BEAUTIFUL GARDENS HOW TO MAKE AND MAINTAIN THEM OS THE PROI 10M-438-33 2320 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ' 1 LEGISL rial, B.C HA 'APR x 0 PRO" MJKX Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of British Columbia Library http://www.archive.org/details/beautifulgardensOOwrig BEAUTIFUL GARDENS Gardening Books By WALTER P. WRIGHT Cassell's A B C of Gardening Pictorial Practical Gardening Pictorial Practical Fruit Growing Pictorial Greenhouse Management Pictorial Practical Vegetable Growing Pictorial Practical Rose Growing Pictorial Practical Chrysanthemum Culture Pictorial Practical Carnation Growing School and Garden With EDWARD J. CASTLE Pictorial Practical Flower Gardening Pictorial Practical Potato Growing First Steps in Gardening With WM. DALLIMORE Pictorial Practical Tree and Shrub Culture With HORACE J. WRIGHT Pictorial Practical Bulb Growing By H. H. THOMAS Little Gardens : How to Make the Most of Them Sweet Peas and How to Grow Them By S. ARNOTT, F.R.H.S., and R. P. BROTHERSTON Gardening in the North CASSELL AND CO., LTD., LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE A FORMAL GARDEN IN THE ITALIAN STYLE ON THE RIVIERA. BEAUTIFUL GARDENS HOW TO MAKE AND MAINTAIN THEM MODERN ARTISTIC FLOWER GARDENING, WITH PLANS, DESIGNS, AND PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND COLOURED PLATES. SELECTIONS OF BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS GIVEN, WITH PARTICULARS OF HOW TO GROW THEM By WALTER P. WRIGHT Horticultural Superintendent under the Rent County Council ENLARGED EDITION WITH OVER NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND BLACK AND WHITE CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne First Edition April 1907. Reprinted October 1907. Enlarged Edition March 1909. Reprinted June 1909. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PREFACE, Modern flower gardening threatens to become almost as costly as our Army systems, which are formed and unformed with every successive Government. The best that the most influential member of the school of gardening writers which is now dominant can tell us is that, since hardy flower gardening, is necessarily very expensive, we must get the best value for our money that is possible to us. Such a suggestion can only appeal to wealthy flower lovers, and puts out of court the thousands of people who love gardens, but only have a limited amount of money to spend on them. I do not admit that the making and main- tenance of beautiful gardens is necessarily costly, once we recognise the principle that it is true economy to grow the finest possible specimens of certain good, carefully chosen plants. The common idea is to use hundreds of thousands of plants, established in groups, and left to them- selves for several years. The expense of this is terrible. vi*v* vi PREFACE. In this work I have endeavoured to give expression to the principles which I have prac- tised for the past few years in a Kentish garden, with results that my visitors have said to be satisfactory. At the cost of a few pounds in trenching soil and manuring, large areas of waste have grown into beautiful gardens as though by magic, with a moderate outlay on plants. It is woful to see the starved and wretched scraps of plants which are grown in many " ad- vanced " gardens, and which no system of " grouping " can ever make beautiful. Person- ally, I cannot take pleasure in any plant that is not healthy, vigorous, and a good specimen of its kind. The fact that a bad plant is pres- ent in thousands only makes the spectacle it presents more mournful. I trust that many readers will divert the manure which so often goes to making vegetables coarse to the flower garden, where, in combination with trenching and frequent division, it will give glorious breaks of colour. Thus beautiful gar- dens will be furnished at a quarter the expense that they now entail. They will be artistic in the best sense. Walter P. Wright. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGES I. — The Ideal Home Garden . . . i — 6 II. — On Garden Art ..... 7 — 11 III. — On the Size of Gardens . . . 8 — 16 IV.— On Laying Out Gardens . . . 17- — 24 V. — On the Making of Lawns . . . 25 — 29 VI. — On the Adornment of Lawns . . 30 — 35 VII. — On Herbaceous Borders . . . 36 — 52 VIII. — On Rock Gardening .... 53 — 66 IX. — On Beautiful Flower Beds . . 67 — 74 X. — On Some Beautiful Bulbous Flowers. 75 — 81 XL — On Certain Cheap but Beautiful Flowers 82 — 88 XII. — On Trees and Shrubs .... 