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GAZ SE la . 9) HisTORTPE (GARDEN OR VER GINGA ———_ ———== = sm mm eS ES ESS ————————EeT ———————E—E—EEEEE S ee ee lilac bushes on either side of the terraces; the most beloved flower of spring. In many colonial dooryards, it was the only shrub, known both to lettered and unlettered folk as Laylock and spelt Laylock. In the original Oak Hill gardens were, no doubt, scores of oldtime favorites—flower-de-luce, peonies, dattodils, merry phlox, and as a background, the green of massive oaks, which revealed President Monroe’s love of trees. Although the Oak Hill garden does not now bear comparison for elaborateness with other gardens in historic Loudoun and Fauquier, it has been the care of various fower-loving women from time to time. With its changes in ownership the garden has never lost its distinction. During many years of her occupancy of Oak Hill, it was the pleasure of Mrs. Henry Fairfax to see that the garden preserved its beauty, and she welcomed into it with gracious hospitality many discriminating guests. Describing the garden Mrs. Fairfax says, “The Oak Hill garden is very simple but sweet and satisfactory with a profusion of bloom from early flowering bulbs and shrubs to the cosmos and chrysanthemum of late autumn. It slopes to the south and the west and comprises about one acre enclosed on three sides by a privet hedge. The fourth or north side is bound by a wire fence almost covered and concealed by rose vines. This gives the appearance of a continuation of the garden as a part of the lawn. © ‘The entrance gate is in the center of the garden and has a rose-covered arch above it with box bushes on each side. At this gate one looks through three rose-covered arches—one on each terrace—down a turfed path to a white marble sundial beyond which range the lovely Bull Run hills or mountains. Within the gate, one finds on either side a border of roses along the fence. A three-foot path runs with the first terrace east and west for one hundred feet. Below this are two more terraces about thirty feet wide which extends east and west. That on the east is flanked by a 1242]
