Historic Gardens of Virginia 



eagles with wings spread proudly as if for Bight. It is a curious 

 thought to recall that these eagles, symbols of our country, were set 

 there long before our country was even a dream. PVom this great 

 gate a graceful iron fence slopes to each side, divided into sections 

 by square pillars, each capped with a different emblem of stone. 



Here, in the wilderness, Byrd set a bit of England. It was in 

 the English blood to make and to love a garden. Even now, this 

 overgrown old garden, with its formal box-hedged squares and old- 

 fashioned flowers, reminds one of the lanes and hedge-rows of 

 England. The sweet-smelling box recalls the old fragrance of for- 

 gotten memories — rosemary and rue — lace laid away in lavender — 

 the spicy scent of sandalwood. 



Quaint sweet williams bloom in company with the pale forget- 

 me-not; foxgloves, purple and white, grow beside iris, white and 

 purple; clove-pinks, the progenitors of all our regal carnations, vie 

 with peonies, shaded like the inside of a flushed shell; lilies of 

 serene and virginal white look chastely upon their gaudy, flaunting 

 cousins, tiger-striped and voluptuous; timid violets peep out from 

 beneath bold hollyhocks; and everywhere are roses, some of which, 

 the legend says, will bloom in no other ground. 



Flowering shrubs are there — the modest bridal wreath spirea, 

 syringa, or mock-orange. Crepe-myrtle bushes grown almost into 

 trees and calycanthus with deep red-brown flowers verging upon 

 purple. In this rich, moist soil the vines have grown with almost 

 tropic luxuriance. Rambler roses and trumpet vines riot through 

 and over the old hedges, which, untrimmed in spots, have grown 

 into tree-like proportions, and wistaria has woven and twisted itself 

 into tangled thickets of verdure, which in season are masses of 

 purple bloom. 



But the greatest charm of this rare old garden lies neither in 

 the sweet box-hedges, the beautiful beds of old-time flowers, the 

 graceful shrubbery, nor the clambering vines. Nor in the count- 

 less birds that make the enclosure melodious with their song. It 

 is found in the thoughts, redolent with romance, that this 



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