Gardenvisit.com The Garden Guide

Book: Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, 1816
Chapter: Fragment Xxv. A Plan Explained.

A garden is a work of art using the materials of nature

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To LADY * * * * MADAM, As you have confessed to me that you never could understand a plan, I will endeavour to remove your difficulties, by a reference to the one annexed [fig. 210]. We must begin by supposing that the embroidery at the corner is a pattern for a flower-garden, the blue patch in the middle is a fountain, the basin of which is about ten feet wide; the orange lines are gravel walks; the little patches of red and green represent roses, and other flowers, in beds or baskets, standing on the neatest mown grass; and the four circles may be berceaux, with hoops to support creepers, or they may be grass plots with vases or statues. I am aware that this will cause some alarm to those who fancy all NATURE at variance with ART, and who will exclaim, that it is going back to the old fashioned formal gardening of former days: I answer, by reminding them, that I am not now describing a landscape, but a garden; and "A GARDEN IS A WORK OF ART, USING THE MATERIALS OF NATURE."