en they are in flower or
fruit. For some flowering and fruiting bushes are best grouped, while a
few are best seen standing alone, and it is only knowledge of good
gardening that can guide the designer in his decisions on these points.
Still it does not follow that a shrub or flowering tree cannot be used
both for groups and single use, for such an one as the Forsythia just
mentioned is also of charming effect in its own groups, with the
red-tinted _Berberis_ or the quiet-coloured Savins, or whatever be the
lower growing bushy mass that is chosen to accompany it. Every one can
see the great gain of such arrangements when they are made, but to learn
to make them, and even to perceive what are the plants to group
together, and why, that is the outcome of the education of the garden
artist.

In the Royal Gardens, Kew, the best of plants may be seen and, to a
considerable degree, the best ways of using them in gardens.

[Illustration: _GROUPING OF SHRUB AND DAFFODIL._]

The one-thing-at-a-time planting is always a safe guide, but as the
planter gains a firmer grasp of his subject, so he may exercise more
freedom in its application. Nearly every garden, shrubbery, and
ornamental tree plantation is spoilt or greatly marred by too great a
mixture of incongruous growths. Nothing wants more careful
consideration. On the ground in the open air, and sitting at home
quietly thinking, the question should be carefully thought out. The very
worst thing to do is to take a nursery catalogue and make out from it a
list of supposed wants. The right thing is to make a plan of the ground,
to scale, if possible, though a rougher one may serve, and mark it all
down in good time beforehand, not to wait until the last moment and then
mark it; and not to send the list to the nursery till the ground is
well forward for planting, so that the moment the plants come they may
go to their places.

[Illustration: _NATURAL GROUPING OF SHRUB IN ROUGH GROUND._]

All this planning and thinking should be done in the summer, so that the
list may go to the nursery in September, which will enable the
nurseryman to supply the trees in the earliest and best of the planting
season.

How good it would be to plant a whole hill-side on chalky soil with
grand groupings of Yew or Box, or with these intergrouped, and how easy
afterwards to run among these groupings of lesser shrubs; or to plant
light land with Scotch Fir and Holly, Thorn and Juniper (just these