Stranica 304 [304]
80 ooo OOO = eee
THE POTOMAC AND RAPPAHANNOCK
The gardens were of the oval design customary for homes of
important families before the Revolution. The shape probably
was adopted not only because of its beauty and grace, but for the
practical convenience of the driveway leading from the entrance of
the ground to the house and making it easy to drive a vehicle in
or out without need for turning. The oval at the entrance to Strat¬
ford was bordered with box, favorite evergreen and outdoor decora¬
tion of the colonists, doubtless brought from the old home gardens
in the mother country. In this oval, convenient for observation,
stood the usual sundial, infallible timekeeper so long as the weather
allowed. The box-border enclosed the familiar flowers of the
English garden—hollyhock, wallflower, cinnammon-pink, larkspur
and the ever-cherished, beloved and admired roses.
Endeavoring to get clearly into our minds the picture of the old
garden fronting the broad building with field and forest on one side
and river on the other, we may assume that the oval was filled with
beds, or ‘‘boutons,’’ as they were called, of more or less intricate
and fanciful designs, according to the fashion of the times. There
was the box-walk, the box-maze and the rose-embowered summer¬
house. Fithian says a celebrated dancing master of the day held
classes at Stratford on certain days, from ten in the morning until
late afternoon, and it is pleasant to think of the pupils, in the
intervals between lessons, wandering amid the box-borders, playing
at hide-and-seek in the box-mazes, or resting in the shade of the
towering oaks and beeches which had been left from the original
growth.
The kitchen garden at the side of the house, surrounded by high
brick walls, held squares of vegetables, outlined by the usual iris,
grown for its roots, furnishing orris powder and perfume. Ihe
herb garden was a part of the equipment of every plantation house,
the medicinal herbs furnishing much of the medicine used in days
before convenient drug stores and doctors were in evidence.
The quiet, dignified gardens of old Virginia had a charm all
their own, supervised as they were by flower-loving owners, with
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