io6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



and the remains of topiary work in old gardens still in exist- 

 ence confirm this impression. All the cut trees in the garden 

 at Heslington, near York, are yews. This garden was laid out 

 soon after the house was built, about 1560. The quaintly- 

 rounded hedge at Rockingham, and the hedges and trees at 

 Erbistock, are two examples of the cut yews of this date. But 

 in the books of the period other shrubs are spoken of more 

 favourably than yews. It seems, therefore, that it is only 

 because the yew is a slow grower, a sturdy tree, and an ever- 

 green, that more yews than other shrubs have survived. Par- 

 kinson says of the " use of the yew :" " It is found planted 

 both in the corners of orchards and against the windows of 

 houses, to be both a shadow and an ornament, it being always 

 green." But of the privet he writes : " Because the use of this 

 plant is so much, and so frequent throughout all this land, 

 although for no other purpose but to make hedges or arbours 

 in gardens, &c., whereunto it is so apt, that no other can be 

 like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, 

 either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise : I could not 

 forget it, although it ... be an hedge bush." " Your Gardiner," 

 writes Lawson in 1618, " can frame your lesser wood to the 

 shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell : or swift- 

 running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare. 

 This kind of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your 

 coyne." Rosemary also was " sette by women for their 

 pleasure, to grow in sundry proportions, as in the fashion of a 

 cart, a peacock, or such by things as they fancy." ^ 



Flowers were planted in borders along the walks and hedges, 

 " thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees "^ {i.e., rob the 

 trees of nourishment), but the principal receptacles for flowers 

 were " open beds," called " open knots," in contradistinction to 

 the complicated knots. The most practical gardeners did not 

 look with favour on the " curiously knotted garden,"^ although 

 all books of tliis period give design for knots. Parkinson has a 

 page of designs merely to " satisfy the desires " of his readers ; 

 he himself considered " open knots " more suitable for the dis- 



^ Barnaby Googe's Husbandry, 1578. Translation of Conrad of 

 Heresbach. 



^ Bacon, ^ Love's Labour's Lost, Act I., Scene i. 



