VARIED GARDENS FAIR
"And all without were walkes and alleys dight
With divers trees enrang'd in even rankes;
And here and there were pleasant arbors pight
And shadie seats, and sundry flowering bankes
To sit and rest the walkers wearie shankes."
--_Faerie Queene_, EDMUND SPENSER.
Many simple forms of gardens were common besides the enclosed front
yard; and as wealth poured in on the colonies, the beautiful gardens so
much thought of in England were copied here, especially by wealthy
merchants, as is noted in the first chapter of this book, and by the
provincial governors and their little courts; the garden of Governor
Hutchinson, in Milford, Massachusetts, is stately still and little
changed.
[Illustration: Preston Garden.]
English gardens, at the time of the settlement of America, had passed
beyond the time when, as old Gervayse Markham said, "Of all the best
Ornaments used in our English gardens, Knots and Mazes are the most
ancient." A maze was a placing of low garden hedges of Privet, Box, or
Hyssop, usually set in concentric circles which enclosed paths, that
opened into each other by such artful contrivance that it was difficult
to find one's way in and out through these bewildering paths. "When well
formed, of a man's height, your friend may perhaps wander in gathering
berries as he cannot recover himself without your help."
The maze was not a thing of beauty, it was "nothing for sweetness and
health," to use Lord Bacon's words; it was only a whimsical notion of
gardening amusement, pleasing to a generation who liked to have hidden
fountains in their gardens to sprinkle suddenly the unwary. I doubt if
any mazes were ever laid out in America, though I have heard vague
references to one in Virginia. Knots had been the choice adornment of
the Tudor garden. They were not wholly a thing of the past when we had
here our first gardens, and they have had a distinct influence on garden
laying-out till our own day.
An Elizabethan poet wrote:--
"My Garden sweet, enclosed with walles strong,
Embanked with benches to sitt and take my rest;
The knots so enknotted it cannot be expressed
The arbores and alyes so pleasant and so dulce."
These garden knots were not flower beds edged with Box or Rosemary, with
narrow walks between the edgings, as were the parterres of our later
formal gardens. They were square, ornamental beds, each of which had a
design set in some close-growing, trim plant, clipped flatly across the
top, and the design filled in with colored earth or sand; and with no
dividing paths. Elaborate models in complicated geometrical pattern were
given in gardeners' books, for setting out these knots, which were first
drawn on paper and subdivided into squares; then the square of earth was
similarly divided, and set out by precise rules. William Lawson, the
Izaak Walton of gardeners, gave, as a result of forty-eight years of
experience, some very attractive directions for large "knottys" with
different "thrids" of flowers, each of one color, which made the design
appear as if "made of diverse colored ribands." One of his knots, from
_A New Orchard and Garden_ 1618, being a garden fashion in vogue when my
forbears came to America, I have chosen as a device for the dedication
of this book, thinking it, in Lawson's words, "so comely, and orderly
placed, and so intermingled, that one looking thereon cannot but
wonder." His knots had significant names, such as "Cinkfoyle; Flower de
Luce; Trefoyle; Frette; Lozenge; Groseboowe; Diamond; Ovall; Maze."
Gervayse Markham gives various knot patterns to be bordered with Box cut
eighteen inches broad at the bottom and kept flat at the top--with the
ever present thought for the fine English linen. He has a varied list of
circular, diamond-shaped, mixed, and "single impleated knots."
[Illustration: Box-edged Parterre at Hampton.]
These garden knots were mildly sneered at by Lord Bacon; he said, "they
be but toys, you see as good sights many times in tarts;" still I think
they must have been quaint, and I should like to see a garden laid out
to-day in these pretty Elizabethan knots, set in the old patterns, and
with the old flowers. Nor did Parkinson and other practical gardeners
look with favor on "curiously knotted gardens," though all gave designs
to "satisfy the desires" of their readers. "Open knots" were preferred;
these were made with borders of lead, tiles, boards, or even the
shankbones of sheep, "which will become white and prettily grace out the
garden,"--a fashion I saw a few years ago around flower beds in
Charlton, Massachusetts. "Round whitish pebble stones" for edgings were
Parkinson's own invention, and proud he was of it, simple as it seems to
us. These open knots were then filled in, but "thin and sparingly," with
"English Flowers"; or with "Out-Landish Flowers," which were flowers
fetched from foreign parts.