89 — 102 XIII. — On Water Gardens .... 103 — 107 XIV. — On the House Beautiful . . . 108 — 112 XV. — On Pergolas. ..... 113 — 117 XVI. — On Wall Gardens .... 118 — 121 XVII. — On Wild Gardens . . . .122—126 XVIII. — On Ferns and Ferneries . . . 127 — 132 XIX.— On Garden Walks . . . - 133 — 136 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER pages XX.- -On Edgings . 137— Hi XXI.- —On Some Practical Matters . 142—156 XXII.- —On Anemones . 157—159 XXIII.- —On Asters (Michaelmas Daisies) 160 — 163 XXIV.- —On Begonias and Dahlias 164 — 170 XXV.- —On Carnations . 171 — 175 XXVI.- —On Garden Chrysanthemums . 176 — 180 XXVII.- —On Daffodils and Narcissi 181 — 187 XXVIII.- —On Gladioli .... 188—192 XXIX, —On Irises 193—201 XXX. —On Liliums 202 — 208 XXXI, — On Paeonies 209 — 2 1 3 XXXII. — On Pansies and Violas 214 — 217 XXXIII. — On Phloxes 218 — 220 XXXIV. — On Roses 221 — 229 XXXV. — On Tulips • 230—235 A Garden Year • 237—296 A Garden Remembrancer • 297—300 Index . 301—304 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Facing page Annuals, ideas for pretty- borders of . .86 Arabis and Tulips . . 92 Arches, pretty . . . 242 Arenaria grandiflora in a stone border . . . .157 Arnebia (Macrotomia) echi- oides .... 84 Aster (Michaelmas Daisy) ericoides Clio . . .163 Aster, Novi-Belgii Flora . 175 Aster puniceus . .174 Astrantia major . . . 61 Basket Garden at Gunners- bury Park 93 Boltonia asteroides . . 12 Borders of shrubs . . 96 Borders, pretty, suggestions for 38 Border, undulating, near a wall .... 30 Bourn ville, a small garden at 18 Bournville, pretty cottage fronts . . . .118 Bulbs, a pretty border of . 86 Campanula Raineri . . 76 Campbell - Bannerman, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry, M.P., walk in the grounds of . 139 Chrysanthemum maximum Princess Henry . . 60 Chrysanthemum White Pet . 180 Clematises on an old fence . 226 Corner, a pretty, in a subur- ban garden . . 19 Facing page Creeper covered house seen through a pergola . .143 Daffodil Emperor, a fine clump of ... 68 Edelweiss beside a stone lined walk . . . .156 Entrance, pretty main 24, 30 Evergreens, a border of . 96 Fern, the Royal . .138 Flower gardens, plans of . 232 Flowers, beautiful combina- tions of . . . 44, 45 Forsythia suspensa . . 117 Garden end, pretty . . 96 Garden entrances, pretty 24, 30 Geraniums, Ivy-leaved, on house front . . 143 Ginkgo biloba . . . 103 Gunnersbury Park basket garden . . • • 93 Herbaceous borders, beauti- ful . . . . 44, 45 Herbaceous borders, plans of 38 Herbaceous plants in front of shrubberies . . 52 Ideal garden shall come close to the walls of the house . 4 Iris garden at Kew . .189 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Facing page Kalmia glatica . . .116 Kitchen garden, borders at Sandringham . . -53 Kitchen garden, main en- trance to Sandringham . 24 Lavatera, a splendid clump of . Lilac, Japanese . Liliums and Ttiberoses I/inum Alpinum in a stone border Osmunda regalis 99 107 210 157 Macrotomia (Arnebia) echt- oides .... 84 Maidenhair Tree (see Ginkgo) 103 Michaelmas Daisy (see also Asters) in the author's gar- den . . . -13 Narcissus Gloria Mundi . 181 Narcissus Madame de Graaff 188 Narcissus poeticus in an Uve- sham orchard . . .138 138 Paeony, a good tree . .211 Pagoda Tree . . .102 Path, flower bordered, at Coombe, Lewes . . 37 Phloxes, dwarf, on a wall . 123 Pinks, borders of . .162 Totentilla ambigua . .123 Primroses naturalised . .134 Primula J aponica pulveru- lenta .... 69 Rhododendron Pink Pearl . 106 Rockery, plan of 77 Romneya Coulteri . .124 Rose Alister Stella Gray 011 a stump . . . -31 Rose arch at the Garden House, Saltwood, Hythe . 36 Facing page Pose arch near a pool at Old Warden Park, Biggleswade 5 Rose Crimson Rambler cover- ing an old well . . 267 Rose FJectra . . .223 Rose Felicite Perpetue . 266 Rose Frau Karl Druschki . 222 Rose garden, pretty . . 232 Rosery, a plan of a pretty 226 Roses and Clematises on an old fence . . . 226 Poses, combined pillar and arch of . . . . 263 Roses growing on an old tree 262 Sandringham kitchen gar- den borders at Sequoia gigantea . no, Shrubberies with herbaceous plants in front Shrubs, borders of Snowdrops in grass Sophora J aponica pendula Stones (rockery) as recep- tacles, not as statues Sweet Peas, Cupid Syringa J aponica Tatton Park, conservatory walk Thrift, borders of Tree stumps, pretty . Tuberoses and Liliums Tulips and Arabis Viburnum plicatum Villa front relieved of bareness by plants . Vitis Coignetiae . its 53 in 52 96 134 102 77 85 107 148 162 254 210 92 125 119 142 Walk, an informal, with belts of shrubs . . .149 Walk, curving ... 