Stranica 193 [193]
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HisTORic GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
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1745 and undertook the guardianship of young Thomas Mann
Randolph and the management of his estate.
Below the schoolhouse, jonquils have spread into a veritable
Cloth-of-Gold field, flinging high their April trumpets above a mass
of periwinkle blue as the sky. These signals of spring that dance
so joyously leave the memory of their beauty throughout the garden
year. And there are so many varieties of dattodils and narcissi at
this charming old place. Beginning with the short-stemmed
Obvallaris the beautiful Stellas follow in profusion. These bulbs
were planted long before the days of the Olympia as the Golden
Spur and the double sorts—Orange and Golden Phoenix, familiarly
known as Butter and Eggs and Eggs and Bacon—will attest. But,
daintiest of all the daffodil family which blooms at Tuckahoe, is
the delicate, old-fashioned, little white flower known as “The Lady
of Leeds.
Scattered about the garden, and all over the lawn, are four
varieties of narcissi—the Polyanthus, which, though in the minority,
compensates in its bright yellow flowers; the white Biflorus, and,
most pleasing of all, Ornatus and Poeticus.
Beyond the schoolhouse comes the garden—the real feature of
Tuckahoe. A magnificent elm throws out its arms protectingly
over the garden entrance. A simple wood gate, between box¬
hedged violet beds, leads between this elm tree and two splendid
specimens of sempervirens boxwood which rise on the other side.
Through the opening, looking east, there is a charming vista down
a turfed alley lined with old-fashioned or suffruticosa box and
called the Ghost Walk. Shadowing the south side, a row of
sempervirens interlines the dwarf hedge rows, and stands as a wind¬
break for the flowers. Below this lies the formal garden, cut up
into fifty-seven “knots” or beds, a decorative arrangement, with
paths of grass intervening. These paths are so narrow that only
one person can walk there at a time, and they are separated from
the flower beds by dwarf-box hedging.
Known as the “maze,” this labyrinth of flower squares and
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