Stranica 220 [220]
te
HE OUPPER? -JAME'S
mm a = SS sitt a = =— —— = —= KEZD =
boxwood at Elk Hill shows better and more consistent care than
any in Virginia, excepting, perhaps, Mount Vernon.
Seven terraces fall vertically below these evergreen groupings,
and upon the topmost stand twenty-seven conical box trees, ranging
in height from ten to twenty feet, their soaring, dark green, glit¬
tering foliage standing out against the skyline. In lines of four.
three, two and one, these trees grow ten feet apart, and below
them, but still on the same terrace, a semi-circular grassy plateau
hedged with dwarf box extends. From this, the six terraces of the
kitchen garden, each grassed as it falls, drop to the lowest, which
once was given over entirely to the cultivation of box.
To Randolph Harrison is given the credit for the beginning
of the Elk Hill garden, which is supposed to have been laid off
about 1840. There is a local legend that after the seven terraces
were made, in order to enrich them, with the aid of teams of oxen,
he had soil hauled from an island in James River, nearly a mile
away. With this fertile soil he topped each terrace, with a result
that has proven it well worth while.
The proportion of box to the other shrubbery at Elk Hill and
the scheme of its distribution are as correct and effective for con¬
trast and background to the transient foliage and flowers of June
as amid the bare ramage of January. Both winter and summer.
as the gravest item in the garden, the box retains its values and
gives the year round a note both virile and conservative. There
-is a French saying, ‘““Evergreens are the joy of winter and the
mourning of summer months.’’ Even if this be true, those who
see it will agree that the effect of spring and summer color is
doubled at Elk Hill by its splendid box, which, though dusky in
winter, with spring, or "the sweet of the year, becomes bright with
tender, green leaves. And all this box, even on dull days, makes
the bright flowers look as if the sun were shining.
One reason latter-day Americans garden along lines of least re¬
sistance is that they are always in a hurry. The garden art is pre¬
eminently one of leisure. The designers of Elk Hill knew this.
L133]