About the Garden Little Library The Ayr Hill Learning Garden is an opportunity for the visitor to learn about Gardens 17th and 18th century , like flax, hyssop, tansy and rue, which had culinary, In the town of Vienna, the first settler was Colonial Collection medicinal and bouquet value to settlers. Colonel Charles Broadwater, a prominent There were no refrigerators or pharmacies. colonial soldier and public servant, who owned People seldom bathed. Sanitation was poor. much of the land in the region and built his Herbs were essential to make food home here in 1754. In the 1760´s John Hunter, a palatable, provide critical vitamins and native of Ayr County in Scotland, married Col. minerals, restore health and hide offensive Broadwater's daughter. Partly by marriage and odors like today’s deodorants and scented partly by purchase, he succeeded Col. candles do. Potpourri (pronounced po-pour- Broadwater as the area's principal landowner. It ee) was frequently made by the Colonists. was John Hunter who built the first house of

record within the town in 1767 and called it Ayr

Hill after his native land. As the village grew, it Food Fragrance assumed the name Ayr Hill, by which it was

known for a hundred years, until it was changed Medicine to Vienna in or around 1858. Garden Design The Ayr Hill Garden Club is the oldest garden club in the Nearly every Colonial family planted an National Capital Area Garden Clubs. It was founded in herb garden close to the kitchen. This was 1929 and named after Ayr Hill, the original name for because herbs were often used as food or to Vienna. The club also maintains the Little Library Garden Colonial Herb Collection at the back of the Little Library, flavor food, treat illnesses, and perfume or the Pollinator Garden at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, the protect the house, bedding or clothing. W&OD Trail Garden at the intersection of Maple Avenue Some herbs which can be poisonous were next to Whole Foods, the Children’s Discovery Garden by Located behind the grown only by the local healer just as the caboose and the Salsbury Spring Native Garden, at the Little Library today's pharmacist carefully handles some corner of Windover Avenue and Lawyers Road. More At the corner of Church and Mill Street information about Ayr Hill Garden Club can be found at drugs. www.ayrhillgardenclub.org. Guided tours available by appointment at the Freeman Store and Museum

The Learning Garden is typical in size of a Historic Vienna, Inc. was incorporated in 1976 to preserve Installed and maintained by Colonial herb garden. It is laid out in a the history of the town of Vienna. The Little Library is trapezoid shape divided according to use operated by Historic Vienna, Inc. and is open the first into triangles with bricks. Many herbs fit Sunday of the month from March to December and at into all categories. Most Colonists would special events. More information can be found at www.historicviennainc.org. have used logs or wattle (twigs woven into a low fence) to section because brick was expensive. www.ayrhillgardenclub.org

Drawings by Dinah Brisbane 05/18 The Herbs Planted in the Learning Garden

Food Fragrance 1. Savory – once as popular as black pepper 14. Rue – a strewing and anti-plague herb for seasoning, this herb complements carried in nosegays to ward off foods that require long cooking times or Medicine pestilences. Used as a deterrent to cats, are mild in flavor. Also relieves gas. who do not like its musty odor. Called 8. Tansy – a natural insect repellant used as a ‘herb of grace’, as it was used to sprinkle 2. Flax – is grown for its seeds. 2 varieties strewing herb on floors and in beds. Tea used holy water before mass. include brown and yellow/golden. Both for colds, stomach aches and intestinal worms. have similar nutritional value and equal At Easter, made into ‘Tansy’ a rich custardy 15. Lavender – known for its sedative amounts of omega fatty acids and linseed pudding. Believed to arrest decay. powers, tranquility and purity are oils. The fibers are used to make linen. inherent in the unique fragrance. Also a 9. Southernwood – an effective moth repellant strewing herb, repels insects and the 3. Sage – highly valued for health, aids and strewing herb. Also called ‘Lad’s Love’ or plague. Masks household smells and digestion of fatty foods and is most often ‘Maid’s Ruin’, as it was known to increase malodorous streets. Healing powers used in cooking. men’s virility. Used to improve digestion and come from the oil. 4. – the essence of the herb liver function. Poultice used to treat wounds garden, this herb has many cooking uses and frostbite. 16. Hyssop – used in potpourri and cologne. The scent is so strong, old women used for most dishes. Also relieves gas and aids 10. Flax – used by colonialists to regulate the pressed flowers in their bibles to keep fat digestion. constitution. Poultice used for boils and them awake during sermons. 5. Hyssop – the herb has a minty taste that inflammation. 17. – the licorice scented and makes it tasty addition to salads, game, 11. Echinacea – traditionally used to treat shock, flavored fennel was in great demand in stews and soups. Also aids fat digestion. snakebite, and traumatic pain. Extracts the middle ages. Every part of the plant 6. / – is useful in sauces, stimulate the immune system to restore normal is edible including the roots. Roman meats and vegetables. Also used for body functions. Root used as an external ladies used it as an appetite suppressant. headaches, coughs, and stomach antiseptic and sweat producing agent. It was brought with early settlers to disorders. 12. Calendula/Marigold – soothing, healing Virginia and is used to make absinthe. 7. – adds distinctive aromatic antiseptic. Use in ointment for leg ulcers, 18. Dianthus – also known as Sweet flavoring to sauces, stews, stuffing, meets, varicose veins, bedsores and bruises. Take as a William, these flowers have a strong poultry, soups and salads. Also relieves tea for digestion and to promote bile in the scent of cloves and have been used in spasms and coughing. Essential oil is a liver. Good for alcoholics. perfumes for over 2000 years. powerful disinfectant; a salve is used for 13. Hyssop – often used as a tea for easing coughs, 19. Catnip/Catmint – attracts cats, athlete’s foot. sore throat, and loosening phlegm. Poultice butterflies and bees while repelling reduces inflammation and heals wounds and insects that would eat its leaves. Also bruises. Often called the ‘holy herb’, as it was repels mosquitoes (better than DEET in used to purify temples and for ritual cleansing the air), cockroaches and termites. of lepers.