International studio (53.1914)

What is a Garden ?

The second answer we would give to this question,
“ What is a garden ? ” is that it is, in its way, a
portion of the dwelling house. When we consider
what a large part the English garden plays in
organised recreation in the form of games and also
in social life through garden parties, fetes and the
like, and also as a retreat for the enjoyment of quiet
leisure in undisturbed privacy, we come to see
that it fulfils much the same purpose as the enter-
taining and living rooms of the mansion in its more
prominent parts, while its private and secluded
portions take the place out-of-doors of the boudoir
and the library. From this it is evident that in
the planning of our garden we must not only have
the open extended view and the broad stretch of
unbroken green, but we must also provide the
secluded portion, “ the outdoor apartment ” as the
writer has so often called it, which is found in its
perfection in the old English garden enclosed by
yew hedges and set about with seats for rest, and
adorned with brightly hued flowers to give a
suggestion of decorative furnishing and at suitable
points with choice statuary or garden ornaments.
While I am opposed to the cutting up of small
areas of ground into little pokey gardens of various
periods so that, in the effort to do everything at
once we lose all sense of breadth and proportion
and accomplish nothing, still on the other hand,
I feel that it is equally wrong to level all fences and
clear away all obstructions and treat the ground
round the house as a large open plateau in one
style, every part visible from every other and with
no sense of shelter or comfort, and none of that
variety which can only be obtained by a change in
style to suit vario us aspects and portions of the
work. My sympathy goes out to the writer who,
treating of this very subject, says :
“ One of the most beautiful gardens I ever knew
depended almost entirely on the arrangement of
its lawns and shrubberies. It had certainly been
most carefully and adroitly planned, and it had
every advantage in the soft climate of the west of
England. The various lawns were divided by
thick shrubberies, so that you wandered on from
one to the other, and always came on something
new. In front of these shrubberies was a large
margin of flower-border, gay with the most effective
plants and annuals. At the corner of the lawn a
standard Magnolia grandiflora of great size held up
its chaliced blossoms, at another a tulip tree was
laden with hundreds of yellow flowers. Here a
magnificent Salisburia mocked the foliage of the
maiden-hair, and here an old cedar swept the grass
with its large pendent branches. But the main
270

breadth of each lawn was never destroyed, and
past them you might see the reaches of a river, now
in one aspect and now in another. Each view was
different, and each was a fresh enjoyment and
surprise.
“A few years ago I revisited the place; the
‘ improver ’ had been at work, and had been good
enough to ‘ open up ’ the view. Shrubberies had
disappeared, and lawns had been thrown together.
The pretty peeps among the trees were gone, the
long vistas had become open spaces, and you saw
at a glance all that there was to be seen. Of course
the herbaceous borders, which once contained
numberless rare and interesting plants, had dis-
appeared, and the lawn in front of the house was
cut up into little beds of red pelargoniums, yellow
calceolarias, and the rest.*
We see then that, on the practical side, the garden
performs two great functions, one architectural and
the other domestic. I am afraid I may have fallen
foul of some of my more artistic readers by con-
sidering these two practical points before the aesthetic
* The English Flower Garden, by Henry A. Bright.


PART OF TERRACE AT KEARSNEY COURT, DOVER
DESIGNED BY T. H. MAWSON