DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0084
62 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
The yellow flag and purple iris are sometimes indiscriminately
spoken of as lilies. In the old medical MS. already referred to,
the lilie “ that waxit in 3erdis ” is described as white as any milk,
and the three other kinds of the field and wood, were yellow,
“like saffron,” and one “blue purple” ; but these are also spoken
of as “gladdon” and “ yreos.” Other flowers were brought in
from the fields and woods, and perhaps improved by cultivation.
The geranium of the flower garden in the Middle Ages was the
wild qranesbill, or small herb Robert. The wild scabious and
poppy were in the place of the showy annuals and biennials of
our gardens of to-day. But many indigenous plants would make
no mean show, such as cowslips, daffodils, primroses, foxglove,
mullein, St. John’s worts, gentian, oxalis, mallow, corncockle,
yarrow, campion, centaury, or honeysuckle, all of which we
know were grown. There were corners, too, where a peony
or tall hollyhock or monkshood flowered, or shaded nook filled
with the glossy leaves of the hartstongue, or a portion of the long
bed was made bright with pinks and columbines, or sweetly
scented with lavender, rosemary, or thyme. In describing the
flowers of a garden in Chaucer’s time, we must not forget what
he called
“ The daysie or elles the eye of day
The emperise and flour of floures alle.”
It found its way into the trimmest gardens; the greenswards and
arbours were “powdered” with daisies. To quote Chaucer
again
“ Home to my house full swiftly I me sped
To gone to rest, and early for to rise
To seene this floure to sprede, as I devise
And in a little herber that I have
That benched was on turves fresh y grave
I bad me shoulde me my couche make.”
Though a daisy plant is supposed to spoil the most velvety turf,
yet none would see it banished from our gardens, and all agree in
loving the little flower with the poet who said,
“Si douce est la Marguerite.”
The gardens that were described by Chaucer, although intended
for ideal ones, were no doubt but faithful pictures of the gardens
The yellow flag and purple iris are sometimes indiscriminately
spoken of as lilies. In the old medical MS. already referred to,
the lilie “ that waxit in 3erdis ” is described as white as any milk,
and the three other kinds of the field and wood, were yellow,
“like saffron,” and one “blue purple” ; but these are also spoken
of as “gladdon” and “ yreos.” Other flowers were brought in
from the fields and woods, and perhaps improved by cultivation.
The geranium of the flower garden in the Middle Ages was the
wild qranesbill, or small herb Robert. The wild scabious and
poppy were in the place of the showy annuals and biennials of
our gardens of to-day. But many indigenous plants would make
no mean show, such as cowslips, daffodils, primroses, foxglove,
mullein, St. John’s worts, gentian, oxalis, mallow, corncockle,
yarrow, campion, centaury, or honeysuckle, all of which we
know were grown. There were corners, too, where a peony
or tall hollyhock or monkshood flowered, or shaded nook filled
with the glossy leaves of the hartstongue, or a portion of the long
bed was made bright with pinks and columbines, or sweetly
scented with lavender, rosemary, or thyme. In describing the
flowers of a garden in Chaucer’s time, we must not forget what
he called
“ The daysie or elles the eye of day
The emperise and flour of floures alle.”
It found its way into the trimmest gardens; the greenswards and
arbours were “powdered” with daisies. To quote Chaucer
again
“ Home to my house full swiftly I me sped
To gone to rest, and early for to rise
To seene this floure to sprede, as I devise
And in a little herber that I have
That benched was on turves fresh y grave
I bad me shoulde me my couche make.”
Though a daisy plant is supposed to spoil the most velvety turf,
yet none would see it banished from our gardens, and all agree in
loving the little flower with the poet who said,
“Si douce est la Marguerite.”
The gardens that were described by Chaucer, although intended
for ideal ones, were no doubt but faithful pictures of the gardens