We cannot hope to have in America the mellow, time-worn gardens such as those of the Ville Lante, for instance, nor is it wise 
to attempt copying these or the English centuries-old gardens 
Formal or Informal Gardens 
THE QUESTION OF STYLE IN LANDSCAPE WORK WHEN NO NATURAL FEATURES GOVERN 
THE CHOICE—THE REASON FOR AN EASY TRANSITION FROM ARCHITECTURE TO NATURE 
by Grace Tabor 
Photographs by the author and others 
[This is the third of a series of articles by Miss Tabor on the great subject of landscape gardening as applied to the American home 
of moderate si{e. Preceding articles were: “Utilising Natural Features in Garden M aking” and “Getting Into a Place.”] 
A LL the lovely gardens of the world are ours to draw sugges¬ 
tions from; let us do just that, and stop there, scorning 
ever to copy. When all is said and done, let us have, here in 
America, American gardens—not imitation Italian or English or 
Dutch or anything else. 
Italy, in the splendor of its gleaming, time-stained marbles 
and solemn cypress trees, is Italy adorned as its life, its climate, 
its social peculiarities and its evolution through twice a thousand 
years, have adorned it. England, with her castles and ancient 
abbeys and their moats and 
fish-ponds, relics of feudal 
days and cloistered monas¬ 
teries, her clipped yews and 
velvet turf, is England after 
centuries of wars, of inva¬ 
sions, of murders and pilfer- 
ings and all the shifting con¬ 
ditions of life which these 
things bring. 
Isn’t it time we young 
folks over here recognize this 
and give up the ridiculous 
task of attempting to build 
Elizabethan and Italian gar¬ 
dens? Good taste and com¬ 
mon sense would seem to in¬ 
dicate that it is. 
There are three factors 
which have directed the evo¬ 
lution of these old-world gar¬ 
dens quite as definitely as 
they have directed the evolu¬ 
tion of the races which built them. And these three factors 
are at work here among us now, and will always be at work 
among men and will always so direct. 
Climate, of course, is one, though possibly the least important; 
the life of the people—their occupations, temperament, tastes 
and amusements—is another; their economic condition is the 
third. Of these three the first is predetermined beyond man’s 
interference; the second is variable; the third fixed practically, 
as far as a home site is concerned. If an owner’s position changes 
economically he moves into 
the place which that change 
fits him for, whether it is up 
or down in the scale, and the 
new tenant of the house he 
has left acquires it because his 
position economically, ap¬ 
proximates the original posi¬ 
tion of its former owner. In 
other words, a place worth 
$10,000, costing $500 a year 
to maintain, will always be in 
the hands of owners of the 
same average income, though 
it may change hands fre¬ 
quently. Therefore, you see, 
its economic position is prac¬ 
tically a fixed one. 
Plainly then, whether the 
amount to be invested in a 
garden is $5, $5,000 or$50,ooo, 
it is a matter of most careful 
consideration under the 
An example of good formal gardening in America. Notice the transition 
planting from the formality of the garden proper through reedy grasses 
to the meadows beyond, and also the screening out of 
distant houses by judicious planting at the right 
(196) 