30 Wall, border under a . -3° Wall, flower covered, in Corn- wall . . . .122 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XI Facing page Water garden, a pretty, with Bamboos . . 131 Water Lilies at Gunnersbury House . . . .130 Water Lily pond, plan of . 104 Watsonias .... 08 Facing page Wellingtonia planted by King Edward VII. . . .110 Wellingtonia planted by Queen Alexandra . .111 Window boxes, fresh ideas for . . . .113 COLOURED PLATES A Formal Garden on the Riviera . . . Frontispiece The Garden at Harleyford Manor, Great Marlow facing page 40 Shakespeare's Garden, Stratford-on-Avon . „ „ I08 The Garden, St. Anne's, Dublin . . . |f I44 The Clock Tower, St. Anne's, Dublin . oT/l An Old-fashioned English Garden . . . n 3g4 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. PART I. PLANS AND PLANTS. CHAPTER I. ON THE IDEAL HOME GARDEN. By the time the average man is able to con- template making himself a garden the age for ideals has apparently departed. He has " come to forty year," and tasted the bitterness of seeing the illusions of his youth pass away one by one. He finds himself hard put to it to take a gracious and charitable view of life. His outlook is grey. To such a man the garden is fraught with immense possibilities. Wisely planned, prudently designed, it may conceivably fill that great and terrible void which so often appears at middle age. It may open the gates of a new and beauti- ful world — a world in which imagination and illusion play an allied part with all the vigour and abandon of youth. The imaginative mind is, of all others, the 2 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. one most likely to suffer rude shocks as age and experience increase. While imagination is sheltered by illusion there is always a chance of happiness, but when experience destroys illu- sion imagination is left naked and unprotected". Stupid people may be happy in any walk of life. Riches are not necessarily a source of unhappiness, any more than poverty. The reason that millionaires are unhappy is not that they are millionaires, but that they are not stupid. Given a millionaire who was as stupid as a Suffolk ploughman, he would be equally happy. The millionaire is generally unhappy because his imagination has developed as his illusions have faded. It is because the ideal garden provides so rich a field for imagination to roam in that it offers such boundless possibilities of happiness. Diocletian proved his profound wisdom when he voluntarily abandoned all the glories of the imperial purple to tend a Cabbage bed. The " Meditations " of Marcus Aurelius show how a powerful intellect is mellowed by a knowledge of plants. And there is comfort for the old in the declaration of Cicero that " the pleasures of husbandmen are narrowed by no age." Writers so eminent, yet so diverse, as Epic- tetus and Petrarch, Luther and Machiavelli, Milton and Voltaire, Gibbon and Pope, Swift and Pepys, Addison and Rousseau, Francis Bacon COWLEY'S "LITTLE ZOAR." 3 and Congreve, Chesterfield and Horace Walpole, Cowley and Jonson, Gray and Shakespeare, Shenstone and Crabbe, have declared their joy in the garden. As to gentle John Evelyn, Tusser, Parkinson, Temple, Lawson, Tradescant, Gerarde, Ray, and, in more recent times, Kent, Loudon, Paxton, Blackmore, and Hole, we look upon them almost more as gardeners than garden writers — rather describers of the work they have done than of the abstract pleasures of the garden. The hearts of thousands will go with Abraham Cowley when they read the words he wrote to Evelyn : "I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden. . . . But several accidents have disappointed me hitherto. ... I am gone out from Sodom, but I am not yet arrived at my little Zoar." Out from Sodom — out from the world ! Cowley had made one step on the road. He sighed, we see, for a large garden — a small house and a large garden. Is our Ideal Home Garden to be a large one, too ? Shall our " little Zoar " run to many acres, or shall it be merely a few roods ? We will glance at considerations of size in a practical way presently, but meanwhile let us lay to our souls the sweet assurance that it is not in size alone that garden pleasure lies. The garden will be the Ideal Garden when, and 4 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. only when, it conforms to the means and the capacity of its proprietor. A garden is no ideal one which brings its owner to the verge of bank- ruptcy, or