XV 



THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN 



The charm of old-fashioned gardens lies not so much in 

 the fact of there being in the flower-beds this or that plant 

 which our great-grandmothers used to grow as in a certain 

 delightful quality of homeUkeness. In the old days the gar- 

 den was almost invariably planned in close relationship to 

 the house. A wall or fence formed three sides of the garden 

 enclosure, the house the fourth side. In the smaller of the 

 southern gardens and in Colonial gardens in the North the 

 wide hall went directly through the house to the garden, and 

 the broad central path of the garden was directly in line with 

 the hall. Or, if the garden were at the side of the house, then 

 it was under the Hving-room windows. 



In the Colonial days the first consideration was not that 

 the garden should make a notable show from the street and 

 present to the rapt beholder a marvellous and astonishing 

 color scheme; rather, it was a place of retirement, of unvexed 

 quietness, whither one might go to enjoy "a green thought in 

 a green shade." And if Nature had not been thoughtful enough 

 to provide for this, then arbors were constructed as substitutes. 



Whether by choice or by necessity, therefore, the old-time 

 garden was usually a garden enclosed. Either there was a 

 wall or fence or else there was a tall hedge of hemlock or of 

 privet. In the old southern gardens — city gardens, that is — 

 the walls were as high as in the English gardens, built of brick 

 or stone; sometimes the effect was lightened by "blind arches," 



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