Although every tenet of gardening art is constantly being violated in our cemeteries, the most common and obvious violations are definitely disregard for propriety. This means that the plants and design introduced are not appropriate to the setting. There are many other ways to break this rule, but for now we will focus on this aspect.

Propriety is a universal test. Every individual and every group must submit to it. You wouldn't put a suite of dog kennels in a garden because they are inappropriate to the surroundings, just as you wouldn't put a large outdoor wall fountain in the middle of your living room, even though it is a very beautiful ornament.

Probably one of the worst improprieties is the prominent display of monstrous or deformed plants and trees. Deformity and monstrosity have a strange fascination to uncultured minds. Putting these disfigurements out on display is a red flag of bad taste. It doesn't matter what you have inside the house; good taste won't save you there.

It is funny how the city resident, who usually only has space for a single plant or tree, will choose to plant the specimen with the most blemishes and disfigurements , as though Aesop were better to see than Apollo. The most common example of this is the little weeping tree, where the writhing agonies of one monstrous variety are grafted on the top of some straight, courageous stock for better visibility.

As you pass along a residential street in almost any town, looking for something in the gardens to admire, you will see how often this or that plant was used because it was a freak rather than because it was beautiful or appropriate. It seems that propriety is something that really needs to be studied before starting a garden, because it's obviously not inherent.

There are six distinct artistic qualities, in which any ornamental planting may be good or bad. These are unity, variety, motive, character, propriety and finish. These are all in some degree essential; but they are not equally important.

"Finish" is not quite as important as "unity," for instance. But you need to understand that any sort of an art composition may contain all of these six requirements, but fail to completely satisfy because it lacks a painstaking finish. It's the same idea as with a reading book; a bad ending could ruin the whole story, but the story is more important than the ending.

In gardening, finish means several things. First of all, you need to have a good selection of plants. All the plants employed must be the best of their kind; the minor groups must be good; and the masses must be good. The individual plants must be excellent in proportion to how much they stand out .

If a single specimen of some rare and striking species stands in a prominent place, it needs to be perfect. You can't place something here that has blemishes and discolorations. B esides this, it should have positive excellence to its credit. It should be a plant worth seeing, not merely as a botanical curiosity, but an example of nature's best work.

Good care is required to keep trees thrifty, to keep plants growing vigorously and luxuriantly.