Amateur Gardencraft, page 19 by Eben E. Rexford
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that harmony which is absolutely necessary to effective work. Because, you see, both will be working together toward a definite design, while without such a partnership of interests each would be working independently, and your ideas of the fitness of things might be sadly at variance with those of your neighbor.
Never set your plants in rows. Nature never does that, and she doesn't make any mistakes. If you want an object-lesson in arrangement, go into the fields and pastures, and along the road, and note how she has arranged the shrubs she has planted there. Here a group, there a group, in a manner that seems to have had no plan back of it, and yet I feel quite sure she planned out very carefully every one of these clumps and combinations. The closer you study Nature's methods and pattern after them the nearer you will come to success.
Avoid formality as you would the plague if you want your garden to afford you all the pleasure you can get out of it. Nature's methods are always restful in effect because they are so simple and direct. They never seem premeditated. Her plants "just grow," like the Topsy of Mrs. Stowe's book, and no one seems to have given any thought to the matter. But in order to successfully imitate Nature it is absolutely necessary that we familiarize ourselves, as I have said, with her ways of doing things, and we can only do this by studying from her books as she opens them for us in every field, and by the roadside, and the woodland nook. The secret of success, in a word, lies in getting so close to the heart of Nature that she will take us into her confidence and tell us some of her secrets.
One of the best trees for the small lawn is the Cut-Leaved Birch. It grows rapidly, is always attractive, and does not outgrow the limit of the ordinary lot. Its habit is grace itself. Its white-barked trunk, slender, pendant branches, and finely-cut foliage never fail to challenge admiration. In fall it takes on a coloring of pale gold, and is more attractive than ever. In winter