Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
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Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
These lines are a great contrast to the dignified versification of The
Old Garden, by Margaret Deland, a garden around which a great city has
grown.
"Around it is the street, a restless arm
That clasps the country to the city's heart."
No one could read this poem without knowing that the author is a true
garden lover, and knowing as well that she spent her childhood in a
garden.
Another American poet, Edith Thomas, writes exquisitely of old gardens
and garden flowers.
"The pensile Lilacs still their favors throw.
The Star of Lilies, plenteous long ago,
Waits on the summer dusk, and faileth not.
The legions of the grass in vain would blot
The spicy Box that marks the garden row.
Let but the ground some human tendance know,
It long remaineth an engentled spot."
Let me for a moment, through the suggestion of her last two lines, write
of the impress left on nature through flower planting. "The garden long
remaineth an engentled spot." You cannot for years stamp out the mark of
a garden; intentional destruction may obliterate the garden borders, but
neglect never. The delicate flowers die, but some sturdy things spring
up happily and seem gifted with everlasting life. Fifteen years ago a
friend bought an old country seat on Long Island; near the site of the
new house, an old garden was ploughed deep and levelled to a lawn. Every
year since then the patient gardeners pull up, on this lawn, in
considerable numbers, Mallows, Campanulas, Star of Bethlehem,
Bouncing-bets and innumerable Asparagus shoots, and occasionally the
seedlings of other flowers which have bided their time in the dark
earth. Traces of the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland may
still be seen in the growth of richly perfumed wall-flowers which he
brought from the Azores. The Affane Cherry is found where he planted it,
and some of his Cedars are living. The summer-house of Yew trees
sheltered him when he smoked in the garden, and in this garden he
planted Tobacco. Near by is the famous spot where he planted what were
then called Virginian Potatoes. By that planting they acquired the name
of Irish Potatoes.
I have spoken of the Prince Nurseries in Flushing; the old nurserymen
left a more lasting mark than their Nurseries, in the rare trees and
plants now found on the roads, and in the fields and gardens for many
miles around Flushing. With the Parsons family, who have been, since
1838, distributors of unusual plants, especially the splendid garden
treasures from China and Japan, they have made Flushing a delightful
nature-study.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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