The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Landscape Gardening

Variety

Nature puts so much variety into her reality that she is more beautiful than we can imagine by sheer force of quantity ! Ten days for an artist in a mountain valley will give him ten views from the same point which will he entirely different each day.

Gettiamo un rapido sguardo sul vasto imperio delle arti, osserviamo per poco le produzioni di ciascuna, e resteremo convitti che, milla e bello alia ragione se non le si presenta con parti varie, e queste riunite in un principo commune.
F. Cartolano.
Many of the ancient treatises on art, and some of the moderns, have summed up everything in unity with variety. These two principles plainly stand in a position of commanding importance to the whole field of art. They also bear a special relation to one another.
Unity is commonly conceded to be the most indispensable, yet if unity means uniformity, sameness, the eye soon tires of it. But unity does not demand sameness. There may be unity with variety. The two are not really opposed to each other, though either one would be easier to accomplish could the other be disregarded. Perfect unity with satisfying variety need not be even a compromise; but both tests must always be applied by the gardener. It is helpful to the landscape composer to remember that variety is possible in motive, surface, form, materials, color, texture, season, composition and position. We shall now briefly consider the possibilities of these modifications.

With respect to motive, theme or subject matter (see page 44 for further explanation) it is clear that an endless catalog of subjects awaits the landscape architect's handiwork. He may find his theme in different kinds of land, as dune-land, prairie, forest, lake-shore, mountains, brooks, etc. Or he may find it in the multitudinous species of noble trees ready to his hand; for example, oaks, the white pine, the royal palm, the eucalyptus, the deodar, the apple tree or even the transitory Lombardy poplar. One garden may have the peony for its motive, another may flame with poppies, another may ring all the delightful changes upon the iris theme; while rose gardens have enjoyed to themselves an almost immemorial reputation. Some knowledge of materials is necessary in order to choose motives wisely, and some imagination to present them with artistic conviction; but the opportunity for variety is so great that no gardener ought to be excused for anything trite or commonplace.

In seeking to vary the surface on which our gardening is to be done, our attention falls first upon the three simplest forms of ground, viz., the plane, the concave and the convex surfaces. And we note also that the concave and convex surfaces give in themselves a much greater variety of view than is afforded by a plane.