The established idea that only a formal design is suitable to the city seems now to be subject to qualifications. In several years of city garden contests, informal, artistically designed gardens have been well ahead of the formal in winning awards. Many authorities feel that it is more difficult to succeed with an informal than a formal design. There is a vast difference, however, between studied, designed informality, resulting in a balanced -whole, and the "jungle" type of garden that passes under the term "informal"
In designing an informal or natural garden, restraint must be ex-excised in the choice of plants. The gardener must keep plants' habits of growth in mind and choose material that will not outgrow its space in short time. A more satisfactory effect is usually achieved by a limited variety of plants, massed, rather than miscellaneous combinations of many species.
The typical city. gardener is a hurry-up gardener and he wants his finished picture in one or at the most two seasons. For him, dwarf and semi-dwarf plants, purchased near their maximum of growth, are ideal. Taller and more rampant growing material, when desired for other qualities, must be kept in check by systematic pruning.
The informal design offers many opportunities for the use of vines, Fences and walls can be camouflaged with the graceful branches and a feeling of seclusion achieved.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.