—Forest Trees, John Evelyn, 1670.
Quaint old books of garden designers show us that much more was contained in a garden two centuries ago, than now; it had many more adjuncts, more furnishings; a very full list of them has been given by Batty Langley in his New Principles of Gardening, etc., 1728. Some seem amusing—as haystacks and woodpiles, which he terms "rural enrichments." Of water adornments there were to be purling streams, basins, canals, fountains, cascades, cold baths. There were to be aviaries, hare warrens, pheasant grounds, partridge grounds, dove-cotes, beehives, deer paddocks, sheep walks, cow pastures, and "manazeries" (menageries?); physic gardens, orchards, bowling-greens, hop gardens, orangeries, melon grounds, vineyards, parterres, fruit yards, nurseries, sun-dials, obelisks, statues, cabinets, etc., decorated the garden walks. There were to be land gradings of mounts, winding valleys, dales, terraces, slopes, borders, open plains, labyrinths, wildernesses, "serpentine meanders," "rude-coppices," precipices, amphitheatres. His "serpentine meanders" had large opening spaces at proper distances, in one of which might be placed a small fruit garden, a "cone of evergreens," or a "Paradice-Stocks,"—about which latter mysterious garden adornment I think we must be content to remain in ignorance, since he certainly has given us ample variety to choose from without it.
Other "landscapists" placed in their gardens old ruins, misshapen rocks, and even dead trees, in order to look "natural."
In 1608 Henry Ballard brought out The Gardener's Labyrinth—a pretty good book, shut away from the most of us by being printed in black letter. He says:—
"The framing of sundry herbs delectable, with waies and allies artfully devised is an upright herbar."
Herbars, or arbors, were of two kinds: an upright arbor, which was merely a covered lean-to attached to a fence or wall; and a winding or "arch-arbor" standing alone. He names "archherbs," which are simply climbing vines to set "winding in arch-manner on withie poles." "Walker and sitters there-under" are thereby comfortably protected from the heat of the sun. These upright arbors were in high favor; Ballard says they offered "fragrant savours, delectable sights, and sharpening of the memory."
A Garden Lyre at Waterford, Virginia.