Stranica 367 [367]
OCR
SID HiIsToRI Cc. GARDENS OFF ViRGINTA = = o" Battle, and later, the Jacqueminot and the Bourbons of the Agrippina type. The first I recall of the wonderful Tea family was known only as the Tea Rose. I have often wondered if it had any other name. Over the four arches (poorly suggested in the diagram) twined the Grevel or Seven Sisters. No regular order had been followed in planting; no bedding, no grouping. A great vine of yellow jasmine (Gelsemium sempervirens) monopolized the “diamond”’ on the left as you entered. ‘Trained originally up a single post, it wound over and over the top until it took the shape of a huge shock of hay. In the center of each circle stood a large iron vase, from which verbenas usually hung and vainly reached earthward. Spiraeas of several kinds, Rose of Sharon, deutzias, and a calycanthus were among the shrubs. Between and among the roses and shrubs bloomed, in the spring, bulbs of all sorts, and in summer, all of the old annuals. A dense honeysuckle hedge served as a background and obscured the vegetable gardens beyond. ‘These terminated at the center walk in two large lilac clumps, and to the right in a great bush of mock-orange. At the entrance, between two o’er-arching arbor vitae trees, were permanent seats. And many other seats, during the fair days of summer, were added, for here visitors were entertained, and here lovers knew they would not be intruded upon, if by good luck, they first occupied the position. In each flower-knot, yet not in juxtaposition, stood a grand boxtree; the largest I have ever seen. Within one of these, when a lad, I constructed a seat, and hidden there, would study my lessons and then read Bulwer’s novels and Scott’s poems. The alleys were all evenly sunken about eight inches, and the beds and borders were held up in line by a narrow bluegrass edge. These grass edges were kept trimmed with a knife. No boy of the family has ever forgotten this part of it, nor, also, of helping old Moore, the negro gardener, work the beds. Speaking of Moore, how often have I 1228]
