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ART IN ORNAMENTAL PLANTING: ILLUS-
TRATED BY A MISTAKE IN LANDSCAPE
GARDENING: BY GRACE TABOR
E really wise man has discovered that he often learns
aore through his mistakes than he does by his sue-
esses; and although this is an expensive way of ac-
umulating knowledge, the wise man consoles himself
vith the thought that it is a very sure way. There
re, however, experiences which one can hardly afford
              to pay for by blunders, because the blunders cost too
much in time, energy and money. Landscape gardening may be
reckoned as one of these experiences, for you see a garden requires
years to grow up, and mistakes in early training can only be dis-
covered when it is difficult to rectify them, and the worse the mis-
takes are the more conspicuous they grow from year to year. The
little shrub in the wrong place this spring grows up into an accusing
mistake next year. And so the best way to grow wise about gardening
is to study from the mistakes of others, and this article offers a lesson
in landscape planting by showing how a garden was in the first place
made an eyesore instead of a beauty, and what was done to all this
bad management to convert the lawns and walks and shrubs into a
beautiful setting for a charming house.
   When I first saw the garden in question, it seemed to me that
nearly every offense possible against art in planting and arrange-
ment had been committed. For my illustrations in this article I am
submitting two plans, first the one of the garden as it was originally
planted, and second, my own suggestion for replanting it in har-
mony with the house, the slope of the land and the fundamental
purpose of all landscape gardening-beauty of line and color and
proportion.
   If you will look at the original plan you will see that the first and
most glaring fault in the arrangement is the entire absence of any
sense of spaciousness; the lovely sloping lawn might as well have
been a small, flat suburban lot so far as it conveyed any impression
of space and breadth. Not only did the garden itself seem cramped
and distorted, but it actually appeared to crowd back against the
house, as though there had not been room enough in the first place
to afford the building a position with sufficient elbow room. You
will notice also that large shrubs were set close against the house,
shutting off all view of the grounds and surrounding country from
either porch or windows. Thus, instead of "planting in" the
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