Page 273 [273]
HisToRIC GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
Wandering back to the house, one pauses enthralled by the
size and perfect proportions of a Ginkgo biloba, or maidenhair
tree, full eighty feet tall, with its trunk measuring twenty inches
in diameter, standing sentinel at the right of the entrance. Lhis
tree is a fortune in itself—not commercially, perhaps, but because
of its marvelous beauty.
To the right of this is a giant arbor vitae, cropped low to
form a playhouse for children, its top a tangle of Cherokee roses.
Nearby, a massive hemlock seems to frown upon such levity.
As one wonders at the planting, the romance comes to mind that
a certain John Tabb, son of Phillip Tabb, of Toddsbury, wooed
and won the fair Evelina Matilda Prosser, who inherited the White
Marsh tract of three thousand acres from her mother. Their com¬
bined fortunes made John Tabb the wealthiest man in Gloucester
County. Mrs. Tabb was loth to live so far from the social whirl,
so her husband offered to make her the’ finest garden in Virginia,
with every tree and shrub that could be grown in this climate, if
she would but consent to make her home at White Marsh. _
It was then, in 1848, that the present house was built and
the lawn with its priceless trees planted. This was no mean under¬
taking in those days, when each foreign growth had to be specialiy
imported. Thus, the collection stands a tribute to the planter's
good taste botanical.
From the rear portico of the house are shown four terraces,
a long grape arbor, and vegetable gardens with the meadows
beyond. |
Magnolia, elms and crepe myrtles fringe the terraces on both
sides, affording many alluring spots for eager lovers, and the names
inscribed upon window-panes prove they were not unfrequented!
In by-gone days “each terrace was laid out in a continuation
of beds outlined by little boxwood bushes a foot high, and threaded
by grass walks. The flowers in these beds consisted mostly of
hyacinths, peonies, lilies, pinks, with the usual annuals and roses
planted everywhere.”
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