The Old-Fashioned Garden 55 



English Colonist in his old home, but life on an unsubdued continent 

 was much too work-a-day for such refinements except on a few 

 estates of the wealthy. Pleached (braided) alleys were, however, 

 attempted here with various trees with holly, which promptly 

 failed, then with apple and pear trees and cedars, which succeeded. 

 By planting two rows of young trees opposite each other on either 

 side of a path, bending the tops toward the centre and interlacing 

 the branches where they met overhead, a series of symmetrical 

 arches was formed on artificial supports at the outset. After a few 

 years of pruning and interweaving the arches united into a leafy 

 tunnel-shaped network. How deliciously cool were these verdant, 

 pleached alleys on a hot day! Little wonder that they were an 

 almost indispensable feature in the gardens of sunny Italy. 



But vine-covered latticed arbours required less time to make 

 and care for, and the hard worked, practical Colonist perceived 

 that he might shade a walk by growing grapes over it. Beauty 

 came to mean less and less for its own sake, without an ultimate 

 utilitarian purpose, the farther time removed him and his wife 

 from the culture of the Old World. However, the pleached walk 

 was too beautiful a garden feature to become extinct. On the Lee 

 estate, at Brookline, there is an alley of hornbeam trees, two hun 

 dred feet long and twelve feet wide. Another, on the Lorrillard 

 place, at Tuxedo, is made of Judas trees, whose slender 

 branches are etched by the sunlight in a delicate tracery on 

 the path below. 



Although formal in character, the Colonial garden was not 

 always perfectly regular, yet any departure from a balanced, 

 symmetrical plan was the exception rather than the rule. Never 

 theless, when the garden overflowed with flowers, all outlines be 

 came softened and subdued, if not obliterated. Only an underlying 



