Stranica 367 [367]
SID
HiIsToRI Cc. GARDENS OFF ViRGINTA
= =
o" Battle, and later, the Jacqueminot and the Bourbons of the Agrip¬
pina type. The first I recall of the wonderful Tea family was
known only as the Tea Rose. I have often wondered if it had
any other name.
Over the four arches (poorly suggested in the diagram) twined
the Grevel or Seven Sisters. No regular order had been followed
in planting; no bedding, no grouping. A great vine of yellow
jasmine (Gelsemium sempervirens) monopolized the “diamond”’
on the left as you entered. ‘Trained originally up a single post, it
wound over and over the top until it took the shape of a huge
shock of hay.
In the center of each circle stood a large iron vase, from which
verbenas usually hung and vainly reached earthward. Spiraeas of
several kinds, Rose of Sharon, deutzias, and a calycanthus were
among the shrubs. Between and among the roses and shrubs
bloomed, in the spring, bulbs of all sorts, and in summer, all of the
old annuals. A dense honeysuckle hedge served as a background
and obscured the vegetable gardens beyond. ‘These terminated at
the center walk in two large lilac clumps, and to the right in a great
bush of mock-orange.
At the entrance, between two o’er-arching arbor vitae trees, were
permanent seats. And many other seats, during the fair days of
summer, were added, for here visitors were entertained, and here
lovers knew they would not be intruded upon, if by good luck, they
first occupied the position.
In each flower-knot, yet not in juxtaposition, stood a grand box¬
tree; the largest I have ever seen. Within one of these, when a
lad, I constructed a seat, and hidden there, would study my lessons
and then read Bulwer’s novels and Scott’s poems. The alleys were
all evenly sunken about eight inches, and the beds and borders were
held up in line by a narrow bluegrass edge. These grass edges were
kept trimmed with a knife. No boy of the family has ever for¬
gotten this part of it, nor, also, of helping old Moore, the negro
gardener, work the beds. Speaking of Moore, how often have I
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