The garden of varying ascents and descents was much admired in Elizabethan days. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1630), a most sensitive critic, who wrote so beautifully of flowers, describes in his "Elements of Architecture" a garden laid out on different levels:
"I have seen a garden for the manner perchance incomparable into which the first access was a high walk like a terrace, from whence might be taken a general view of the whole Plot below. From this, the Beholder, descending many steps, was afterwards conveyed again by several mountings and fallings to various entertainments of his scent and sight. Every one of these diversities was as if he had been magically transported into a new garden."
The above extracts will afford suggestions for the lay-out of fine stately gardens. The most typical Elizabethan estates are Montacute, Somersetshire; Longleat, Wiltshire; Hatfield, Hardwicke, Kirby, Penshurst, Kent; and Drayton House, Northamptonshire. All of these are models for imitation in our own country.
II
The Small Garden
Turning now to the small enclosed garden, first select your ground, your design, and your flowers for borders, edging, and knots, so that you will know the effect you wish to produce.
"Making a garden," says H. H. Thomas, "may be likened to painting a picture. Just as the artist has before him the landscape which he is to depict on the canvas, the gardener should have in his mind's eye a strong impression of the kind of garden he wishes to make. There is nothing like being methodical even in gardening, so it is best to materialize one's ideas in the form of a rough sketch, or plan."
Show your gardener the diagram and have him stake off your garden and beds with the greatest accuracy. Your walks, paths, and beds must be exact. Next select your style of enclosure and build your brick wall, plant your green hedge, or construct your pleached alley. Each one has its own particular advantages and charm. The brick wall forms a shelter for plants that love shade and a fine support for climbing plants, especially ivy. The hedge makes a rich and distinguished wall of living green, which can be artistically clipped; and arches can be made through it. The pleached alley, formed of wooden trellis, lattice-work, or rustic, or wire arches painted an attractive color, or left in the natural wood, will, if they are covered profusely with roses, honeysuckle, rosemary, and other roving flowers, give the effect of the old leafy tunnels of greenery and blossoms.
III
Soil and Seed
Every gardener of olden times, as well as every practical worker to-day, insists upon the necessity of digging and trenching and preparing the soil before any seeds are sown, or cuttings planted. For this important preparation, the advice of the best local gardener is imperative.
Regarding seeds it is interesting to seek advice from Didymus Mountain's "The Gardener's Labyrinth." "Every gardener and owner," he says, "ought to be careful and diligently to foresee that the seeds committed to the earth be neither too old, dry, thin, withered, nor counterfeited, but rather full, new and full of juice.