THE ELIZABETHAN FLOWER GARDEN 107 



play of flowers. There was not any room left for planting 

 other things between the lines of thyme, thrift, hyssop, or what- 

 ever the intricate pattern was carried out in. Sometimes the 

 design was simply drawn out in coloured earths, a practice of 

 which Bacon disapproved : "As for the making of knots or 

 figures with divers-coloured earths . . . they be but toys ; you 

 may see as good sights many times in tarts." The more simple 

 knots were usually bordered with box, a practice which seems 

 to have been introduced by French gardeners. Parkinson calls 

 it " French or Dutch Box," and recommends it " chiefly and 

 above all other herbs," as it was not so liable to overgrow the 

 beds and distort the pattern, as " Thrift, Germander, Mar- 

 jerome, Savorie," etc., and did not suffer so much from " the 

 frosts and snows in winter," or " the drought in summer." 

 Lavender cotton (Santolina chamcecyparissus) , a new importa- 

 tion, was also used, and " the rarity and novelty of this herb 

 being for the most part but in the gardens of great persons, doth 

 cause it to be of greater regard." 1 



If herbs or box were not used for bordering, " dead material " 

 was the alternative, such as lead, either plain or " cut out 

 like unto the battlements of a church," or oak boards, or tiles, 

 or the shank-bones of sheep, " stuck in the ground, the small 

 end downwards, which will become white, and prettily grace 

 out the ground." Another plan was to use " round whitish or 

 blewish pebble stones " — this method Parkinson puts last in 

 his list, " for it is the latest invention . . . and maketh a pretty 

 handsome shew." It seems strange that such a simple thing 

 as stones for edging should not have been thought of before. 

 Within these edgings, the " open knots " were filled with 

 flowers, " all planted in some proportion as neare one unto 

 another as is fit for them," which " will give such grace to the 

 garden that the place will seem like a piece of tapestry of many- 

 glorious colours." Parkinson divides the flowers to be planted 

 in gardens roughly into two sections, " English Flowers " and 

 " Outlandish Flowers." Among English flowers he names all 

 those that have already been noticed as being grown in earlier 

 times, such as primroses, daisies, marigolds, gillyflowers, violets, 

 roses, and columbines, and among outlandish flowers, or 



1 Parkinson. 



