When it comes to the composition of the garden, you should always try to avoid symmetry in masses and instead look for a balance of effect by some other means. If you have decided to decorate with patio statuary, make sure that the theme of the statuary matches the theme of the garden.

The pyramid form in a garden house is useful in giving a certain punctuation to the skyline. You may even decorate it with a weathervane, which would be quite appropriate and useful in the garden picture. The garden house should not stand out naked amidst its surroundings. It will be better if it is associated with trees and shrubs. It is not desirable to have uniformity in height in these artificial structures. If arches or a pergola are introduced into the scheme, do not let them soar up to the level of the weathervane on your garden house.

Trees are always useful in attaining that necessary height in the garden picture for which the designer must work. They must be placed so that their shadows do not intrude upon the flower borders and their arrangement must not be symmetrical. Let no two be at the same distance from your standpoint, and select them of different kinds and sizes. Grouping is preferable to scattering, or placing the trees in "serried rows."

By carefully weighing these various points, with the plan before you, it will not be difficult to arrive at a provisional arrangement of the accessories. You may next jot down on the plan where you think an arch, tree, or pergola will be of value, and you will then have all but completed your labor — on paper. Lastly, such smaller accessories as sundials, vases, and rockwork can be located and indicated to scale on the drawing.

All this time you have left the vegetable plot alone, after cutting it off from the flower territory and you must now revert to it. Some gardeners may prefer to treat it as a thing apart, to be concealed at all costs. Gardens, however, are so small in these days of dear land that you cannot afford to neglect the possibilities of the vegetable plot in the general garden effect.

Therefore, you should see how far you can use it to increase the apparent space at your disposal. One way to get this result is to contrive that a flower border, or borders, continue from the flower garden into and through the vegetable plot, thereby extending the garden vista to the extreme limit of the ground.

In certain circumstances it may be advisable, for the sake of obtaining a particular effect, to adopt a division between the kitchen and flower garden which is not a straight line. This may be a bold curve or a cranked line.

The division may be definitely marked by a fence or hedge, or less conspicuously indicated by an informal line of shrubs. Much depends upon the disposition of the other factors and the gardener's views as to the desirability or not of allowing the vegetable productions to grab attention.

A kitchen garden is unsightly. On the contrary, its bold masses of green may be valuable as a background, and are by no means ugly by themselves. Still, there are times when the tenants of the vegetable plot do not look their best as, for instance, when Brussels Sprouts tower lankily skyward and peas are yellowing and sinking into disorder.

The planning of gardens of larger size than the typical example just mentioned involves the same general principles, though the details and style of treatment may be different. It is mainly a question of scale, though the inclusion of additional features facilitated by the larger area of ground available may tend to complicate the problem.

Still, the mode of procedure should be along lines similar to those already described, and the planner must ever be alive to the importance of studying aspect and of building up a picture in three dimensions. Gardens of irregular outline may involve some early difficulties in planning, but they are generally amenable to treatment on common-sense principles, and not infrequently such gardens are, by their unusual shape, eminently adapted for obtaining picturesque effects.