Page 435 [435]
HistToRic: GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
At the bottom and down the sides were broad, grassy walks
and spaces where plum and small flowering fruit trees blossomed;
here apple trees stretched their long limbs out lazily in the spring
air waiting until the great cherry trees, which towered above them,
should have shed their snowy bloom. There were birds—birds
everywhere.
Underneath these fruit trees, blooming untended among the
grass, are yuccas and iris; only they were called in those days bear
grass and flags, and the leaves of the yucca, when shredded’ and
knotted together, served as twine for the garden and plantation.
Perhaps the enchantment of the spot lay largely in the eyes of
the beholder, because those who knew it and lived with it loved it.
In all-the hundred and twenty-five years of its life it has always
been very dearly loved by some woman, its mistress, who found
in it happiness and tranquility of mind, even serenity of speech in
watching and tending it as best she might. So, though lacking
many things that make other gardens beautiful and desirable, yet
Redlands ‘has one requisite, that is a prerequisite of every garden,
and is best set forth in the old well-known lines—
“A garden is a lovesome spot,
God wot.”
SALLY RANDOLPH CARTER.
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