io6 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
and the remains of topiary work in old gardens still in exist¬ 
ence confirm this impression. All the cut trees in the garden 
at Heslington, near York, are yews. This garden was laid out 
soon after the house was built, about 1560. The quaintly- 
rounded hedge at Rockingham, and the hedges and trees at 
Erbistock, are two examples of the cut yews of this date. But 
in the books of the period other shrubs are spoken of more 
favourably than yews. It seems, therefore, that it is only 
because the yew is a slow grower, a sturdy tree, and an ever¬ 
green, that more yews than other shrubs have survived. Par¬ 
kinson says of the “ use of the yew:” “ It is found planted 
both in the corners of orchards and against the windows of 
houses, to be both a shadow and an ornament, it being always 
green.” But of the privet he writes : " Because the use of this 
plant is so much, and so frequent throughout all this land, 
although for no other purpose but to make hedges or arbours 
in gardens, &c., whereunto it is so apt, that no other can be 
like unto it, to be cut, lead, and drawn into what forme one will, 
either of beasts, birds, or men armed or otherwise : I could not 
forget it, although it ... be an hedge bush.” “ Your Gardiner,” 
writes Lawson in 1618, “ can frame your lesser wood to the 
shape of men armed in the field, ready to give battell: or swift¬ 
running Grey Hounds to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare. 
This kind of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your 
coyne.” Rosemary also was “ sette by women for their 
pleasure, to grow in sundry proportions, as in the fashion of a 
cart, a peacock, or such by things as they fancy.” 1 
Flowers were planted in borders along the walks and hedges, 
" thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees ” 2 rob the 
trees of nourishment), but the principal receptacles for flowers 
were “ open beds,” called “ open knots,” in contradistinction to 
the complicated knots. The most practical gardeners did not 
look with favour on the “ curiously knotted garden,” 3 although 
all books of this period give design for knots. Parkinson has a 
page of designs merely to “ satisfy the desires ” of his readers ; 
he himself considered “ open knots ” more suitable for the dis- 
1 Barnaby Gouge’s Husbandry, 1578. Translation of Conrad of 
Heresbach. 
2 Bacon. 
3 Love's Labour's Lost, Act I., Scene 1. 
