The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1877-07-05
Old FashIoned Gardens.


Old Fashioned Gardens.
About this time Of the year, In oldfash
iOned gardens, you will find the snow
ball, or viburnum, blooming In the mos
liberal and splendid way. In new fash
iOned gardens they have substituted fol
it the Chinese magnolia, "a snowy shrub
but looking stiff aud not quite natura
liZed. 1t blooms before there is sigI
Of a leaf, in quite Chinese sort of balC
way that reminds one of the hairless
Chinese pigs and dogs that we have seer
from that country of contradictions.
Ii is hardly proper TO speak, however
of gardens with old fashioned flower:
and shrubs in them AZ being old fash.
ioned themselves, since it has been quite
the rage for some years past, I'm England
at least, to have what are called Queen
Anne's Gardens" in which no plant
not cultivated by our grandmOthers,
and none but such as have been growing
in England for 200 years, are to be seen,
We trust that the notion for Queen
Anne's gardens will take root in this
country also; it is an old fashion well
worth going back TO.
There is, in fact, nothing that can
supplant those old fashioned flowers in
our affections. Ii takes nearly two cen
turies for a flower to become naturalized,
so to speak, for all those associations to
grow up around it which make ii part
of the home and the heart. There are
a dozen of these Old-fashiOned fayOrites
which we seem to have known forever,
but which, two centuries ago, were as
much strangers as the fuchsia and the
dahlia still are. The gillihOwer was
still the girotlee in Geralde's time, the
lilac was the Persiah lilac. the aster the
Refine Marguerite, and the amaranth
the tlOramor. 1t had not yet spOrted
into its purely domestic names and varie-
ties of "Prince's Feather" and Love
Lies Bleeding" The marigOld was still,
as it now is, the French marigold, and
the hower-de-luce has become natura-
lized without changing its name, from
its constant appearance during centuries
upon the British cOat-of-arms.
An old fashioned Queen Anne's gar
den would be rather prim affair, with
too much boX-edging, and walks too
straight and Dutch-like, but the old
fashioned flowers would redeem it.
There you would find plenty of lilacs
and snowballs, privet and holly in the
hedges and borders. Larkspurs, wall
flowers, hollyhocks, periwinkles, snap
dragons, candytufts and datfodils would
abound. A damp, snady corner would
be given to bed of the lily of the val
ley, and ten to one but you would find
a bed of chamOmile growing hard by a
bed of lavender or sweet basil. OF
course there would be balsam (only
called Gladys slipper'Y and rocket
under the name of "dame's violet, :"
pansies, known then as Gladys delight"
or "heart's ease, basque flower, and
cowslip, and meadOw-sweet, and
groundsel, and feverfew, and milfOil,
yarrow, thrift, spurge, loose strife,
honesty, Adam and Eve, dropwOrt,
dittany, daisies, jonquils, monks hood,
wind flower and moss pink.
What force, sweetness and directness
in those old English flower-words, when
you come to analyZe them. Sweet Basil &,
in a pot of which Keats and BOcCacciO's
Isabella planted her murdered lovers
head, that she might weep over it, is
only basilicOn Englished and familiar
rized to the tongue and heart--sweet
Basil lavender that with its own pungent
fragrance eXpels all baser odors. What
a poets thought to call the bdrbdtuS
pink "sweet William" and to name the
primrose, that closes with sunrise, after
the "sweet hour of prime" as Milton
calls it. Wordsworth has said of the
common name for the hobble bush, the
English viburnum-the "wayfaring
trec"-that it is
name methinRs that surely fell
From poet, In some evening dell,
Wandering In fanCies sweet
but this vein of poetic association runs
through nearly all the old fashioned
English flower names. Glove lies
bleeding" and Glove in a mist" are in
stances. Even when the name was not
fully translated, it was somehow En-
glished and famillarized, Thus, the
asphOdel was turned into the datlodil,
dictamnis became dittany, and Iberis
umbelldta, first imported from Gambia,
became candy turf. Ifnavel wort, lung
wort, stone crop, sneeze wort, rag wort
and butter and eggs are rather too
literal, they ore redeemed by the poetic
which named the snow
drop, the virgins bower (clematis), d,
SolOmon's seal and the fumitory or
wood fringe.
How essentially poor, mean, vulgar
and devoid of all delicate fancy, on the
other hand, are the common names
which the English cOlonists gave to
most of the new flowers discovered by
them on this continent. True, the
Puritans called the ground laurel the
"Mayllower, ," but 1t was after their ship,
and not in association with the season
or with the beauty Of the arbutus. For
the rest, the RhodOdendrOn, the pride
of the laurel family, they named Crosse
bay" Spice Wood" or Clever Bush"--
and all sorts of shrubs they named
"bushes" promiscuously. The spirea
ton,entoSd, one Of the handsomest of the
family, they called "steeple BUSH" or
"hard hack" the old English name for
a very similar species being st. Peters
wreath" The plane tree became the
"buttonwoOd," " and so, also, the tulip
tree and the ink berry are degraded
The linden became "bass-
wood" and the fumitory came to life as
the "Dutchman's breeches." The En-
glish throughwort was translated into
"boneset" the gentian became "golden
rod, =" and the amelanchier was perver-
ted into "shadbush" and June berry"
The Ceanothus was called "New Jer-
sey tea, !" and the superb Kalmia became
"spoonwood." 1t must have been a
Canadian Catholic who, by some old
association, gave the name of "Judas
tree" to the Cercis. However, but very
few of these plants would have place
in an old fashioned garden, which must
be English in its nature as well as in its
Baltimore Bulletin.
Justice Is the great but simple prln-
oip1a and fhp whnla apprpt of suCppaa