34 
House & Garden’s 
THE SPIRIT of OLD-FASHIONED GARDENS 
With a Plan for a Garden Reproducing the 
Atmosphere of the Puritans 
In the old-fashioned garden flowers straggled informally over the walks, their back¬ 
ground of tall shrubs lending an air of length and seclusion. These gardens, the plan 
and the text are the work of Elizabeth Leonard Strang, landscape architect 
AN old-fashioned gar- 
l\ den—how the picture 
flashes across the mind! 
Lilac, laburnum, snowballs 
and syringas arching over 
the gate and crowding the 
white pickets of the fence. 
A sundial and arbor of 
delicate Colonial pattern; 
neatly raked gravel paths 
skirting the box-edged beds 
wherein graciously nod the 
flowers our grandmothers 
loved—hollyhocks, hones¬ 
ty, roses and heart’s-ease. 
Many such gardens can 
still be seen, and the old 
ladies are always smil¬ 
ingly glad to entertain 
you. They will point out 
their treasures with par¬ 
ticular pride—the old fig 
tree, the mulberries, and the 
grapes—and in the arbor 
before you leave, serve you 
tea in the blue Crown set. 
How can such a garden 
be reproduced? Was not 
its evanescent charm too 
subtle to be expressed in 
terms of beds and walks, 
shrubs and flowers? What was its secret? 
The old gardens were successful because 
they filled an actual need in the lives of the 
people. To appreciate this it is necessary to 
know how those people lived, and to study their 
ideals. A modem reproduction of an old- 
fashioned garden must fill a like requirement 
in the lives of people today or it cannot be a 
success, no matter how truly it imitates the old. 
People are not now so dependent on their gar¬ 
dens for the necessities of life. The raising of 
fruits and vegetables for 
practical use, while not 
wholly discontinued, in 
normal times has become 
subordinate to the growing 
of flowers for cutting and 
out-of-door decorative ef¬ 
fect. Standards, too, have 
changed. We are no 
longer satisfied with the 
ungentle mixtures of color 
which the old gardens dis¬ 
played. 
There are distinct kinds 
of old gardens in each sec¬ 
tion of the country. In 
the extreme South is the 
Spanish type, a walled en¬ 
closure of simple though 
formal design, with roses, 
heliotrope and carnations, 
oranges and lemons, figs 
and pomegranates. 
In the Carolinas we as¬ 
sociate the walled enclo¬ 
sures about the stately old 
mansions with live oaks 
draped in gray moss, aza¬ 
leas, camellias, and crepe 
myrtles. 
In Virginia, as with all 
of the Colonies, the earliest gardens were for 
necessities alone, but soon the luxurious ideas 
of the Cavaliers began to assert themselves and 
flowers occupied a definite place in the decora¬ 
tive scheme. Living as they did on large plan¬ 
tations, there were no homely enclosures or 
cottage gardens. The settlers brought ideas 
from Holland, acquired during their exile in 
that country; from Italy, and from England, 
where the Elizabethan garden was then at 
the height of its perfection and popularity. 
These early gardens 
were carefully designed. 
Usually a terrace next the 
house, with a retaining 
wall and broad steps of 
stone overlooked the par¬ 
terre with its knots or beds 
of boxwood. These were 
often very elaborate, the 
pattern deemed of more 
importance than the flow¬ 
ers which filled it. Next 
came the garden proper, a 
larger enclosure with broad 
straight walks and beds of 
simple design, the whole 
•always enclosed by a hedge 
or high wall. 
The Quaker gardens, 
like those of the Cavaliers, 
were laid out along ample 
proportions and long rest¬ 
ful lines, but with less of 
elaboration and luxury as 
befitted their simpler tastes. 
The gardens of the 
Dutch were trim, minute 
enclosures, their design 
based on the square, the 
circle, or the oval, kept 
with extreme neatness and 
planted with flowers, vegetables, herbs and 
fruits, cabbages and tulips occupying espe¬ 
cially prominent places among them. 
The Puritan nature is found expressed in 
the gardens of New England, and such designs 
as they followed were adaptations from the 
Dutch, though more often the little fenced-in 
front yards held only simple square beds. The 
first mention we find of gardens for flowers was 
in 1629, but from the very beginning there was 
the useful plot at the back, where lowly back¬ 
door flowers, vegetables, 
fruits and simples shared 
in contributing necessities 
and comforts to their care¬ 
takers. 
No formula can be laid 
down for making an old- 
fashioned garden. Ever) ? 
type of house, be it Span¬ 
ish, Georgian Colonial, 
Pennsylvania stone, Long 
Island Dutch, or New 
England square, has its 
special problem, in the so¬ 
lution of which climate as 
well as architecture plays 
an important part that we 
must not overlook. 
In Puritan times, to 
grow flowers for their 
beauty alone was held to 
be, if not a sin, at least a 
vanity. Nevertheless the 
busy housewife found mo¬ 
ments in which to care for 
the little fenced-in plot 
before the house. 
The authoritative list is 
short: crown imperials, 
daffodils, red and yellow 
tulips, poet’s narcissus and 
The Cavalier type, which was found in the Virginias, had a strongly formal spirit. It 
often included a parterre. The simplicity of the design and the neatness suggest the 
old Elizabethan gardens, their general source of inspiration 