The parterre succeeded the knot, and has been used in gardens till the
present day. Parterres were of different combinations, "well-contriv'd
and ingenious." The "parterre of cut-work" was a Box-bordered formal
flower garden, of which the garden at Hampton, Maryland (pages 57, 60,
and 95), is a striking and perfect example; also the present garden at
Mount Vernon (opposite page 12), wherein carefully designed flower beds,
edged with Box, are planted with variety of flowers, and separated by
paths. Sometimes, of old, fine white sand was carefully strewn on the
earth under the flowers. The "parterre a l'Anglaise" had an elaborate
design of vari-shaped beds edged with Box, but enclosing grass instead
of flowers. In the "parterre de broderie" the Box-edged beds were filled
with vari-colored earths and sands. Black earth could be made of iron
filings; red earth of pounded tiles. This last-named parterre differed
from a knot solely in having the paths among the beds. The _Retir'd
Gard'ner_ gives patterns for ten parterres.
The main walks which formed the basis of the garden design had in
ancient days a singular name--forthrights; these were ever to be
"spacious and fair," and neatly spread with colored sands or gravel.
Parkinson says, "The fairer and larger your allies and walks be the more
grace your garden should have, the lesse harm the herbes and flowers
shall receive, and the better shall your weeders cleanse both the bed
and the allies." "Covert-walks," or "shade-alleys," had trees meeting in
an arch over them.
A curious term, found in references to old American flower beds and
garden designs, as well as English ones, is the "goose-foot." A
"goose-foot" consisted of three flower beds or three avenues radiating
rather closely together from a small semicircle; and in some places and
under some conditions it is still a charming and striking design, as you
stand at the heel of the design and glance down the three avenues.
[Illustration: Parterre and Clipped Box at Hampton.]
In all these flower beds Box was the favorite edging, but many other
trim edgings have been used in parterres and borders by those who love
not Box. Bricks were used, and boards; an edging of boards was not as
pretty as one of flowers, but it kept the beds trimly in place; a garden
thus edged is shown on page 63 which realizes this description of the
pleasure-garden in the _Scots Gard'ner_: "The Bordures box'd and planted
with variety of fine Flowers orderly Intermixt, Weeded, Mow'd, Rolled
and Kept all Clean and Handsome." Germander and Rosemary were old
favorites for edging. I have seen snowy edgings of Candy-tuft and Sweet
Alyssum, setting off well the vari-colored blooms of the border. One of
Sweet Alyssum is shown on page 256. Ageratum is a satisfactory edging.
Thyme is of ancient use, but rather unmanageable; one garden owner has
set his edgings of Moneywort, otherwise Creeping-jenny. I should be loth
to use Moneywort as an edging; I would not care for its yellow flowers
in that place, though I find them very kindly and cheerful on dull banks
or in damp spots, under the drip of trees and eaves, or better still,
growing gladly in the flower pot of the poor. I fear if Moneywort
thrived enough to make a close, suitable edging, that it would thrive
too well, and would swamp the borders with its underground runners. The
name Moneywort is akin to its older title Herb-twopence, or Twopenny
Grass. Turner (1548) says the latter name was given from the leaves all
"standying together of ech syde of the stalke lyke pence." The striped
leaves of one variety of Day Lily make pretty edgings. Those from a
Salem garden are here shown.
We often see in neglected gardens in New England, or by the roadside
where no gardens now exist, a dense gray-green growth of Lavender
Cotton, "the female plant of Southernwood," which was brought here by
the colonists and here will ever remain. It was used as an edging, and
is very pretty when it can be controlled. I know two or three old
gardens where it is thus employed.
Sometimes in driving along a country road you are startled by a
concentration of foliage and bloom, a glimpse of a tiny farm-house, over
which are clustered and heaped, and round which are gathered, close
enough to be within touch from door or window, flowers in a crowded
profusion ample to fill a large flower bed. Such is the mass of June
bloom at Wilbur Farm in old Narragansett (page 290)--a home of flowers
and bees. Often by the side of the farm-house is a little garden or
flower bed containing some splendid examples of old-time flowers. The
splendid "running ribbons" of Snow Pinks, on page 292, are in another
Narragansett garden that is a bower of blossoms. Thrift has been a
common edging since the days of the old herbalist Gerarde.
"We have a bright little garden, down on a sunny slope,
Bordered with sea-pinks and sweet with the songs and blossoms of
hope."
