HOUSE AND GARDEN 
28 
August, 
i9G 
Since whole hedges of antique boxwood are comparatively rare, 
it is a wonder that no one has picked up this fine specimen 
These bushes on an old place at Essex, Conn., represent a small fortune, but so far no purchaser 
has discovered them 
In fact, it is quite the tiling to-day for their modern 
gardens to be built around antique boxwood. One 
of the finest examples is found in the famous gar¬ 
dens of Mr. James L. Breese on his country place 
“The Orchards” at Southampton, L. I. The lavish 
use of old box, procured from places in and about 
Southampton, is one of the many things for which 
this garden is noted. In describing the beauties 
of the Breese gardens Mr. Wilhelm Miller aptly 
says: “The charm of the Breese house is partly 
due to these old specimens of box, because box is 
the one plant that commonly survives a century in 
gardens. Now the only way to get the effect of 
age without waiting for it is to have experts root- 
prune and move huge old plants to your place. 
Mr. Breese must have spent a small fortune on 
box, for it leads you up the long path to his house, 
humanizes the portico, flanks the garden, and helps 
to tie the whole to the landscape.” 
Also in the garden of Fleetwood, Mr. Robert Sewell’s country 
seat at Oyster Bay, R. I., the focal feature of the circus is an 
of the garden picture. Many, no doubt, will deplore this, but in 
certain localities old boxwood has become so valuable that the 
natives, who formerly had a monopoly of it, 
cannot afford to keep it. And so it goes to 
grace the elaborate gardens of the proud new¬ 
comers, forsaking the simple dooryards of the 
old Colonial farmhouses, where it has grown 
for so many generations. And it is just as much 
at home in the one environment as the other. 
To keep a garden plot intact for ages to come, 
there is nothing like slow-growing, long-lived 
boxwood. George Washington’s flower garden 
at Mt. Vernon was restored to its original plan 
largely by means of the box borders, planted 
under his direction over a century and a half 
ago. Had it not been for this abundance of 
boxwood Washington’s garden would have 
perished from the earth long since. As it is, 
the little box-bordered knots and parterres and 
the great hedges of clipped boxwood, which 
are so flourishing to-day, have preserved it for 
future generations. 
enormous bush of antique boxwood, trans¬ 
planted from some old homestead nearby. 
“Killenworth,” the palatial country seat of 
Mr. James D. Pratt at Glen Cove, L. I., was 
only finished in the spring of 1913, but so 
cleverly has all the planting and garden work 
been carried out that one would never suspect 
its unseemly lack of age. Great masses of 
antique boxwood flank either side of the en¬ 
trance. This wonderful box was brought all 
the way from South Carolina. And what 
magnificent boxwood it is! One bush alone 
measures seventeen feet across. 
These isolated instances are mentioned 
merely to show concretely how the old boxwood 
of our ancestors is gradually leaving its humble 
surroundings on the farm for the great country 
estates, where it has become an important part 
The box bushes al the famous Shaw-Perkins mansion in New London, Conn., almost hold the record for 
age with their hundred and sixty years 
The South has many other fine old gardens, 
(Continued on page 48) 
