176 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



of Charcole."^ The oranges were planted in cases, and were 

 lifted out to adorn the garden during the summer months, 

 but were " committed betimes into the conservatory." No 

 garden was complete without its " collection of choice greens." 

 Already in the time of Charles I. there existed several orangeries. 

 At Wimbledon, the favourite resort of Henrietta Maria, was 

 one of the finest examples. The orange garden was laid out 

 " in four knots," bordered with box, and turfed squares with 

 walks round them. In this the oranges stood out in tubs 

 in the summer-time, and there was a garden house in the 

 orangery, where the trees, forty-two in number, were stored for 

 the winter. These trees were valued, when the Parliamentary 

 survey was made prior to selling the place, at £420. The survey 

 of these grounds forms a very complete picture of a garden of 

 this date, the various terraces, trees, walks, summer-houses, and 

 everything it contained, being carefully described and valued.^ 

 After the Restoration, conservatories became more general, 

 and are noticed by several of the writers of the time. Houses 

 were built for the reception of " tender greens " at the Oxford 

 Botanic Garden, and later on at Chelsea Physic Garden. The 

 gardens of Essex House in the Strand possessed a fine collection 

 " of choicest greens," under the care of John Rose, one of the 

 most celebrated gardeners of that day. His treatment of 

 plants in cases is thus quoted by Rea : " In spring and autumn 

 you must take some of the earth out of the cases, and open the 

 rest with a fork or other fit tool ... fill up again with rank earth 

 two parts dung well rotted." That orange-trees, however, 

 were still considered a great novelty, the following extract 

 from Pepys' Diary will show : " 25 June 1666. — Mrs. Pen 

 carried us to two gardens at Hackney (which I every day grow 

 more and more in love with), Mr. Drake's one, where the garden 

 is good, and house and prospect admirable, the other my Lord 

 Brooke's, where the gardens are much better, but the house 

 not so good nor prospect good at all. But the gardens are 

 excellent, and here I first saw oranges grow, some green, some 



^ Rea, Flora. Ceres, and Pomona, 1665 ; also Sharrock. 



2 Printed in Archcsologia, vol. x., 1789. Reprinted in an Appendix to 

 this volume from original MS. in the Record Office, Parliamentary 

 Survey, No. 72. 



