Stranica 285 [285]
OCR
HisToRiIic GARDENS: OF VIRGINIA four-score years ago. You will find here the yaupon trees in great profusion; huge clumps of bouquet and bridal wreath spirea, snowball, mock-orange, California gold-leaf privet, flowering horse-chestnut, deutzia, lilac, yucca, flowering pomegranate, althea, and butterfly plant or buddleia. About the bases of the great crepe myrtles is planted yellow jasmine which sets the garden aflame in the springtime, when the trees and shrubs are just beginning to bud. On the fences honeysuckle and trumpet vine have massed themselves into a veritable hedge. The roses comprise many of the old June and everblooming varieties. Some of them rise from base-stems a foot in thickness and reach to a height which enables them to hold their own with the larger and more formal shrubs. At the southern extremity of the eastern walk rises a well-trimmed tower of wistaria. At its foot is massed a great bed of lilies of the valley. A little to the north, the same walk is spanned by a great arbor of yellow jasmine at the foot of which are bedded iris of many hues. Wherever one turns, the garden is reminiscent of another century, because of the prominence given to flowers that were popular with our great-grandparents. Possibly, you would scarcely recognize some of them by the names colloquially given them by those charming ladies. ‘“‘Red-hot pokers,” “‘butter and eggs," “‘fair maids of February,” “butterfly plants,” yellow and red cowslips, sage, lavender, balsam, blue bottles, mourning brides, and the old Roman hyacinths, which were so much more graceful than their more modern sisters. here is, indeed, an ineffable something imparted. to a garden by age which time alone may supply. The best of taste may not provide its equivalent overnight. Money cannot buy it out of hand. It comes with the progress of many years and the vicissitudes of many seasons. Just when a garden becomes an “old”’ garden one may not readily say. But once a garden may be so designated, it has attained a beauty and a dignity all its own. It is the fact that the Sherwood garden enjoys this distinction in high degree that lends to it no small part of its attractiveness and charm. JOHN MARSHALL. [174]
