Читать книгу The book of topiary онлайн

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“Little low hedges, round like welts, with some pyramids, I like well; and in some places fair columns, upon frames of carpenters’ work.”—Bacon.

Just how far back in the history of gardens and gardening the art of Topiary was first practised there is no means of telling, but we know that gardening was first practised as a source of food supply, and that pleasure gardening did not occupy a very prominent position among the arts and sciences until civilisation had made considerable advances. Architecture had progressed in a wonderful manner and reached a high state of perfection long before horticulture assumed any great importance. To use Lord Bacon’s elegant words, “when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.” This being so, it does not seem so very unreasonable to presume that the ancient builders of stately edifices would not in designing the surrounding gardens, plant trees and shrubs likely to mask, soften, or detract in any way from the architectural features created at so great an expenditure of time and money. They would the rather be likely to plant the more formal trees near the mansion, keeping the more graceful at a distance. The love of the formal among the Greeks may be evidenced from the writings of Theocritus, the pastoral poet of Greece, who compares the beauty of Helen to that of a Cypress. Following up this idea, a reason for keeping evergreen and other trees closely clipped is apparent. From the mere clipping of these subjects so as to keep them in harmony with the architecture, to the cutting of evergreens into fantastic shapes, is not a very wide transition, but whether the latter style was first adopted by the Grecian or the Roman gardeners does not appear.