OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS 



tall dahlias and the fire of the dying leaves. It was 

 early in 1800 that Robert Witherspoon brought his 

 bride home to the simple white house and great garden, 

 telling her she was lovelier than any flower it grew. 

 And ever since the garden has been cherished and en- 

 joyed. 



But all the southern grandmothers did not live on 

 estates. There were town dwellers there, as in the 

 North. Perhaps Charleston has retained the gardens 

 they made in their original perfection more surely than 

 any other of the old cities, those high-walled gardens 

 of ante-bellum days, whose builders were full of the 

 traditions of seventeenth-century England and France, 

 when gardens grew divine. 



There is, for instance, the Miles Brewerton House, 

 with its walled garden. The house is a fine type of 

 the early Georgian with brick-arched loggias overlook- 

 ing the space of flowers, that stretches north and south. 

 Down the center goes a wide pathway, overarched by 

 an arbor completely covered with the twining branches 

 of one gigantic climbing rose. The flower beds extend 

 on either side, brick-edged and bordered with sweet 

 violets and other small and fragrant plants. Close to 

 the house the oleanders and acacias bloom and crowd, 

 and vines are all about, clambering over porches and 

 walls and trees. So secluded it is that the wild song- 

 birds come here to nest, careless of the city close 

 around. 



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