The garden of Secretary William H. Seward (in Auburn, New York), so
beloved by him in his lifetime, is shown on page 146 and facing page
134. In this garden some beds are edged with Periwinkle, others with
Polyanthus, and some with Ivy which Mr. Seward brought from Abbotsford
in 1836. This garden was laid out in its present form in 1816, and the
sun-dial was then set in its place. The garden has been enlarged, but
not changed, the old "George II. Roses" and York and Lancaster Roses
still grow and blossom, and the lovely arches of single Michigan Roses
still flourish. In it are many flowers and fruits unusual in America,
among them a bed of Alpine strawberries.
King James I. of Scotland thus wrote of the garden which he saw from his
prison window in Windsor Castle:--
"A Garden fair, and in the Corners set
An Herbere greene, with Wandis long and small
Railit about."
These wandis were railings which were much used before Box edgings
became universal. Sometimes they were painted the family colors, as at
Hampton Court they were green and white, the Tudor colors. These
"wandis" still are occasionally seen. In the Berkshire Hills I drove
past an old garden thus trimly enclosed in little beds. The rails were
painted a dull light brown, almost the color of some tree trunks; and
Larkspur, Foxglove, and other tall flowers crowded up to them and hung
their heads over the top rails as children hang over a fence or a gate.
I thought it a neat, trim fashion, not one I would care for in my own
garden, yet not to be despised in the garden of another.
[Illustration: Garden of Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, Waldstein, Fairfield,
Conn.]
A garden enclosed! so full of suggestion are these simple words to me,
so constant is my thought that an ideal flower garden must be an
enclosed garden, that I look with regret upon all beautiful flower beds
that are not enclosed, not shut in a frame of green hedges, or high
walls, or vine-covered fences and dividing trees. It may be selfish to
hide so much beauty from general view; but until our dwelling-houses are
made with uncurtained glass walls, that all the world may see
everything, let those who have ample grounds enclose at least a portion
for the sight of friends only.
In the heart of Worcester there is a fine old mansion with ample lawns,
great trees, and flowering shrubs that all may see over the garden fence
as they pass by. Flowers bloom lavishly at one side of the house; and
the thoughtless stroller never knows that behind the house, stretching
down between the rear gardens and walls of neighboring homes, is a long
enclosure of loveliness--sequestered, quiet, full of refreshment to the
spirits. We think of the "Old Garden" of Margaret Deland:--
"The Garden glows
And 'gainst its walls the city's heart still beats.
And out from it each summer wind that blows
Carries some sweetness to the tired streets!"
[Illustration: Shaded Walk in Garden of Miss Harriet P. F. Burnside,
Worcester, Massachusetts.]
There is a shaded walk in this garden which is a thing of solace and
content to all who tread its pathway; a bit is shown opposite this page,
overhung with shrubs of Lilac, Syringa, Strawberry Bush, Flowering
Currant, all the old treelike things, so fair-flowered and sweet-scented
in spring, so heavy-leaved and cool-shadowing in midsummer: what
pleasure would there be in this shaded walk if this garden were
separated from the street only by stone curbing or a low rail? And there
is an old sun-dial too in this enclosed garden! I fear the street imps
of a crowded city would quickly destroy the old monitor were it in an
open garden; and they would make sad havoc, too, of the Roses and
Larkspurs (page 65) so tenderly reared by the two sisters who
together loved and cared for this "garden enclosed." Great trees are at
the edges of this garden, and the line of tall shrubs is carried out by
the lavish vines and Roses on fences and walls. Within all this border
of greenery glow the clustered gems of rare and beautiful flowers, till
the whole garden seems like some rich jewel set purposely to be worn in
honor over the city's heart--a clustered jewel, not one to be displayed
carelessly and heedlessly.
[Illustration: Roses and Larkspur in the Garden of Miss Harriet P. F.
Burnside, Worcester, Massachusetts.]
Salem houses and gardens are like Salem people. Salem houses present to
you a serene and dignified front, gracious yet reserved, not thrusting
forward their choicest treasures to the eyes of passing strangers; but
behind the walls of the houses, enclosed from public view, lie cherished
gardens, full of the beauty of life. Such, in their kind, are Salem
folk.
I know no more speaking, though silent, criticism than those old Salem
gardens afford upon the modern fashion in American towns of pulling down
walls and fences, removing the boundaries of lawns, and living in full
view of every passer-by, in a public grassy park. It is pleasant, I
suppose, for the passer-by; but homes are not made for passers-by. Old
Salem gardens lie behind the house, out of sight--you have to hunt for
them. They are terraced down if they stretch to the water-side; they are
enclosed with hedges, and set behind high vine-covered fences, and low
out-buildings; and planted around with great trees: thus they give to
each family that secluded centring of family life which is the very
essence and being of a home. I sat through a June afternoon in a Salem
garden whose gate is within a stone's throw of a great theatre, but a
few hundred feet from lines of electric cars and a busy street of trade,
scarce farther from lines of active steam cars, and with a great power
house for a close neighbor. Yet we were as secluded, as embowered in
vines and trees, with beehives and rabbit hutches and chicken coops for
happy children at the garden's end, as truly in beautiful privacy, as if
in the midst of a hundred acres. Could the sense of sound be as
sheltered by the enclosing walls as the sense of sight, such a garden
were a city paradise.