so overtaxes his physical powers as to make him prematurely worn and aged. It must be a beautiful garden and a fruitful one, and it must bear upon its face the clear impress of its maker's own handiwork, but it must be a garden of pleasure and peace, not of painful and anxious care. Our Ideal Garden shall come close to the walls of the house, and linger lovingly there, as though it were indeed a part and parcel of our home. It shall caress the walls, lay tender ringers upon the windows, and spray itself across the threshold. It shall he all about the dwelling, so that it is seen from every casement. There shall be no ugly gaps, unkempt corners, or bare walls. Where the house goes, there the garden shall follow. It shall surround us every- where. Our Ideal Home Garden shall be a garden of perfume. There is nothing that recalls more swiftly and vividly a happy incident or scene of childhood or youth than a pleasant odour. When we merely think of that incident it ap- pears faint and indeterminate ; when it comes on the wings of fragrance it throbs with life. Modern rock-gardening does not give us full, rich garden odours. Many Alpine gems have <* 5 AN IDEAL HOME GARDEN. 5 perfume, it is true, but it is faint, and dispersed so imperfectly through the cold air of spring as to fail in sweetening the garden. We must have colonies of Violets, of Jonquils, of Lilies of the Valley and Wallflowers, of the scented Gardenia Narciss, for our spring fare ; to be followed by Pinks, Cabbage Roses, Bergamot, Lavender, Jasmine, Carnations (not the scent- less yellows), Heliotrope, Honeysuckle, Humea, Musk Mallow, Night-scented Stock, Mignonette, Sweet Peas, and Stocks. Our Ideal Garden must be diversified and varied. Perhaps we shall make it a series of gardens within a garden, separated by Haw- thorn, Privet, Sweetbrier, Myrobalan, Yew, and Holly hedges. If so, each garden must have its distinctive name and its own separate treat- ment. There will be constant charm in passing out of one into another, through wickets, or under arches. But even if it is only a small plot we must have diversity in it. A garden of desolating rectangles, with straight-up-and- down paths and borders, it shall not be. It shall be a garden of cool and secluded places, for in it we are going to seek refuge from the glare and bustle of the workaday world. We may not manage a Pleached Alley like that at Hatfield, but the odds are that we can fashion a pergola, with a quiet seat at the end of its cool length. At the worst we can shape an arch, 6 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. and, twining the shoots of a Crimson Rambler over it, form a pleasant Rose bower. And our Ideal Garden shall be planted so that we have beauty all the year. Little colonies of yellow Winter Aconites, of Snowdrops, of Squills, of Glory of the Snow, of earliest Irises, shall precede our Daffodils, our Hyacinths, our early herbaceous flowers. Even winter shall have its colour in the leafage of Barberries, variegated Box, Golden Euonymuses, Hollies, Golden Arbor- Vitae, Golden Yew, Golden Privet, and feathery Cypresses ; and in the blossoms of the sweet Winter Honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima ; the Winter Jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum ; the Winter Heliotrope, Petasites (Tussilago) fragrans ; and other things that snatch periods of bloom from the hostile calendar. Autumn, of course, will be rich with Michaelmas Daisies, hardy Chrysanthemums, Red Hot Pokers (Kniphofias), Sunflowers, and that generous sprinkling of linger- ing Roses which there will be if selected Teas and Hybrid Teas are grown. In all, and through all, it shall be as much a part of our lives, as close to our hearts, as tightly bound up with our homes, as love itself is. Only in this holy intimacy shall we taste its pleasures to the full. CHAPTER II. ON GARDEN ART. Charles Dickens is said to have once added the following warning to a letter of instruction to a contributor : " Mind ! no cant about Art." It is to be feared that there has been a great deal of cant about " Garden Art " these latter years. Artistic gardening consists in putting the right plant in the right place, and growing it properly when you have got it there ! If people talked less about abstract art in gardening, and delved deeper, there would be more beauti- ful gardens than there are at present. The wrangling between the " formal " and the " natural " schools of gardening is a very old business. Pope, Addison, and Horace Wal- pole