If in the foregoing chapters I have dwelt rather insistently on matters of colour, it is not that I underrate the equal importance of form and proportion, but that I think that the question of colour, as regards its more careful use, is either more commonly neglected or has had fewer exponents. As in all matters relating to design in gardening, the good placing of plants in detail is a matter of knowledge of an artistic character. The shaping of every group of plants, to have the best effect, should not only be definitely intended, but should be done with an absolute conviction by the hand that feels the drawing that the group must have in relation to what is near, or to the whole form of the clump or border or whatever the nature of the place may be. I am only too well aware that to many this statement may convey no idea whatever; nevertheless I venture to insist upon its truth. Moreover, I am addressing this book to the consideration of those who are in sympathy with my views of gardening, among whom I know there are many who, even if they have not made themselves able, by study and long practice, to show in groundwork and garden design the quality known to artists as drawing�by which is meant a right movement of line and form and group� can at least recognise its value�indeed, its supreme importance�when it is present, and do not, in its absence, fail to feel that the thing shown is without life, spirit, or reasonable justification.
