The Tidewater Trail 



This, too, is bordered and arched with towering trees and shrub- 

 bery. One looks down a fine vista of two hundred feet to catch 

 a glimpse of water. The western slope of the garden breaks away 

 suddenly in a broad terrace to the bank of the little estuary of the 

 Ware. Along this bank, willows and cedars rise to a great height, 

 the nearer distance being filled with crepe myrtle, Pride of China, 

 lesser trees, and large clumps of shrubs. The terrace and its banks 

 are given over to bulbs, ferns, and grasses. 



The walk at the northern end of the garden is edged with 

 numerous fruit trees. Originally the wide central space, allotted to 

 vegetables, berry bushes, asparagus beds, etc., was divided into 

 four squares, separated by lesser walks than those which sweep 

 around the four sides. These have now been abandoned. 



The space originally designed to contain flowers and flower- 

 ing or ornamental plants comprises between forty and fifty thou- 

 sand square feet. In it will be found today many of the original 

 shrubs and bushes placed there by the Seldens. It is needless to 

 say that, in eighty-odd years, they have achieved a growth which 

 renders many of them conspicuously fine specimens of their several 

 varieties. A hastily-made catalogue compiled recently showed the 

 garden to contain more than forty kinds of shrubs and flower- 

 ing trees. The display of lilies is especially intensive and fine. 

 Iris of every hue; great beds of tiger lilies; lilies, white and yellow, 

 and of other colors. These for the spring and summer. In the 

 autumn thousands of chrysanthemums, dispersed in clumps that 

 vary from one or two stems to a hundred or more, keep the eye 

 w^ell occupied. 



The abiding interest and the chief distinction of the Sherwood 

 garden are the "old" things it contains. There is a gnarled smoke 

 tree the trunk of which is nearly two feet in diameter. Down 

 another walk a yaupon tree, a veritable cluster of stems, has at- 

 tained a height of thirty-odd feet. By its side there is a Camelia 

 japonica that might grace the lawn as a shade tree. Before it 

 came to Sherwood, it had formed a single item in a bridal bouquet, 



[173] 