led the revolt against formal gardening, perfected, though not founded, by the great Le Notre. Under their influence a powerful " landscape " school grew up, taught by Kent, " Capability " Brown, Humphrey Repton, and others. At various periods there have been violent reactions. The middle of the nineteenth 7 8 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. century found the bedding system in vogue, the end saw a wave of hardy plant culture sweep over the country. It was acutely remarked by Lord Byron that English gardening has grown up rather under the influence of our great writers than of our landscape painters. He doubtless had particu- larly in mind the satires of Pope. But in sub- mitting themselves to the influence of the poet of Twickenham, our forefathers committed them- selves to developments by a negative process. Instead of progressing by working to an ideal they did so by avoiding what was set up as an enormity. Now, the negative process in an art so inherently constructive and plastic as garden- ing has transparent defects. A nation could never build up its character merely by criticising the defects of other countries. Gardening is essentially a working art. It cannot be directed from the study. It lives of its own inspiration. It is because the literature of gardening is so extensive that the execution of it is so imperfect. How slowly the negative system works is shown by the fact that although some 200 years have elapsed since Pope's pungent satire at the expense of clipped trees was penned, the early years of the twentieth century have seen a con- siderable extension of topiary. We really ought to busy ourselves in building up beautiful gardens QUARRY AND CATARACT GARDENS. 9 with the help of our mother wit, and in con- sonance with our immediate circumstances and surroundings, and not worry ourselves with the strife of factions. English gardening will ad- vance, and gradually evolve a national character, when people learn that their first lesson in the making of gardens is to go forth into the open air and straightway turn a sod, rather than to deride, by the fireside, the work of London and Wise. The jangling of the factions is as tiresome as it is futile. In view of the antiquity of the crusade against formal gardening the pretension of some modern critics is painful. It might be thought that such beings as Pope and Addison had never existed. We are asked to believe that " gardening by nature " is a recent dis- covery, like wireless telegraphy and radium. Gardens are packed with huge stones until they resemble the face of a quarry. Cataracts of a pint or two of water fling their tumultuous spray into a ten-inch basin. Any weed becomes a gem so long as it comes from the mountains. One may loathe the bedding system and topiary, and love hardy flowers, without acknow- ledging the dilettantism of many modern writers. There are quarry-and-cataract gardens which are quite as much affectations as, and more costly than, formal gardens. They domineer over the natural character of the place, which io BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. is pummelled and packed until it assumes a form that is totally foreign and incongruous. A beautiful garden cannot be made out of timeworn sarcasms at the expense of ribbon borders and platitudes about the formality of clipped trees. It calls for real, concentrated effort. It demands the best that is in a man or woman. Until we have learned that the plant comes first — that only when it is well grown, and given a suitable environment, is proper gardening carried on — we have not learned what garden art means. One may see two tons of stone used to form a corner for one tuft of Primula rosea ! Nature does not generally do this sort of thing, and when she does she is teaching us not what to imitate, but what to avoid. Nature, indeed, may be a good theorist, but a bad gardener. She does not grow good plants, as a rule. She crams them together, so that they become weak and drawn, flower prematurely, and soon run to seed. Her object is not beauty, but repro- duction. With the never-ending feud between the formal and the quarry-and-cataract factions, the modern flower gardener has no real concern. He is well advised who cries : "A plague on both your houses," pursues his own course, and turns his attention to what is, after all, the real task — the selection of as many good plants VALUABLE BORDER PLANTS. n as he can cultivate well, and giving them the best conditions for growing in a healthful and beautiful