Now let the reader turn to Fig. 9, which is a picture of an “improved” city yard. Here there is no structural outline to the planting, no defining of the area, no continuous flow of the form and color. Every bush is what every other one is or may be, and there are hundreds like them in the same town. The birds shun them. Only the bugs find any happiness in them. The place has no fundamental design or idea, no lawn upon which a picture may be constructed. This yard is like a sentence or a conversation in which every word is equally emphasized.
In bold contrast with this yard is the open-center treatment in Fig. 13. Here there is pictorial effect; and there is opportunity along the borders to distribute trees and shrubs that may be desired as individual specimens.
The motive that shears the trees also razes the copse, in order that the gardener or “improver” may show his art. Compare Figs. 14 and 15. Many persons seem to fear that they will never be known to the world unless they expend a great amount of muscle or do something emphatic or spectacular; and their fears are usually well founded.
It is not enough that trees and bushes be planted in masses. They must be kept in masses by letting them grow freely in a natural way. The pruning-knife is the most inveterate enemy of shrubbery. Pictures 16 and 17 illustrate what I mean. The former represents a good group of bushes so far as arrangement is concerned; but it has been ruined by the shears. The attention of the observer is instantly arrested by the individual bushes. Instead of one free and expressive object, there are several stiff and expressionless ones. If the observer stops to consider his own thoughts when he comes upon such a collection, he will likely find himself counting the bushes; or, at least, he will be making mental comparisons of the various bushes, and wondering why they are not all sheared to be exactly alike. Figure 17 shows how the same “artist” has treated two deutzias and a juniper. Much the same effect could have been secured, and with much less trouble, by laying two flour barrels end to end and standing a third one between them.
