June, 1917 
33 
Used en masse, spirea or meadow-sweet is 
distinctly effective. This is Palmata ele- 
gans, hearing white flowers with crimson 
stamens 
garden. It must have character and not be 
an inane conglomeration of white and green. 
The character comes with the lines—and 
the grouping with due regard for these 
lines. Important as these are anywhere, 
they are more important than usual in a 
garden devoted to one color; and most im¬ 
portant of all in a garden devoted just to 
white. It is like an artist’s study in black 
and white, wherein composition and line 
afford him his only opportunities. Indeed, 
it is hardly exaggeration to say that anyone 
can make a lovely garden in colors, but it 
takes a genius to ci'eate one all in white. 
It may be great or small; it must be well 
designed. It should be simple in design, and 
of course, it ought to be enclosed in one way 
or another. Nothing is a garden without 
being thus set apart. 
Simplicity vs. Originality 
Simplicity of design is one of the most 
difficult, and at the same time one of the 
easiest things in the world to accomplish. 
It is difficult because there is invariably the 
wish present with the designer to create 
something “differently.” Now there is no 
such thing in the world as entire originality, 
and anyone who deludes himself into the be¬ 
lief that he has created a design hitherto 
unthought of has worked upon his own 
credulity to an alarming degree—or else he 
has actually gone over into the realm of 
mental shipwreck, and “designed” some¬ 
thing too awful for contemplation. 
There are gardens that I suspect have 
been developed in just this fashion; they 
are original and “different”—and they are 
nightmares! Avoid anything of this sort 
at all costs, even if you have to settle dowm 
to a single brick path bordered with flowers. 
There is not the slightest degree of origi¬ 
nality about this. It is as old as the hills, 
{Continued on page 64) 
Try the Japanese hell-flowers in a good, 
large mass. They grow about 2' or more 
high and blossom in midsummer 
one or recommend another; but a white 
flowered garden seems conservative enough 
to find room almost anywhere. Yet there 
are a great many who would reject it as im¬ 
possible, on the ground that it would be in¬ 
sipid. However, there are subtleties and 
degrees in “white” that altogether escape 
ordinary observation. 
One may choose to have a white garden 
wherever a blue or a pink or a yellow garden 
would be acceptable—that is, anywhere at 
all, so far as general conditions are con¬ 
cerned. But I would not choose to devote 
a garden to white flowers alone, with build¬ 
ings of any but the lightest colors and pref¬ 
erably in stucco. Dark stained shingles and 
the somber dignity of half-timber demand 
depth of color in all that approaches them; 
white painted houses, on the other hand, 
are likely to be somewhat stiff' without a 
certain gaiety in garden planting; houses 
painted in other hues are too uncertain to 
enter into generalities of this sort; and brick 
houses are too rare. 
Given the brick house, however, or a 
house of stone, there is almost as good an 
opportunity for the use of white flowers 
alone in the garden scheme as the stucco 
house affords; although with stone it is per¬ 
haps rather better to plan some diversity in 
color and the introduction of warm tones. 
Of course, color does not matter so 
greatly where the garden site is not imme¬ 
diately adjacent to the dwelling; but even 
where it is removed sufficiently not to be 
brought into relationship with the latter at 
all, I still would adhere to these general 
principles in adopting white as the motif. 
For one reason or another, white flowers 
exclusively are more suitable when used in 
connection with the materials I have just 
enumerated than with anything else. 
How TO Plant It 
I have already said that there is greater 
necessity for careful consideration with re¬ 
gard to the use of white flowers than with 
any other color; this is doubly so of the 
selection and the planting of an all white 
In choosing large marshmallows for the 
lohite garden, the crimson-eye variety is 
good unless the giant forms are desired 
