Stranica 434 [434]
OCR
LAE PrEDMONT SECTION off in squares, separated by broad, intersecting grass walks. The upper squares are devoted to flowers and the lower to the vegetables. As was the case in so many of the older Virginia gardens, the flower beds, within the upper squares, were laid off in a pattern that formed an insignia of the Order of Masons—here they outlined a Maltese cross. This arrangement, according to Masonic insignia, indicated that the owner of the estate belonged to that order. An illustration of this may be seen in the garden at Mount Vernon. The corners of the squares in the Redlands garden were marked by shrubs, many of which are still there, notably the fine old boxwood bushes which guard the entrance and those that separate the vegetable squares from the flowers. These bushes are very unusual examples of the enormous size boxwood of this type can attain, though, of course, they are by no means so tall as the tree-box. The Redlands garden is screened from view from the lawn by the original lilac hedge, which makes indeed a fragrant wall of blossom in the spring. In olden times this garden must have been an enchanting spot with its upper squares laid out in beds of blooming flowers; its long borders, down either side of the main or central walk, of cowslips, hyacinths, jonquils, white narcissi, butter and eggs, violets, peonies, bleeding hearts, Madonna lilies, chrysanthemums, four o’clocks, Jacob’s ladder (I never see Jacob’s ladder now), larkspur, Star of Bethlehem, and lilies of the valley, with here and there a lovely daily fragrant damask rose, or red June roses growing low and blooming lavishly, and yellow Harrisonias. There were coral honeysuckle and. white jessamine or white roses with hearts of gold, but quaintest of all, the oldest of American garden roses—the queer, little, almost ugly, cinnamon rose. Under the box-bushes were shy white violets, not to forget blueeyed periwinkle and the flowering shrubs—mock orange, snowball, syringa, smoke tree, flowering almond and just a little Southern yellow jessamine and the smell and bloom of lilacs everywhere. 1269]
