Upon their return to England, they took up their abode at Sayes Court, the property of Sir Richard Browne, whose estate had been considerably curtailed during the Commonwealth. It was wholly unadorned. Here, from a field of one hundred acres in pasture, Evelyn formed a garden, which was an exemplar of his _Sylva_, with a hedge of holly, 400 feet long, 9 feet high, and 5 feet thick. He began immediately to set out an oval garden, which was "the beginning of all the succeeding gardens, walks, groves, enclosures, and plantations there;" and he planted an orchard, "new moon, wind west." Evelyn next planned a royal garden to comprehend "knots, trayle-work, parterres, compartments, borders, banks, and embossments, labyrinths, dedals, cabinets, cradles, close-walks, galleries, pavilions, porticoes, lanterns, and other relievos of topiary and hortular architecture; fountains, cascades, piscines, rocks, grotts, cryptæ, mounts, precipices, and ventiducts; gazon-theatres, artificial echoes, automate and hydraulic music."
When Evelyn left Sayes to pass the remainder of his days at Wotton, he let the former estate, first to Admiral Benbow, and next to the Czar Peter, to be near the King's dockyard, (through the wall of which a doorway was broken), that he might learn shipbuilding, but the Czar and his retinue damaged the house and gardens to the extent of 150_l_. in three weeks. A portion of the Victualling-yard now occupies the place of Evelyn's shady walks and trim hedges; on the site of the manor-house stands the parish workhouse of Dieptford and Stroud; and an adjoining thoroughfare is named Evelyn-street.
Evelyn may have been misled in ornamental gardening by the taste of his age, but there was nothing to mislead him in that useful branch of the art which supplies the table with its luxuries, and which in his time received considerable improvement. Here we may mention that in 1664 Evelyn published the first Gardeners' Almanack, containing directions for the employment of each month. This was dedicated to Cowley, and drew from him, in acknowledgment, one of his best pieces, entitled _The Garden_; in the prefix to which he says:--"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and the study of nature."