Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
History
Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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