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HISTORIC GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
the house and is shaded by locust and walnut trees. The garden,
which lies immediately in front on a broad terrace, though without
consistent care for many years, is still rich in old-time shrubs—
lilacs, crepe myrtles and mock orange—which stand _incon¬
sequentially within its boundaries. Althea—white, rosy and purple;
lilies—-white, tawny and yellow; yuccas—‘‘our Lord’s candles,” as
they are called in Mexico, lift high their torches to light up the
romantic spot. Scattering box bushes, gnarled and scant of leaf,
show the outlines of ancient walks of romance, their pungent odor
bringing a breath of days long past and dead. ‘The outlines left
prove that in its early days this garden was one of pretense, but
time and changed conditions have had their play at Ampthill, and
now the garden follows no certain, formal lines.
At its best this garden was, in many ways, like its sisters across
the sea; it had the same knots of flowers in the shape of diamonds,
crescents or squares, all bound by the shrub dear to us and the
hearts of our ancestors—the gallant, cheerful boxwood.
It was a typical Colonial garden that lay on the banks of James
River, and it is still a garden to wander in, to sit in, to dream in.
All is very quiet here; happily, the bustling world seems very far
away. Some of the old-fashioned flowers still stand where they
were set out in the old-fashioned way. The outlines of the prim
circles and squares may still be hunted out by the remnants of
their stiff and straggly box borders; but for so many years have
shrub and plant and vine lived together that all of this formality
has been done away with, and across old lines new bloom now
mingles with new bloom.
A snowdrop now brings the memory of a bride long gone;
later in the springtime, jonquils and narcissi dance gayly in the
breeze. The winsome, profligate bulbs no longer confine them¬
selves to the garden proper, and they blend deliciously with the
delicate blue hyacinths, which are very abundant and much in evt¬
dence here. This wealth of pale spring flowers has scattered over
the lawn on both fronts of the house and raced down the terrace
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