way. By giving plants free scope and abundance of food they attain to dimensions, and give a quality of bloom, totally unsuspected by those who treat them in the ordinary way. An acre of garden could be maintained in magnificent beauty for many months of the year at a small annual cost by choosing, besides shrubs, such things as Ox-Eye Daisies, Paeonies, Goat's Rues, Boltonia asteroides, Statices, Sunflowers, Pinks, Heleniums, Poppies, Phloxes, Pyrethrums, Fox- gloves, Snapdragons, Columbines, Michaelmas Daisies in great variety, and Kniphofias — plants which assume stately proportions, or bloom long and profusely, and are readily split up, when generously handled. With beds and borders of good hardy plants, large or small according to the area of the garden, with an arch of Roses here, a pillar of Clematises there, a clump of Sweet Peas yonder, a quiet pool, a modest rock bed, the whole provided with a suitable foil of good turf, a beautiful garden is secured and maintained at a small cost, as " Beautiful Gardens " will essay to prove. CHAPTER III. ON THE SIZE OF GARDENS. The temptation to have too large a garden is much greater than to have too small a one. By a process of reasoning that is not quite con- vincing, a man frequently persuades himself that he must have a small house in order to keep down expenses, but will " make up for it with a nice large garden." It is with this leading principle before them that many people quit town for country life. The " nice large garden " can certainly be main- tained at a small cost, but one has to know how to do it. As much money can be wasted over a garden as over a yacht or a motor-car. Disillusion has followed in the footsteps of many a townsman over this matter of the garden. He has perhaps planned to do the light work himself, as a pleasant hobby, and to get a man in occasionally "to do the rough jobs." In this way he has intimated that he can manage two acres easily, apart from a meadow and a poultry run. He has proposed to himself to have a 12 TOO MUCH GARDEN. 13 greenhouse too. He will have an orchard, and grow Apples, Pears, Plums, Cherries, Currants, Gooseberries, Raspberries, and Strawberries. A Quince or two would be useful for jelly, and a Mulberry would be interesting. He will like- wise have a kitchen garden, because it is such a splendid thing to have fresh green Peas, and Lettuces, and new Potatoes, and other delectable things. Big herbaceous borders are indispensable, a Rose garden cannot be done without, Carna- tions and Sweet Peas must be included, and a pretty pool with Water Lilies and Sedges would be charming in hot weather. Of course there will be a good stretch of lawn, with tennis and croquet courts. The principal difficulties in the way may be summarised as follows : (1) the relative pro- portions of light and rough work become changed ; (2) the odd man of the right sort is rarely to be had when he is wanted ; (3) fruit trees will not plant and prune themselves, vegetables will not sow themselves, flowers will not grow them- selves, and lawns will not mow themselves. But for these drawbacks the two-acre scheme might answer ; with them it fails. The owner finds that if he tries to carry out his original plan he becomes a galley-slave. He endeavours to save the situation by engaging a permanent man, who, being of the cheap and nasty class, muddles and domineers to his heart's content. 14 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. The end of it all is that the unhappy towns- man pronounces country life in general, and gardening in particular, to be a delusion and a snare. He quits the village a saddened man, one more happy illusion — perhaps the last — dispelled for ever. The remarkable thing about these cases is that they often occur with men who have had a business training, and might be expected to know better. A merchant in a large way of business knows that he cannot simultaneously work his own typewriter, keep his own books, pack his own boxes, and deliver his own goods. He has to employ typists, clerks, warehousemen, and carmen. Yet the same trained mind will contemplate the two-acre garden, meadow, and poultry run, without a doubt or tremor. A man with two acres of garden that is to contain fruit, vegetables and flowers, not to speak of glass, is in a large way of business. He cannot have the garden trim and well furnished without the full services of an expert gardener, who will need extra help at certain periods of the year. Let that fact be grasped first. Pope's five acres were not worked by the " little, pale, crooked, sickly, bright-eyed poet " in his leisure hours with no more help than that of a Twicken- ham amphibian one day a week. Obviously, where cost of upkeep is a primary object, the garden must be greatly reduced in ACRE AND HALF-ACRE GARDENS. 