[Illustration: The Homely Back Yard.]
There is scant regularity in shape in Salem gardens; there is no search
for exact dimensions. Little narrow strips of flower beds run down from
the main garden in any direction or at any angle where the fortunate
owner can buy a few feet of land. Salem gardens do not change with the
whims of fancy, either in the shape or the planting. A few new flowers
find place there, such as the _Anemone Japonica_ and the Japanese
shrubs; for they are akin in flower sentiment, and consort well with the
old inhabitants. There are many choice flowers and fruits in these
gardens. In the garden of the Manning homestead (opposite page 112)
grows a flourishing Fig tree, and other rare fruits; for fifty years ago
this garden was known as the Pomological Garden. It is fitting it should
be the home of two Robert Mannings--both well-known names in the history
of horticulture in Massachusetts.
[Illustration: Covered Well at Home of Bishop Berkeley, Whitehall, Rhode
Island.]
The homely back yard of an old house will often possess a trim and
blooming flower border cutting off the close approach of the vegetable
beds (see opposite page 66). These back yards, with the covered Grape
arbors, the old pumps, and bricked paths, are cheerful, wholesome
places, generally of spotless cleanliness and weedless flower beds. I
know one such back yard where the pump was the first one set in the
town, and children were taken there from a distance to see the wondrous
sight. Why are all the old appliances for raising water so pleasing? A
well-sweep is of course picturesque, with its long swinging pole, and
you seem to feel the refreshment and purity of the water when you see it
brought up from such a distance; and an old roofed well with bucket,
such as this one still in use at Bishop Berkeley's Rhode Island home is
ever a homelike and companionable object. But a pump is really an
awkward-looking piece of mechanism, and hasn't a vestige of beauty in
its lines; yet it has something satisfying about it; it may be its
domesticity, its homeliness, its simplicity. We have gained infinitely
in comfort in our perfect water systems and lavish water of to-day, but
we have lost the gratification of the senses which came from the sight
and sound of freshly drawn or running water. Much of the delight in a
fountain comes, not only from the beauty of its setting and the graceful
shape of its jets, but simply from the sight of the water.
Sometimes a graceful and picturesque growth of vines will beautify gate
posts, a fence, or a kitchen doorway in a wonderfully artistic and
pleasing fashion. On page 70 is shown the sheltered doorway of the
kitchen of a fine old stone farm-house called, from its hedges of Osage
Orange, "The Hedges." It stands in the village of New Hope, County
Bucks, Pennsylvania. In 1718 the tract of which this farm of over two
hundred acres is but a portion was deeded by the Penns to their kinsman,
the direct ancestor of the present owner, John Schofield Williams, Esq.
This is but one of the scores of examples I know where the same estate
has been owned in one family for nearly two centuries, sometimes even
for two hundred and fifty years; and in several cases where the deed
from the Indian sachem to the first colonist is the only deed there has
ever been, the estate having never changed ownership save by direct
bequest. I have three such cases among my own kinsfolk.
[Illustration: Kitchen Doorway and Porch at the Hedges.]
Another form of garden and mode of planting which was in vogue in the
"early thirties" is shown facing page 92. This pillared house and the
stiff garden are excellent types; they are at Napanock, County Ulster,
New York. Such a house and grounds indicated the possession of
considerable wealth when they were built and laid out, for both were
costly. The semicircular driveway swept up to the front door, dividing
off Box-edged parterres like those of the day of Queen Anne. These
parterres were sparsely filled, the sunnier beds being set with Spring
bulbs; and there were always the yellow Day Lilies somewhere in the
flower beds, and the white and blue Day Lilies, the common Funkias.
