Garden Embellishments 
By LILLIAN HARROD 
J UST as a house, however perfect it may he in 
style and construction, must have furniture 
to make it homelike and comfortable, so a 
garden, beautiful in its wealth ol flowers and shrubs 
though it may be, requires certain accessories to give 
it that pleasant, inviting air which is so essential for 
its success. The early garden makers among the 
Greeks and Romans realized the truth of this fact 
and consequently made their belief manifest through 
the wonderful fountains, vases, and statuary with 
which they embellished their grounds. Many 
beautiful gardens of more modern origin bear traces 
of the same artistic spirit displayed by the ancients, 
but of late years there has apparently been a decline 
in this respect. Too little attention has been paid 
to the proper furnishing of the garden and as a result 
it has lost much 
of its fascination 
and charm. 
This has been 
especially true 
of our American 
gardens, for it is 
only within a 
comparatively 
few years that 
we have com¬ 
menced to ap¬ 
preciate the 
great possibili¬ 
ties for enjoy¬ 
ment and com¬ 
fort which they 
offer. It may 
be that the pre¬ 
vailing fashion 
of copying old 
E ngli s h and 
Italian gardens, 
as well as the 
delightful old- 
fashioned ones 
of colonial days, 
has brought 
about this 
change. At all 
events, people 
are certainly 
arranging their 
gardens after a 
more sensible 
plan than for¬ 
merly; not that 
they are less beautiful, but rather more attractive, 
since their furnishings render them most charming 
outdoor living-rooms for summer use. 
Among the more useful types of accessories now in 
favor are garden seats, which are to be found in a 
countless variety of styles. Even the tiniest plot is 
not too small to contain a simple bench attractively 
placed in some shady corner, while the stately, formal 
garden, which graces the rich man’s vast estate, 
cannot be called complete without its dignified seats 
of stone or concrete. For the informal home garden 
there are suitable seats in many attractive designs. 
Where a rustic effect is desired, cedar and locust 
with the bark left on may be used with excellent 
results. Cypress also makes satisfactory furniture 
for garden use and, if well painted and cared for each 
season, it will do 
service for a 
number of sum¬ 
mers. 
For those who 
prefer a more 
durable material 
but cannot af¬ 
ford expensive 
stone seats for 
their gardens, 
concrete makes 
an excellent sub¬ 
stitute. Simple 
benches of good 
design may be 
purchased at 
reasonable 
prices and their 
soft natural 
coloring con¬ 
trasts well with 
the varied hues 
of flowers and 
shrubs. Elab¬ 
orately orna¬ 
mented seats of 
marble are occa¬ 
sion ally seen, 
but rarely out¬ 
side of the most 
strictly formal 
garden. Even 
there they must 
be in perfect 
accord with the 
other decorative 
A BIRD BATH WITH CHARMING ENVIRONMENT 
21 
