Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh.
PREFACE.
The whole subject of Garden Design is so diverse and complicated that I must be pardoned for disclaiming any ideas of completeness for this small and unpretending book. To refer, however briefly, to the methods of different workers, and the varied effects obtained by them; or to present in detail the many phases of garden making as practised in England to-day, would necessitate not one volume, but several.
If the reader’s object in perusing these pages is to find a model or plan which he may slavishly duplicate in his own garden, he will, I am afraid, search in vain. Garden “design” is not of necessity formal, and suggestive though the name may be of set patterns and geometrical figures, more may be learnt concerning it in the woods and meadows of Nature than in all the musty volumes which line the shelves of the professional’s office. The pleasures of garden making are so real that each one should jealously guard for himself the privilege of being his own designer.
It is with the idea of helping the novice to help himself that I ask his acceptance of whatever may be of value to him in “The Book of Garden Design.”
C. T.
Woodbridge, Suffolk, May 1904.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| Preface | [v] | |
| I. | Of Gardens and Garden Designers | [1] |
| Nature’s Gardens—Qualifications necessary for the Designer—“Garden Architects”—Formal Gardens, Old and Modern—“Capability Brown”—Repton—Artificial and Natural Design—Uselessness of Stock Plans and Patterns. | ||
| II. | General Principles | [12] |
| Comfort and Convenience the Primary Essentials—Undue Complexity to be avoided—Variety Desirable—Garden Paths—Eccentricity Condemned—Attempting too much—Colour and Contrast. | ||
| III. | The Selection of a Site | [21] |
| Accessibility—Approach—Soils—Aspect—Altitude—Shelter—Surroundings—Outlines of Property—Existing Timber to be retained. | ||
| IV. | Walks and Lawns | [30] |
| Carriage Drives to be Direct—Walks for Different Parts of the Garden—Serpentine Paths—Edging—Value of Lawns—Breadth and Space conveyed. | ||
| V. | Formal and Landscape Planting | [37] |
| Avenues often Pretentious—Objections to Clipped Yew Hedges—Topiary—Flower Walks—The Maze—Natural Planting—Boundary Plantations—Specimen Trees—Grouping. | ||
| VI. | Kitchen-Garden and Orchard | [44] |
| Unfounded Prejudice against Kitchen-Gardens—Site—Aspect—Boundaries—Borders—Good Walks a Necessity—Water-Supply—Fruit Plantations—The Orchard Beautiful. | ||
| VII. | The Treatment of Water | [52] |
| Value of Water in the Garden Scene—Artificial Treatment—Natural Effects generally Preferred—Running Water—Planting on the Margin—Banks. | ||
| VIII. | Hardy Herbaceous Perennials | [60] |
| Importance of Living Plants to Design—Border Plants with Various Coloured Flowers. | ||
| IX. | Plants for Alpine, Aquatic, and Bog Gardens | [69] |
| Alpines, with Blue, Pink, Yellow, and White Flowers—Water Plants—Suitable Subjects for Marshy Margins—Bog Plants. | ||
| X. | Flowering Trees and Shrubs | [74] |
| Evergreens Overplanted—Deciduous Trees—List of Varieties. | ||
| XI. | Hardy Climbers | [83] |
| Climbers on Trees—Roses, Clematis, and other Desirable Subjects. | ||
| Index | [89] |