Formal urns were usually found in the parterres and sometimes a great
cone or ball of clipped Box. These gardens had some universal details,
they always had great Snowball bushes, and Syringas, and usually white
Roses, chiefly Madame Plantiers; the piazza trellises had old climbing
Roses, the Queen of the Prairie or Boursault Roses. These gardens are
often densely overshadowed with great evergreen trees grown from the
crowded planting of seventy years ago; none are cut down, and if one
dies its trunk still stands, entwined with Woodbine. I don't know that
we would lay out and plant just such a garden to-day, any more than we
would build exactly such a house; but I love to see both, types of the
refinement of their day, and I deplore any changes. An old Southern
house of allied form is shown on page 72, and its garden facing page
70,--Greenwood, in Thomasville, Georgia; but of course this garden has
far more lavish and rich bloom. The decoration of this house is most
interesting--a conventionalized Magnolia, and the garden is surrounded
with splendid Magnolias and Crape Myrtles. The border edgings in this
garden are lines of bricks set overlapping in a curious manner. They
serve to keep the beds firmly in place, and the bricks are covered over
with an inner edging of thrifty Violets. Curious tubs and boxes for
plants are made of bricks set solidly in mortar. The garden is glorious
with Roses, which seem to consort so well with Magnolias and Violets.
[Illustration: Greenwood, Thomasville, Georgia.]
I love a Dutch garden, "circummured" with brick. By a Dutch garden, I
mean a small garden, oblong or square, sunk about three or four feet in
a lawn--so that when surrounded by brick walls they seem about two feet
high when viewed outside, but are five feet or more high from within the
garden. There are brick or stone steps in the middle of each of the four
walls by which to descend to the garden, which may be all planted with
flowers, but preferably should have set borders of flowers with a
grass-plot in the centre. On either side of the steps should be brick
posts surmounted by Dutch pots with plants, or by balls of stone.
Planted with bulbs, these gardens in their flowering time are, as old
Parkinson said, a "perfect fielde of delite." We have very pretty Dutch
gardens, so called, in America, but their chief claim to being Dutch is
that they are set with bulbs, and have Delft or other earthen pots or
boxes for formal plants or shrubs.
Sunken gardens should be laid out under the supervision of an
intelligent landscape architect; and even then should have a reason for
being sunken other than a whim or increase in costliness. I visited last
summer a beautiful estate which had a deep sunken Dutch garden with a
very low wall. It lay at the right side of the house at a little
distance; and beyond it, in full view of the peristyle, extended the
only squalid objects in the horizon. A garden on the level, well
planted, with distant edging of shrubbery, would have hidden every ugly
blemish and been a thing of beauty. As it is now, there can be seen from
the house nothing of the Dutch garden but a foot or two of the tops of
several clipped trees, looking like very poor, stunted shrubs. I must
add that this garden, with its low wall, has been a perfect man-trap. It
has been evident that often, on dark nights, workmen who have sought a
"short cut" across the grounds have fallen over the shallow wall, to the
gardener's sorrow, and the bulbs' destruction. Once, at dawn, the
unhappy gardener found an ancient horse peacefully feeding among the
Hyacinths and Tulips. He said he didn't like the grass in his new
pasture nor the sudden approach to it; that he was too old for such
new-fangled ways. I know another estate near Philadelphia, where the
sinking of a garden revealed an exquisite view of distant hills; such a
garden has reason for its form.
[Illustration: Roses and Violets in Garden at Greenwood, Thomasville,
Georgia.]
We have had few water-gardens in America till recent years; and there
are some drawbacks to their presence near our homes, as I was vividly
aware when I visited one in a friend's garden early in May this year.
Water-hyacinths were even then in bloom, and two or three exquisite
Lilies; and the Lotus leaves rose up charmingly from the surface of the
tank. Less charmingly rose up also a cloud of vicious mosquitoes, who
greeted the newcomer with a warm chorus of welcome. As our newspapers at
that time were filled with plans for the application of kerosene to
every inch of water-surface, such as I saw in these Lily tanks,
accompanied by magnified drawings of dreadful malaria-bearing insects, I
fled from them, preferring to resign both _Nymphaea_ and _Anopheles_.
[Illustration: Water Garden at Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, New
York.]
After the introduction to English folk of that wonder of the world, the
Victoria Regia, it was cultivated by enthusiastic flower lovers in
America, and was for a time the height of the floral fashion. Never has
the glorious Victoria Regia and scarce any other flower been described
as by Colonel Higginson, a wonderful, a triumphant word picture. I was a
very little child when I saw that same lovely Lily in leaf and flower
that he called his neighbor; but I have never forgotten it, nor how
afraid I was of it; for some one wished to lift me upon the great leaf
to see whether it would hold me above the water. We had heard that the
native children in South America floated on the leaves. I objected to
this experiment with vehemence; but my mother noted that I was no more
frightened than was the faithful gardener at the thought of the possible
strain on his precious plant of the weight of a sturdy child of six or
seven years. I have seen the Victoria Regia leaves of late years, but
I seldom hear of its blossoming; but alas! we take less heed of the
blooming of unusual plants than we used to thirty or forty years ago.
