker-woven buckler or shield—the 
meeting and gathering up of the wicker at the center being the 
reason for the prominence. 
Here is exactly the demonstration of reasonable and proper 
use that we need; likening the flower bed to a jeweled buckle, it 
is at once apparent that the places for it must be focussing points 
in the general design — centers, not necessarily in the midst or mid¬ 
dle of the general scheme, but rather points to which the strong 
lines of the design converge possibly, or from which paths branch. 
In such positions a flower bed of simple form — circular or oval or 
conforming to the lines which approach it—is in good taste. Else¬ 
where it is exactly what an elaborate jeweled buckle or pin is, 
when attached to a gown in some utterly and obviously useless 
position — a gaucherie of which one does not like to feel oneself 
capable. 
The beds which carry out the design of a formal garden are 
of course exempt from this condemnation, having as they do a 
very real place in the design. These too, however, are of the 
simplest form and outline — if the designer is an artist — and are so 
arranged as to give the relief already spoken of which comes of 
suitable spacing. All other flower beds fall under the ban — let 
them be taboo to those who want them — and who, for wanting 
them, deserve them. 
FLOWER BORDERS 
Ever and ever again recurs one question in every branch of 
landscape planting, and that is “Is there a reason for it?” Not 
simply the personal reason of liking or disliking any particular 
thing, but a real reason, based on logic and good sense and utility; 
that is the kind that must be advanced to gain the approval of the 
highest standards. And that is the kind that may be advanced 
for the garden form known as a “border.” The name alone implies 
that. 
A border follows something, borders something, ornaments 
something; is an attribute of something greater than itself, is 
secondary to some more important thing, to a conception of a 
whole — in the case of a garden secondary to some particular por¬ 
tion of it, taken as a whole. Possibly it follows a walk or drive, or 
the side of a building, or the line of a terrace, or the margin of a 
lawn; it really doesn’t matter what, so long as it follows some¬ 
thing. So long as it is truly a border be sure that it cannot go 
wrong; the limitations of that definite name will keep it what it 
ought to be. 
And it may be straight and narrow, like the path of virtue, or 
