i66 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



following extracts show. He urges the hardiness of cedars, 

 and regrets they are not more grown. Perhaps it was at his 

 suggestion that some were planted in the Chelsea physic garden 

 in 1683. The ilex, also, he proves to be hardy by the remains 

 of one in the Pri\^ Garden, Whitehall, " where once flourished 

 a goodly tree of more than four score years." " Phillyrea is 

 sufficiently hardy, which makes me wonder to find angustifolia 

 planted in cases and so charily set into the stoves among the 

 oranges and lemons." He had " four large round " Phillyreas, 

 " smooth-clipped," in his own garden at Says Court, Deptford.^ 

 Under Hornbeam, he notices the " admirable " hedges at 

 " Hampton Court and New Park," " the delicious villa of the 

 noble Earl of Rochester." " These hedges are tonsile, but 

 where they are maintained to 15 or 20 feet high . . . they 

 are to be kept in order with a scythe of 4 foot long, and very 

 little falcated, that is, fixed in a long sneed or straight handle, 

 and does wonderfully expedite the trimming." . . . These 

 hedges are great "convenience for the protection of our orange- 

 trees, myrtles, and other rare perennials and exotics." The 

 laurel was so commonly used for the same purpose that 

 Evelyn says " it seems as if it had only been destined for 

 hedges." Holly for a garden-hedge he also enthusiastically 

 praises : " Is there under heiven a more glorious and refreshing 

 object of the kind than an impregnable hedge of about 480 feet 

 length, 9 feet high, and 5 feet in diameter, which I can show 

 in my now ruined gardens at Says Court (thanks to the Czar 

 of Muscovy) any time of year, glittering with its armed and 

 varnished leaves." This is quoted from the later edition of the 

 Silva, and the " ruin " of the garden refers to the damage 

 done there by Peter the Great, who lived at Sayes Court to be 

 near Deptford during his visit to England (1698). He is said 

 to have amused himself by being wheeled about the garden 

 in a wheel-barrow, over borders and through hedges, regardless 

 of consequences. In his Diary, on June 8th, 1698, Evelyn writes : 

 " I went to Deptford to see how miserably the Czar had left 

 my house after three months making it his Court. I got 

 Sr. Christr. Wren, the K.'s surveyor, and Mr. London, his 

 gardener, to go and estimate the repairs, for which they allowed 

 ^ Gibson, Gardens about London, 1691. 



