"Don't" destroy the openness of your sward by dotting it with shrubs or
pattern flower-beds. To this rule I doubt if a plausible exception could
be contrived. It is so sweeping and so primary that we might well
withhold it here were we not seeking to state its artistic reason why.
Which is, that such plantings are mere eruptions of individual
smartness, without dignity and with no part in any general unity;
chirping up like pert children in a company presumably trying to be
rational.
On the other hand, I hope my acre, despite all its unconscious or
unconfessed mistakes, shows pleasantly that the best openness of a lawn
is not to be got between unclothed, right-angled and parallel bounds.
The more its verdure-clad borders swing in and out the longer they look,
not merely because they are longer but also because they interest and
lure the eye. "Where are you going?" says the eye.
"Come and see," says the roaming line.
"Don't" plant in stiff lines except in close relation to architectural
or legal bounds. A straight horizontal line Nature scarcely knows save
in her rocks and on a vaster scale than we here have to do with. Yet
straight lines in gardening are often good and fine if only they are
lines of real need. Where, when and in what degree it is good to
subordinate utility to beauty or beauty to utility depends on time,
place and circumstance, but when in doubt "don't" pinch either to pet
the other.
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