Gardens which are made haphazard are rarely successful, yet the majority of small gardens have been so made. The inference is obvious. How often do we not see, from the vantage point of some suburban railroad journey, garden after garden in monotonous succession, all planned to a common type.

Some may be neat and well kept, others neglected, but the outlines are the same in all, probably conceived and made by the speculative builder's foreman, whose knowledge and skill can hardly be expected to rank high in this department of his work.

When the gardener himself has taken the pains to model his garden to suit his own views of what it should be, the result is more often than not marred by mistakes which arise from hastiness and an inadequate knowledge of, or attention to, essentials.

Possibly the commonest error is to ignore aspect, planning for symmetry, which is hardly ever consistent with the best arrangement for flower growing in a plot of limited size.

Another mistake is to over-elaborate, thereby destroying simplicity and breadth of effect. It is not intended to enumerate here all the shortcomings of the modern suburban garden. It is only to make them sufficiently apparent when a more detailed statement of the principles which should govern the planning of such gardens is discussed. A simple yet attractive rock fountain would work well in this methodology.

Skillful planning, particularly when applied to gardens of limited size, includes economy of space, or, in other words, making the most of the space available. This is only possible by giving proper consideration to aspect.

The craze for symmetry prevails too strongly in modern garden planning. Grass and gravel are allowed to usurp positions best adapted to flower culture, whilst long stretches of border in perpetual shade hold a few starved plants, whose sorry condition proclaims the futility of expecting nature to heed our notions of equal-sidedness.

Sunshine, the life and soul of the vegetable kingdom, and the very first necessity for the flower, must have full access to our beds and borders, and this is only to be contrived by placing them where the sunlight can reach them.

Therefore it is a necessary preliminary to the planning of a small garden to observe which parts of it enjoy full sunshine and which parts lurk in perpetual shadow. The north side of the house or of a garden wall, in northern latitudes, receives no sunlight, and permanent shadows may be cast by trees and buildings on neighboring premises.

These shadows are as rocks to the careful navigator, things to be given a wide berth, unless circumstances (as in the case of redundant trees) permit of our bodily removing their cause.