I finally wore a sweater this morning without regretting it, which means Autumn has finally crashed through the front door, leaves fluttering in her wake. I am not a warm weather gal, so I finally feel in my element and inspired to do more than exist from day to day.
As a librarian I am allowed to browse our bi-annual book sale the day before it is open to the general public, and as a result I picked up a book called A Miscellany of Garden Wisdom by Bernard Schofield for a whole dollar. The cover of the book boasts: “Presented herein a collection of supremely useful tips & homespun knowledge much of which has been obscured by time & memory” which is the immediate draw it had for this aspiring gardener. I also resonated with another quote on the cover that says “I think it must be rather nice/To live by giving good advice;/To talk of what the garden needs,/Instead of pulling up the weeds.” Ouch, book. Noted.
I think it will be nice over the colder months to visit this book for some fun insights and topics that are included. The first being the discovery of another book quoted within it, the Elizabethan gardening manual Gardener’s Labyrinth by Thomas Hill. It was originally published in 1563 as a “A most briefe and pleasaunte treatise, teaching how to dresse, sowe, and set a garden.” How could a librarian resist researching a little bit more?
Thomas Hill himself was an interesting fellow. According to the article I found on the University of Glasgow’s website, he was an astrologer who also worked as a translator and compiler of information. In addition to his well-received Gardener’s Labyrinth, which was the first known gardening book published in England, he also published books on astrology, dream interpretation, arithmetic, and physiognomy. Quite the jack of all trades!
Gardener’s Labyrinth seems to be an early rendition of the book I purchased at the book sale, with a compilation of knowledge known throughout the country and for years to come. Hill never claimed to be an expert or to have original ideas in his book. He just, like me, likes to gather information and compile it into one place for others to enjoy. While the old English and frilly print is a challenge to read, it is really fun to flick through the pages and see how very different (and also how very much the same) things are in the gardening world of the 1500s. There are illustrations of gardening techniques and patterns to model your garden after. He talks about vegetable gardens, ornamental flower gardens, as well as a few suggestions of uses for plants found in kitchen gardens to help better one’s life.
What I have found the most interesting is the information on knot gardens. They were all the rage in the Elizabethan era, and even small manor homes would boast them in their backyards. Hill gives instructions on how to plant them, and includes several patterns you could follow to achieve a geometric masterpiece of your own. Here is an example of several pages he included.
Illustration of garden knot patterns from page 81 of the Gardner’s Labyrinth
If you are as interested in old books and ways of life, I encourage you to visit this website and have fun browsing Thomas Hill’s charming book: https://archive.org/details/CAT10889940/page/n65/mode/2up
To quote Thomas Hill once more, I hope this book and this article are “not only pleasant to be read, but also right necessary to be known.”