Then people thronged a greenhouse to see a new Rose or Camellia
Japonica; even a Night-blooming Cereus attracted scores of visitors to
any house where it blossomed. And a fine Cactus of one of our neighbors
always held a crowded reception when in rich bloom. It was a part of the
"Flower Exchange," an interest all had for the beautiful flowers of
others, a part of the old neighborly life.
[Illustration: Terrace Wall at Drumthwacket, Princeton, New Jersey.]
Within the past five or six years there have been laid out in America,
at the country seats of men of wealth and culture, a great number of
formal gardens,--Italian gardens, some of them are worthily named, as
they have been shaped and planted in conformity with the best laws and
rules of Italian garden-making--that special art. On this page is shown
the finely proportioned terrace wall, and opposite the upper terrace and
formal garden of Drumthwacket, Princeton, New Jersey, the country seat
of M. Taylor Pyne, Esq. This garden affords a good example of the accord
which should ever exist between the garden and its surroundings. The
name, Drumthwacket--a wooded hill--is a most felicitous one; the place
is part of the original grant to William Penn, and has remained in the
possession of one family until late in the nineteenth century. From this
beautifully wooded hill the terrace-garden overlooks the farm buildings,
the linked ponds, the fertile fields and meadows; a serene pastoral
view, typical of the peaceful landscape of that vicinity--yet it was
once the scene of fiercest battle. For the Drumthwacket farm is the
battle-ground of that important encounter of 1777 between the British
and the Continental troops, known as the Battle of Princeton, the
turning point of the Revolution, in which Washington was victorious. To
this day, cannon ball and grape shot are dug up in the Drumthwacket
fields. The Lodge built in 1696 was, at Washington's request, the
shelter for the wounded British officers; and the Washington Spring in
front of the Lodge furnished water to Washington. The group of trees on
the left of the upper pond marks the sheltered and honored graves of the
British soldiers, where have slept for one hundred and twenty-four
years those killed at this memorable encounter. If anything could cement
still more closely the affections of the English and American peoples,
it would be the sight of the tenderly sheltered graves of British
soldiers in America, such as these at Drumthwacket and other historic
fields on our Eastern coast. At Concord how faithfully stand the
sentinel pines over the British dead of the Battle of Concord, who thus
repose, shut out from the tread of heedless feet yet ever present for
the care and thought of Concord people.
[Illustration: Garden at Avonwood Court, Haverford, Pennsylvania,
Country-seat of Charles E. Mather, Esq.]
We have older Italian gardens. Some of them are of great loveliness,
among them the unique and dignified garden of Hollis H. Hunnewell, Esq.,
but many of the newer ones, even in their few summers, have become of
surprising grace and beauty, and their exquisite promise causes a glow
of delight to every garden lover. I have often tried to analyze and
account for the great charm of a formal garden, to one who loves so well
the unrestrained and lavished blossoming of a flower border crowded with
nature-arranged and disarranged blooms. A chance sentence in the letter
of a flower-loving friend, one whose refined taste is an inherent
portion of her nature, runs thus:--
"I have the same love, the same sense of perfect satisfaction, in
the old formal garden that I have in the sonnet in poetry, in the
Greek drama as contrasted with the modern drama; something within
me is ever drawn toward that which is restrained and classic."
In these few words, then, is defined the charm of the formal garden--a
well-ordered, a classic restraint.
[Illustration: Garden at Drumthwacket, Princeton, New Jersey.]
Some of the new formal gardens seem imperfect in design and inadequate
in execution; worse still, they are unsuited to their surroundings; but
gracious nature will give even to these many charms of color, fragrance,
and shape through lavish plant growth. I have had given to me sets of
beautiful photographs of these new Italian gardens, which I long to
include with my pictures of older flower beds; but I cannot do so in
full in a book on Old-time Gardens, though they are copied from far
older gardens than our American ones. I give throughout my book
occasional glimpses of detail in modern formal gardens; and two examples
may be fitly illustrated and described in comparative fulness in this
book, because they are not only unusual in their beauty and promise, but
because they have in plan and execution some bearing on my special
presentation of gardens. These two are the gardens of Avonwood Court in
Haverford, Pennsylvania, the country-seat of Charles E. Mather, Esq., of
Philadelphia; and of Yaddo, in Saratoga, New York, the country-seat of
Spencer Trask, Esq., of New York.
