408 Old Time Gardens 



The traveller Kalm found Privet hedges in Penn- 

 sylvania in 1760. In Scotland Privet is called 

 Primprint. Primet and Primprivet were other old 

 names. Box was called Primpe. These were all 

 derivative of prim, meaning precise. Our Privet 

 hedges, new as they are, are of great beauty and 

 satisfaction, and soon will rival the English Yew 

 hedges. 



I have never yet seen the garden in which there 

 was not some boundary or line which could be filled 

 to advantage by a hedge. In garden great or garden 

 small, the hedge should ever have a place. Often 

 a featureless garden, blooming well, yet somehow 

 unattractive, has been completely transformed by 

 the planting of hedges. They seem, too, to give 

 such an orderly aspect to the garden. In level 

 countries hedges are specially valuable. I cannot 

 understand why some denounce clipped hedges and 

 trees as against nature. A clipped hedge is just as 

 natural as the cut grass of a lawn, and is closely akin 

 to it. Others think hedges "too set" ; to me their 

 finality is their charm. 



Hedges need to be well kept to be pleasing. 

 Chaucer in his day in praising a " hegge " said 

 that : 



" Every branche and leaf must grow by mesure 

 Pleine as a bord, of an height by and by." 



In England, hedge-clipping has ever been a garden- 

 ing art. 



In the old English garden the topiarist was an 

 important functionary. Besides his clipping shears 



