The Charm of Gardens

by Dion Clayton Calthrop

Then, as now, there was a danger of over cultivation of certain plants and flowers, so that a man might have more pride in the number and curiosity of his flowers, than in the beauty and colour of them. It is a certain fault in modern gardeners that they do not study the grouping and massing of colours, but do, more generally, take pride in over-large specimens, great collections, and rare varieties. But this age and that are times of collecting, of connoisseurship, ages that produce us great art of their own but have an extraordinary knowledge of the arts and devices of the past. Not that I would decry the friendly competitions of this and that man to grow rare rock plants, or bloom exotics the one against another, but I do most certainly prefer a rivalry in producing beautiful effects of colour; and love better to see a great mass of Roses growing free than to see one poor tree twisted into the semblance of a flowering parasol as men now use in many of the small climbing Roses.

To the end that gardeners and lovers of gardens may know how those past gardeners treated their fruits and flowers, I give the whole of Evelyn’s “Gard’ners Calendar,” than which no more complete account of gardens of that time exists.

It would be as well to note, before arriving at our Seventeenth Century Calendar, how the art of gardening had grown in England after the time of the Romans.

From the time that every sign of the Roman occupation had been wiped out to the beginning of the thirteenth century, gardens as we know them to-day did not exist. The first attempts at gardens within castle walls were little plots of herbs and shrubs with a few trees of Costard Apples. It appears that all those plants and flowers the Romans cultivated had been lost, and that with the sterner conditions of living all such arrangements as arbours of cut Yew trees, or elaborate Box-edged paths had completely vanished. Certainly they did have arbours for shade, but of a simple kind and quite unlike the elaborate garden houses the Romans built.

There were vineyards and wine made from them as early as the Eighth Century, and in the reign of Edward the Third wine was made at Windsor Castle by Stephen of Bourdeaux. The Cherry trees brought here by the Romans had quite died out and were not recovered until Harris, Henry the Eighth’s Irish fruiterer, grew them again at Sittingbourne. In the Twelfth Century flower gardening again came in, and within the castle walls pleasant gardens were laid out with little avenues of fruit trees, and neat beds of flowers. Of the fruit trees there was the Costard Apple, the only Apple of that time, from which great quantities of cider—that “good-natured and potable liquor”—was made. There was the great Wardon Pear, from which the celebrated Wardon pies were made; they were Winter Pears from a stock originally cultivated by those great horticulturists the Cistercian monks of Wardon in Bedfordshire. Then there was also the Quince, called a Coyne, the Medlar, and I believe the Mulberry, or More tree. In the borders, Strawberries, Raspberries, Barberries and Currants were grown, that is in a well-stocked garden such as the Earl of Lincoln had in Holborn in 1290. Then there was a plot set aside as a Physic garden where herbs grew and salads of Rocket, Lettuce, Mustard, Watercress, and Hops. In one place, probably overlooking the pond or fountain which was the centre of such gardens, was an arbour, and walks and smaller gardens were screened off by wattle hedges. In that part of the garden devoted to flowers were Roses, Lilies, Sunflowers, Violets, Poppies, Narcissi, Pervinkes or Periwinkles. Lastly, and most important was the Clove Pink, or Gilly-flower, a variety of Wallflower then called Bee-flower. Add to this an apiary and you have a complete idea of the mediæval garden.

Later, in the Fifteenth Century came a new feature into the garden, a mound built in the centre for the view, made sometimes of earth, but very often of wood raised up as a platform, and having gaily carved and painted stairways. These, with butts for archery, and bowling-greens, and a larger variety of the old kinds of flowers, showed the principal difference.

We come now to the gardens of the Sixteen Century, when flower gardening was extremely popular. Spenser and the other poets are always describing the beauties of flowers, and from these and old Herbals, from Bacon, Shakespeare and other writers of that time, we are able to see how, slowly but surely, the art of flower growing had advanced. The gardens were very exact and formal, and were divided in geometrical patterns, and grew large “seats” of Violets, Penny Royal, and Mint as well as other herbs. Above all, a new addition to the mounds, archery butts and bowling-greens, was the maze which had a place in every proper garden of the Elizabethans.

The first garden where flower growing was taken really seriously belonged to John Parkinson, a London apothecary who had a garden in Long Acre. Great importance was given to smell, as is highly proper, and flower gardens were bordered with Thyme, Marjoram and Lavender. Highly-scented flowers were the most prized, and for this reason the prime favourite the Carnation, was more grown than any other flower. Of this there were fifty distinct varieties of every shape and size, including the famous large Clove Pink, the golden coloured Sops-in-Wine.

With the increase in the variety of the Rose, of which about thirty kinds were known, came the fashion, quickly universal, of keeping potpourri of dried Rose leaves, many of which were imported from the East, from whence, years before, had come quantities of Roses to supply the demand in Winter in Rome.

As the fashion for growing flowers increased so, also, did the efforts of gardeners to procure new and rare flowers from foreign countries, and soon the Fritillary, Tulip and Iris were extensively cultivated, and were treated with extraordinary care.