[Illustration: Sun-dial at Avonwood Court, Haverford, Pennsylvania.]
The garden at Avonwood Court was designed and laid out in 1896 by Mr.
Percy Ash. The flower planting was done by Mr. John Cope; and the garden
is delightsome in proportions, contour, and aspect. Its claim to
illustrative description in this book lies in the fact that it is
planted chiefly with old-fashioned flowers, and its beds are laid out
and bordered with thriving Box in a truly old-time mode. It affords a
striking example of the beauty and satisfaction that can come from the
use of Box as an edging, and old-time flowers as a filling of these
beds. Among the two hundred different plants are great rows of yellow
Day Lilies shown in the view facing page 76; regular plantings of
Peonies; borders of Flower de Luce; banks of Lilies of the Valley; rows
of white Fraxinella and Lupine, beds of fringed Poppies, sentinels of
Yucca--scores of old favorites have grown and thriven in the cheery
manner they ever display when they are welcome and beloved. The sun-dial
in this garden is shown facing page 82; it was designed by Mr. Percy
Ash, and can be regarded as a model of simple outlines, good
proportions, careful placing, and symmetrical setting. By placing I mean
that it is in the right site in relation to the surrounding flower beds,
and to the general outlines of the garden; it is a dignified and
significant garden centre. By setting I mean its being raised to proper
prominence in the garden scheme, by being placed at the top of a
platform formed of three circular steps of ample proportion and suitable
height, that its pedestal is also of the right size and not so high but
one can, when standing on the top step, read with ease the dial's
response to our question, "What's the time o' the day?" The hedges and
walls of Honeysuckle, Roses, and other flowering vines that surround
this garden have thriven wonderfully in the five years of the garden's
life, and look like settings of many years. The simple but graceful wall
seat gives some idea of the symmetrical and simple garden
furnishings, as well as the profusion of climbing vines that form the
garden's boundaries.
[Illustration: Entrance Porch and Gate to the Rose Garden at Yaddo.]
This book bears on the title-page a redrawing of a charming old woodcut
of the eighteenth century, a very good example of the art thought and
art execution of that day, being the work of a skilful designer. It is
from an old stilted treatise on orchards and gardens, and it depicts a
cheerful little Love, with anxious face and painstaking care, measuring
and laying out the surface of the earth in a garden. On his either side
are old clipped Yews; and at his feet a spade and pots of garden
flowers, among them the Fritillary so beloved of all flower lovers and
herbalists of that day, a significant flower--a flower of meaning and
mystery. This drawing may be taken as an old-time emblem, and a happy
one, to symbolize the making of the beautiful modern Rose Garden at
Yaddo; where Love, with tenderest thought, has laid out the face of the
earth in an exquisite garden of Roses, for the happiness and recreation
of a dearly loved wife. The noble entrance gate and porch of this Rose
Garden formed a happy surprise to the garden's mistress when unveiled at
the dedication of the garden. They are depicted on page 81, and there
may be read the inscription which tells in a few well-chosen words the
story of the inspiration of the garden; but "between the lines," to
those who know the Rose Garden and its makers, the inscription speaks
with even deeper meaning the story of a home whose beauty is only
equalled by the garden's spirit. To all such readers the Rose Garden
becomes a fitting expression of the life of those who own it and care
for it. This quality of expression, of significance, may be seen in many
a smaller and simpler garden, even in a tiny cottage plot; you can
perceive, through the care bestowed upon it, and its responsive
blossoming, a _something_ which shows the life of the garden owners; you
know that they are thoughtful, kindly, beauty-loving, home-loving.
[Illustration: Pergola and Terrace Walk in Rose Garden at Yaddo.]
Behind the beautiful pergola of the Yaddo garden, set thickly with
Crimson Rambler, a screenlike row of poplars divides the Rose Garden
from a luxuriant Rock Garden, and an Old-fashioned Garden of large
extent, extraordinary profusion, and many years' growth. Perhaps the
latter-named garden might seem more suited to my pages, since it is more
advanced in growth and apparently more akin to my subject; but I wish to
write specially of the Rose Garden, because it is an unusual example of
what can be accomplished without aid of architect or landscape gardener,
when good taste, careful thought, attention to detail, a love of
flowers, and _intent to attain perfection_ guide the garden's makers. It
is happily placed in a country of most charming topography, but it must
not be thought that the garden shaped itself; its beautiful proportions,
contour, and shape were carefully studied out and brought to the present
perfection by the same force that is felt in the garden's smallest
detail, the power of Love. The Rose Garden is unusually large for a
formal garden; with its vistas and walks, the connected Daffodil Dell,
and the Rock Garden, it fills about ten acres. But the estate is over
eight hundred acres, and the house very large in ground extent, so the
garden seems well-proportioned. This Rose Garden has an unusual
attraction in the personal interest of every detail, such as is found in
few American gardens of great size, and indeed in few English gardens.
