Stranica 573 [573]
OCR
CAoi— = HisTorRiIc GARDENS -OF “VIRGINIA As grown women many of these children have lingered long at the summer-house, when the moon was full, and there was one spot in the pleached walk, where a young woman of the first generation reared at The Meadows told her granddaughter that ‘love had first been whispered in her ears.’’ And she was barely sixteen, but read early Victorian literature: Scott, Miss ava and Mrs. Sherwood! The little garden at The Meadows 1s to the left of the house, as the old garden is to the right, and was planned a few years later. It was laid out in four square beds, with beds at either end shaped to conform to the road which curved here to the stables. The box-hedge to the east was a screen for the woodyard, very thick and over eight feet in height. ‘he other box-hedges, which outlined the beds, were trimmed severely every spring; but, in spite of this, they reached a height of thirty or thirty-three inches and a breadth of twenty-five, encroaching far over the space left for the walks. The sun-dial, with the name “F. Smith” and the date, 1821, cut sharply into the slate, was placed where the paths intersected. It is this garden that later generations have filled with oldfashioned pinks, daily roses, geraniums, heliotropes, and hardy annuals. The bleeding heart and deep-red peonies were crowded in with phlox and mignonette; but, on a sultry afternoon in August, the smell of the box mingles with and dominates them all. (SAY ROBERTSON BLACKFORD. 1352]
