56 The American Flower Garden 



formality, however, would have produced the harmonious effect 

 of the whole. 



The favourite design in the Colonies North and South, was 

 a great wheel with a fountain, a sundial or a bushy boxwood 

 specimen in the centre of the circular garden where the hub 

 should be, and radiating paths, like spokes, marking off the 

 box-bordered parterres, and a hedge encircling the whole like a 

 tire. On a hilltop screened from public gaze, but in the very 

 heart of Rome, may be found at the present day, just such a wheel 

 filled with flowers reflected in the pool at the centre the charm- 

 ingly simple little Colonna garden, which might just as fittingly 

 adjoin a Georgian house in the Colonies. Italian ideas of garden 

 making had thoroughly permeated Europe when the Colonists 

 began to "build stately" and to "garden finely" on this side of the 

 sea; but it is France, not Italy, that receives the credit for the 

 influence upon our garden designs. Le Notre's work was 

 familiar to all intelligent men. L'Enfant's splendid design for 

 laying out the nation's new capitol was one of Washington's 

 cherished ideals frustrated by a parsimonious Congress, even to 

 this day. To the Marquis de Geradin, Jefferson was indebted 

 for much help in planning Monticello and the beautiful University 

 of Virginia; yet Italy had taught these Frenchmen, either directly 

 or indirectly, all they knew. 



THE BEST SURVIVORS OF OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN FLOWERS 



NOTE. The flowering time is given approximately for the neighbourhood of New 

 York, and will be somewhat earlier or later to the South or North. 



ASTER, CHINA (Callistephus hortensis). Single, white and red introduced 

 1731; blue, 1736; double red and blue, 1752; white 1753. More 

 modern improvements of forms and colours than any other annual 

 of the daisy family. Annual; July to September; ij feet. Does 

 best when sown in the open. 