The gardens of the Countess Warwick, at Easton Lodge, in Essex, possess
the same charm, a personal meaning and significance in the statues and
fountains, and even in the planting of flower borders. The illustration
on page 83 depicts the general shape of the Yaddo Rose Garden, as seen
from the upper terrace; but it does not show how the garden stretches
down the fine marble steps, past the marble figures of Diana and Paris,
and along the paths of standard Roses, past the shallow fountain which
is not so large as to obscure what speaks the garden's story, the statue
of Christalan, that grand creation in one of Mrs. Trask's idyls, _Under
King Constantine_. This heroic figure, showing to full extent the genius
of the sculptor, William Ordway Partridge, also figures the genius of
the poet-creator, and is of an inexpressible and impressive nobility.
With hand and arm held to heaven, Christalan shows against the
background of rich evergreens as the true knight of this garden of
sentiment and chivalry.
[Illustration: Statue of Christalan in Rose Garden at Yaddo.]
"The sunlight slanting westward through the trees
Fell first upon his lifted, golden head,
Making a shining helmet of his curls,
And then upon the Lilies in his hand.
His eyes had a defiant, fearless glow;
Against the sombre background of the wood
He looked scarce human."
The larger and more impressive fountain at Yaddo is shown on these
pages. It is one hundred feet long and seventy feet wide, and is in
front of the house, to the east. Its marble figures signify the Dawn;
it will be noted that on this site its beauties show against a suited
and ample background, and its grand proportions are not permitted to
obscure the fine statue of Christalan from the view of those seated on
the terrace or walking under the shade of the pergola.
[Illustration: Sun-dial in Rose Garden at Yaddo.]
Especially beautiful is the sun-dial on the upper terrace, shown on page
86. The metal dial face is supported by a marble slab resting on two
carved standards of classic design representing conventionalized lions,
these being copies of those two splendid standards unearthed at Pompeii,
which still may be seen by the side of the impluvium in the atrium or
main hall of the finest Graeco-Roman dwelling-place which has been
restored in that wonderful city. These sun-dial standards at Yaddo were
made by the permission and under the supervision of the Italian
government. I can conceive nothing more fitting or more inspiring to the
imagination than that, telling as they do the story of the splendor of
ancient Pompeii and of the passing centuries, they should now uphold to
our sight a sun-dial as if to bid us note the flight of time and the
vastness of the past.
[Illustration: Bronze Face of Dial in Rose Garden at Yaddo.]
The entire sun-dial, with its beautiful adjuncts of carefully shaped
marble seats, stands on a semicircular plaza of marble at the head of
the noble flight of marble steps. The engraved metal dial face bears
two exquisite verses--the gift of one poet to another--of Dr. Henry Van
Dyke to the garden's mistress, Katrina Trask. These dial mottoes are
unusual, and perfect examples of that genius which with a few words can
shape a lasting gem of our English tongue. At the edge of the dial face
is this motto:
"Hours fly,
Flowers die,
New Days,
New Ways,
Pass by;
Love stays."
At the base of the gnomon is the second motto:--
Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is
Eternity.
I have for years been a student of sun-dial lore, a collector of
sun-dial mottoes and inscriptions, of which I have many hundreds. I know
nowhere, either in English, on English or Scotch sun-dials, or in the
Continental tongues, any such exquisite dial legends as these two--so
slight of form, so simple in wording, so pure in diction, yet of
sentiment, of thought, how full! how impressive! They stamp themselves
forever on the memory as beautiful examples of what James Russell Lowell
called verbal magic; that wonderful quality which comes, neither from
chosen words, nor from their careful combination into sentences, but
from something which is as inexplicable in its nature as it is in its
charm.
[Illustration: Ancient Pine in Garden at Yaddo.]
To tree lovers the gardens and grounds at Yaddo have glorious charms in
their splendid trees; but one can be depicted here--the grand native
Pine, over eight feet in diameter, which, with other stately sentinels
of its race, stands a sombrely beautiful guard over all this
loveliness.