IS The Scented Qarden $£ 



by the ' knot ' of low-growing green stuff. Modern 

 gardeners plant bulbs — hyacinths and tulips for instance — 

 all of one colour in one bed, but our ancestors preferred 

 (and I think they were right) a posy-like arrangement of 

 mixed colours * so that the place will seem like a piece 

 of tapestry of many glorious colours to increase every 

 one's delight.' One of the most attractive knot gardens 

 I know is at Muntham Court. It is called ' the crown 

 garden ' and it is truly a royal garden, for the design is 

 taken from the ' crown ' of a baby's cap of 200 years ago. 

 Judging from the contemporary illustrations of them, 

 Oriental hyacinths three hundred years ago bore little 

 resemblance to the coarse type which the florists have 

 managed to evolve. The * hyacinth ' of the classics is 

 uncertain, but it is probably the same flower, for Pliny 

 describes it as having grass-like leaves and the scent of 

 the grape flower, and Homer mentions it with other 

 fragrant flowers of the same season. Other poets write 

 of its sapphire-coloured, crimson, purple and white bells. 

 It is at least possible that the hyacinth was grown in 

 England in Roman days, for Gerard speaks of wild 

 hyacinths (they called them by the prettier name of 

 Jacinth in those days) of ' a faire Carnation colour,' and 

 these may have been survivals, for our native S cilia nutans 

 is never flesh-coloured. We do not know for certain when 

 the garden hyacinths were introduced, but it must have 

 been about the middle of the sixteenth century, for 

 Gerard does not speak of them as newly introduced. He 

 says of them : ' These kinds of Jacints have been brought 

 from beyond the seas, some out of one country, and some 

 out of others, especially from the East countries, whereof 

 they tooke their names Orientalist 

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