January, 1923 
45 
pens that this style of garden plan¬ 
ning is very happily suited to town 
gardens where a simplicity that is al¬ 
most severe is well adapted to the 
compact area of the usual city back¬ 
yard. 
This Gallic idea of gardening, as 
it applies in the town garden, is 
splendidly illustrated in the accom¬ 
panying photographs and plan. From 
the plan it will be seen how the two 
main paths of the garden continue 
the line of the garden doorways and 
steps to give the garden an intimate 
connection with the house; how each 
path ends upon some bit of sculpture 
or other garden decoration; how each 
grass plot becomes a well proportion¬ 
ed panel decorated by flower beds and 
borders that are essentially strips and 
spots of a single color. 
The vines on the walls have been 
led into architectural paths. Trellises 
have been provided for them to a 
height of 5' except where it has been 
desired to furnish a background for a 
piece of sculpture, an urn, or a wall 
fountain. In these places round and 
flat arches spring between the solid 
walls of ivy. The vines do not vote. 
They have no voice in the direction 
or the character of their wanderings. 
They are given a guide and, accord¬ 
ing to that guide, they grow. And amid 
the artificiality of the town garden the 
effect obtained in this manner is both 
appropriate and delightful. 
The flower beds in this garden are 
planted with begonias. The long 
border at the side is filled so com- 
French garden plans are like lessons in logic; there is a reason 
for every detail of design, and each line leads somewhere 
pactly with a small, coral pink variety 
that it is almost as though someone 
had unrolled a coral colored carpet 
on the grass. The oval beds in the 
central panel of turf are filled with 
the large fringed type of the same 
plant. These beds must be emptied 
each Fall and filled each Spring, but 
it must be said for the plants that 
they require very little attention dur¬ 
ing their long blooming period. If 
there is a lack of variety of color 
there is also a lack of trouble. 
The larger plants in the garden are 
generally, as in this case, hydrangeas 
in tubs. As with begonias they offer 
beautiful masses of continuous color 
throughout the Summer with the 
slightest amount of attention. It is 
unnecessary to protect them in the 
Winter because, at that time, they 
must be carried bodily indoors, where 
the}' may be forgotten until the ap¬ 
proach of warm weather in the Spring. 
There is much to be learned from 
the French manner of gardening, and 
from this particular Paris garden, 
which may be applied with advantage 
to our town gardens in this country. 
First of all it is necessary to make 
the design interestingly formal and 
composed of materials which will be 
substantial and permanent, as the 
paths, vines, sculpture, and turf 
panels of the example shown here. 
Then it is necessary to use simple 
plants simply. For when city gardens 
require a great deal of gardening 
they are apt to slip into a state of 
neglect—as French gardens rarely do. 
IFoodbine and 
wisteria drape 
this French fa¬ 
cade and add 
another pictur¬ 
esque note to an 
Empire exterior 
