Page 495 [495]
OCR
tl CA ————— His®TORTC GARDENS OF VARGINTIA ÉKE ae —— _ — — cS s = a e da ez üz dKe azt E e A een. The grounds, including the garden, comprised about one hundred acres.. In the fourteen flower beds in this old garden there were, at the various seasons, snowdrops, blue bells and violets; hyacinths, tulips and jonquils, with narcissus poeticus for spring. hen came larkspurs, columbines, lilies, ‘‘old maid pinks,” iris, primroses, lilies of the valley, and "Fair Maids of February." The shrub list included all the old-fashioned ones—snowballs, forsythia, pomegranate, pyrus Japonica, spiraea, syringa, crepe myrtle, honeysuckle, althea, wistaria, yellow jessamine, and the old favorite, white ‘Confederate’ jessamine. The list of roses at Banister Lodge is both comprehensive and interesting. [here were, first of all, moss roses, so rarely seen now. The Maiden’s Blush grew along garden walks and beautified more than one bed, while Giant of Battles, Marechal Neil and delicate tea roses followed on the heels of the prodigal Harrisonia. One whole bed was covered with an arbor covered with running roses. The front yard, which was laid off with formality, was separated from the rear by a hedge of tree-box, probably thirty feet in height. On either side of the front porch, stood trees of arbor vitae and boxwood. Of the two driveways, one led straight away (after rounding the large circular center of the lawn) through a grove of magnificent oaks, to the main highway; while the other, approaching from the stableyard at the right, swept around towards the left and back, through the plantation, to the river. On the opposite side of the house from the garden, and in a corner of the lawn, was a flower bed in the form of a large five- ~ pointed star. On the rear lawn stands one of the largest oak trees to be found in Virginia. ETHEL CLARK WILLIAMS. [ 304 |
