between landscape gardening and the scattering over the place of mere
ornamental features.

[Illustration: Fig. 55. An upland garden, with grass-grown steps,
sundial, and edge of foxgloves.]

[Illustration: Fig. 56. A garden corner.]

There should be _one central and emphatic point in the picture._ A
picture of a battle draws its interest from the action of a central
figure or group. The moment the incidental and lateral figures are made
as prominent as the central figures, the picture loses emphasis, life,
and meaning. The borders of a place are of less importance than its
center. Therefore:

_Keep the center of the place open;_

_Frame and mass the sides; Avoid scattered effects._

[Illustration: Fig. 57. An old-fashioned doorway.]

In a landscape picture _flowers are incidents._ They add emphasis,
supply color, give variety and finish; they are the ornaments, but the
lawn and the mass-plantings make the framework. One flower in the
border, and made an incident of the picture, is more effective than
twenty flowers in the center of the lawn.

More depends on _the positions that plants occupy with reference to each
other and to the structural design of the place,_ than on the intrinsic
merits of the plants themselves.