I would make cabinets for thee, my love,
Sweet-smelling arbors made of eglantine.
And in Spenser's "Bower of Bliss":
Art, striving to compare
With Nature, did an arbor green dispread
Framed of wanton ivy, flow'ring fair,
Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread
His prickling arms, entrayl'd with roses red,
Which dainty odors round about them threw;
And all within with flowers was garnished,
That when Zephyrus amongst them blew
Did breathe out bounteous smells and painted odors shew.
A beautiful method of obtaining shady walks was to make a kind of continuous arbor or arcade of trees, trellises, and vines. This arcade was called poetically the "pleached alley."[6] For the trees, willows, limes (lindens), and maples were used, and the vines were eglantine and other roses, honeysuckle (woodbine), clematis, rosemary, and grapevines.
[6] Pleaching means trimming the small branches and foliage of trees, or bushes, to bring them to a regular shape. Certain trees only are submissive to this treatment—holly, box, yew privet, whitethorn, hornbeam, linden, etc., to make arbors, hedges, bowers, colonnades and all cut-work.
"Plashing is the half-cutting, or dividing of the quick growth almost to the outward bark and then laying it orderly in a slope manner as you see a cunning hedger lay a dead hedge and then with the smaller and more pliant branches to wreath and bind in the tops." Markham, "The County Farm" (London, 1616).
Another feature of the garden was the maze, or labyrinth. It was a favorite diversion for a visitor to puzzle his way through the green walls, breast high, to the center; and the owner took delight in watching the mistakes of his friend and was always ready to give him the clue. When James I on his "Southern Progress" in 1603 visited the magnificent garden known as Theobald's and belonging to Lord Burleigh, where we have already seen[7] Gerard was the horticulturist, the King went into the labyrinth of the garden "where he re-created himself in the meanders compact of bays, rosemary and the like, overshadowing his walk."
The labyrinth, or maze, was a fad of the day. It still exists in many English gardens that date from Elizabethan times and is a feature of many more recent gardens. Perhaps of all mazes the one at Hampton Court Palace is the most famous.