Preston Garden.
English gardens, at the time of the settlement of America, had passed beyond the time when, as old Gervayse Markham said, "Of all the best Ornaments used in our English gardens, Knots and Mazes are the most ancient." A maze was a placing of low garden hedges of Privet, Box, or Hyssop, usually set in concentric circles which enclosed paths, that opened into each other by such artful contrivance that it was difficult to find one's way in and out through these bewildering paths. "When well formed, of a man's height, your friend may perhaps wander in gathering berries as he cannot recover himself without your help."
The maze was not a thing of beauty, it was "nothing for sweetness and health," to use Lord Bacon's words; it was only a whimsical notion of gardening amusement, pleasing to a generation who liked to have hidden fountains in their gardens to sprinkle suddenly the unwary. I doubt if any mazes were ever laid out in America, though I have heard vague references to one in Virginia. Knots had been the choice adornment of the Tudor garden. They were not wholly a thing of the past when we had here our first gardens, and they have had a distinct influence on garden laying-out till our own day.
An Elizabethan poet wrote:—
"My Garden sweet, enclosed with walles strong,
Embanked with benches to sitt and take my rest;
The knots so enknotted it cannot be expressed
The arbores and alyes so pleasant and so dulce."
These garden knots were not flower beds edged with Box or Rosemary, with narrow walks between the edgings, as were the parterres of our later formal gardens. They were square, ornamental beds, each of which had a design set in some close-growing, trim plant, clipped flatly across the top, and the design filled in with colored earth or sand; and with no dividing paths. Elaborate models in complicated geometrical pattern were given in gardeners' books, for setting out these knots, which were first drawn on paper and subdivided into squares; then the square of earth was similarly divided, and set out by precise rules. William Lawson, the Izaak Walton of gardeners, gave, as a result of forty-eight years of experience, some very attractive directions for large "knottys" with different "thrids" of flowers, each of one color, which made the design appear as if "made of diverse colored ribands." One of his knots, from A New Orchard and Garden 1618, being a garden fashion in vogue when my forbears came to America, I have chosen as a device for the dedication of this book, thinking it, in Lawson's words, "so comely, and orderly placed, and so intermingled, that one looking thereon cannot but wonder." His knots had significant names, such as "Cinkfoyle; Flower de Luce; Trefoyle; Frette; Lozenge; Groseboowe; Diamond; Ovall; Maze."
Gervayse Markham gives various knot patterns to be bordered with Box cut eighteen inches broad at the bottom and kept flat at the top—with the ever present thought for the fine English linen. He has a varied list of circular, diamond-shaped, mixed, and "single impleated knots."
