OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS 



Strictly, of course, the term is indefinite, for old- 

 fashioned flowers and old-fashioned gardens mean to 

 different people different things. Probably to most people 

 — at all events to the present writer — old-fashioned 

 gardening means that system which is in direct opposi- 

 tion to prim geometric beds and to the imitation of 

 carpet patterns by arrangement of flowers. By an old- 

 fashioned garden, the present writer means an informal 

 ^'garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our 

 English ayre will permit to be noursed up," as Parkin- 

 son put it ; and by old-fashioned flowers he means 

 sweet Williams and gilly flowers, mignonette, sweet 

 peas, roses and honeysuckle, ''daffodils, fritillaries, 

 jacinthes, saffron-flowers, lilies, flower-deluces, tulipas, 

 anemones, French cowslips or bearseares, and such other 

 flowers, very beautifull, delightfull and pleasant." After 

 the severe, monotonous, formal arrangements which 

 still too often constitute the gardens around our finest 

 houses, how interesting and restful it is to stroll round 

 a delightful garden such as Canon Ellacombe's ''Vicarage 

 Garden" at Bitton, where the shape of the beds or 

 borders is not prearranged, where all the soil is occupied, 

 where every plant looks healthy and at home, where 

 every yard brings one a surprise and a fresh interest, 

 where the old walls have growing from their crevices 

 such plants as the Cheddar Pink, Sedums and Semper- 

 vivums ; where, too, every plant in its glory hides the 

 decay of its predecessor in bloom and shelters the birth 

 of its successor. 



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