ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN. 



121 



o'ergrown with woodbines,"* or " pleached bower where honey- 

 suckles ripen'd by the sun, forbid the sun to enter," t were sure 

 to be found in a secluded spot. " You may," writes Thomas 

 Hill,J "make the herbers either straight or runing up, or else 

 vaulted or close over the head, like to the vine herbers now 

 adaies made. And if they be made with juniper- wood, you 

 neede to repaire nothing thereof for ten years after; but if 

 they be made with willow poles, then must you new repaire them 

 euery 3 yeare after. And he which will set Roses to run about his 

 herber, or beds round about his, must set them in Februarie. . . . 

 And in the like manner you may doe, if you will sowe that sweet 



*. m 



BOSCOBEL IN l66o. 



tree or flower named Jacemine, Rosemary, or the Pomegranate 

 seedes, unless you had rather decke your herbers comelier with 

 vines." We learn some of the other plants used for arbours from 

 Parkinson. " The Jacimine, white and yellow, the double 

 Honeysocke, the Ladies' Bower, both white and red and purple, 

 single and double, are the fittest of outlandish plants to set by 

 arbours and banquetting-houses that are open both before and 

 above, to help to cover them, and to give both sight, smell, and 

 delight." The " Ladies' Bower" is Clematis Vitalba, or " traveller's 

 joy," and some five foreign species of Clematis. Kidney beans 



* Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess. 



f Much Ado About Nothing, act iii. scene i, 



Art of Gardening. 



Paradisus, page 392. 