15 size, but to this the objection may be raised that sufficient privacy or seclusion cannot be secured. There is a way out of the difficulty. Procure a fairly large piece of ground by all means, but instead of making most of it garden lay the greater part down to pasture, and feed it off with sheep, taking an occasional crop of hay. Make part of it orchard, if the soil is good enough, by planting some standard Apples, and twist wire netting round the base to prevent the stock from nibbling the bark, or fence off the trees altogether. If it is not suitable for fruit trees, a semi-garden or park-like aspect can be imparted by planting clumps of shrubs here and there, and fencing them, also by natural- ising Daffodils in the grass. Where ample means exist for providing abund- ance of skilled labour the objection to a large garden passes away, but in all cases where economy has to be considered a prudent and practical view should be taken. Immense pleasure can be derived from a garden of only an acre. A good supply of vegetables, plenty of delicious fruit (if the soil and aspect are suitable), and large supplies of beautiful flowers can be got from a garden of this size. Nay, half an acre will yield all if it is judiciously laid out and cropped. The great point to remember is that it is not area alone which settles the question of success or failure, but good judgment, good 16 BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. taste, and wise planning. The illustrations have been chosen with a view to proving that equally pretty and artistic effects can be got in small as in large gardens. The seeker for beautiful gardens must not confine his search to large places, where the flower gardening is often of a most commonplace character, and greatly in need of the bold and informal treatment recom- mended in these pages. CHAPTER IV. ON LAYING OUT GARDENS. Designing a garden is one of the supreme joys of life. The true garden lover will not dispose of it at a gulp ; he will savour it, as he would a choice wine. While common minds are dis- porting themselves, after the evening meal, with the political moonshine in the daily papers, or in losing winning hazards on the billiard table, the garden designer will be covering " Bristol board " with blotches, circles, and zigzags. If he be wise enough to get the very utmost out of his fascinating recreation, he will begin his designing in the summer time, so that he may have several months of pure happiness before autumn puts an end to planning, and starts the work. Tom Pinch called attention to the singular fact that in advertisements one man is adver- tising requirements and another qualifications which exactly correspond, and yet the two do not seem to come together. It is an equally remarkable thing that professional landscape c 17 lS BEAUTIFUL GARDENS. gardeners are for ever making designs for gardens of the exact area which other people want to fill, but the two do not harmonise. The fact is, a garden gives scope for expressing individuality to a degree that nothing else affords. A true garden lover will no more be satisfied with one plan by a professional than he will with his own first attempt. He will " lay out " his domain on paper so carefully that every inch is occupied, apparently to the best advantage, but over the next evening's coffee improvements will suggest themselves, or mayhap an entirely new method of treatment will come to mind. For the author's own part, he has altered an evening's work completely because the original scheme would not permit of the interpolation of an afterthought in the form of a Sweetbrier hedge. Was a Sweetbrier hedge, then, so essential that a promising design had to be completely sacrificed ? Well, the fact that the hedge did not seem able to squeeze itself in led to its being wanted very badly indeed ! Although much latitude for variety of treat- ment may be permitted, there are certain rules which the garden designer will be wise to observe. In the first place, he should work as much as possible in curves. His path or carriage drive may run as straight as a gun-barrel from the entrance gate to the front door, but it will look far better if it is made to take a gentle " NOT AREA ALONE, . . . BUT GOOD TASTE"