FLOWERS ON THE WALLS
Behind the narrow strip of ground with flowers and shrubs on the other
side of the drive there is a low stone wall. A piece of the lawn on
which the mulberry tree stands has been cut away, and a flight of steps
leads down to a little gate into the foldyard.
This wall between the garden and the foldyard is very old and rough--not
like the smooth brick walls you see in towns. The stones are of
different shapes and sizes, the mortar has fallen out of it in many
places, and here and there are holes and crevices. Yet it is a very
beautiful old wall, for many things grow on it; mosses and grasses, and
other flowers too, are there.
On this May morning we not only see, but also smell, one of the flowers
which grow upon the wall--it is the beautiful sweet-scented Wallflower.
It grows here and there along the top of the wall, and a few plants of
it are even springing from the sides. Some of the plants are quite large
and their stems are tough. These have grown here for a long time. The
Wallflower is a perennial plant; unless it is killed or torn up by the
roots it will live and grow for many years. Others are quite young and
only a few inches high. These have grown from seeds dropped last autumn
by the older plants.
You very likely wonder how the Wallflower or any other plant can grow
upon the wall, for there is no earth to be seen--nothing but stones and
crumbling mortar. But if we pull up one of the smaller plants we shall
find earth clinging to its roots. Dry dusty earth has been blown upon
the wall by wind, and has lodged in chinks and holes. Dust and soil,
too, were mixed with the mortar when the wall was built; and dead leaves
falling on it and decaying have produced a little more--for decayed
leaves make earth or "soil." Wallflowers and other plants which grow on
walls and rocks find very little soil sufficient for their needs.
Most of the blossoms of the wallflowers upon this wall are of a golden
yellow colour and are very sweet. Some of the blossoms are, however, a
darker yellow than others, and here and there are petals which are quite
brown.
If we look at the garden behind us we shall see that Mrs. Hammond has
several beds of Wallflower this year; it is a flower of which she is
very fond. There are wallflowers of two different colours in her beds.
One kind has bright golden blossoms, rather deeper in colour than any of
those upon the wall; the other has flowers that are a rich dark brown.
[Illustration: WALLFLOWER.]
These plants are sturdier and more bushy than those upon the wall, and
there are more flowers on each plant. The flowers are finer, too, and
have a stronger scent. If Mrs. Hammond had wished she could have sown
seed to produce many different shades of brown and yellow Wallflowers.
She might also have had a purple Wallflower, and even a Wallflower of so
pale a yellow as to be almost white.
If you and I were clever gardeners and had plenty of time and patience,
we could get purple or nearly white wallflowers from these
yellow-flowered plants upon the wall. It would perhaps take us many
years, but we should succeed at last. This is how we should set about
it.
Suppose that we wished to have a Wallflower nearly white. We should look
carefully along the wall in spring, when the blossoms are out, until we
found the very palest yellow blossom we could see. We should mark that
plant, and when the flower was over and the seed was ripe, we should
collect the seed. Among the plants grown from this seed we should choose
again the plant that had the palest flowers, and should save the seed
from _that_. We might have to go on doing this for twenty years or more,
but in time we should have a Wallflower so pale as to be almost white.
_Quite_ white we should never get our Wallflower, for no _pure_ white
flower can be obtained from a yellow one. However pale our Wallflower
might be there would still always be just a tinge of yellow or cream
colour in it.
If, on the other hand, we wanted a purple or a very dark brown
Wallflower, we should save seed from those blossoms which were nearest
to the colour we wanted--dark brown or with a tinge of purple in them.
We should sow seed from the darkest blossoms again and again, and at
last we should get what we wished to have.
[Illustration: RED VALERIAN.]
[Illustration: STINGING NETTLE.]
[Illustration: WHITE DEAD NETTLE.]
Besides choosing seed from the lightest or darkest blossoms, we should
tend our plants very carefully and well, giving them plenty of good rich
soil. This would make them grow bushy and with many flowers, as we see
them in Mrs. Hammond's garden beds.
Many of our garden flowers have been produced in this way, by selecting
and improving wild flowers. Of course all flowers grow wild _somewhere_;
some in England, but many more in foreign countries, where the air is
warmer and the soil richer and better. The Pansy is a little English
wild flower with yellow, blue, and red petals. From this little flower
gardeners have produced large and beautiful pansies of many different
colours and shades of colours--white, yellow, blue, and brown. This has
been done by careful selection, just as we spoke of doing with the
wallflowers.
But if the large single-coloured pansies of which I have told you, or
Mrs. Hammond's dark brown wallflowers, were allowed to seed
themselves--that is, were allowed to drop and sow their own seed year
after year--do you know what would happen? They would gradually revert
or turn back to their original form and colour. The flowers would become
mixed in colour and less fine in size; at last they would be simple wild
flowers again.
[Illustration: PANSY.]
Now it is June, and the blossoms of the Wallflower have faded and
fallen. The old wall is, however, growing gay with another plant--the
Red Valerian. We must be careful to remember that it is the Red
Valerian, for there are other valerians. There is the Great Valerian
which does not grow on walls or rocks, but in damp and shady places; its
flowers are pale pink.
The blossoms of the Red Valerian on the wall are bright crimson, and
they grow in rows on small stems which spring from a stout stalk a foot
or two in height. Each blossom of five petals forms a little tube or
corolla. The base or foot of each little tube appears as a point on the
under side of the flower stem; the Red Valerian, like the Violet, is a
spurred flower.
The leaves are long and pointed, and they grow in pairs, on opposite
sides of the stalk. Sometimes the edges of the leaves are quite smooth;
sometimes they are serrated, or toothed, like the edge of a saw. If we
pulled a plant of Red Valerian from the wall we should find the roots
very long and branching; they need to be so, for the plant often grows
on rocks and other places where it is exposed to wind. If the roots had
not a firm hold the tall stems laden with blossoms might be blown down.
The Red Valerian flowers all through the summer. Its clusters of crimson
flowers are as great an ornament to the old wall as were the wallflowers
in May.
Now let us go down the steps into the foldyard; there is a wall on
either side of us as we descend. The wall which faces the north is
nearly always in shadow, and there are ferns growing but of it between
the stones. One of these is a beautiful Hartstongue fern, with large and
shining leaves. We said just now, however, that ferns have no flowers,
so we will turn to something that grows on the wall opposite.
This is the ivy-leaved Toadflax. It grows on walls and rocks, as the Red
Valerian does, but it is a very different plant in appearance. The stems
of the Red Valerian are tall and upright; those of the Toadflax are
slender and drooping. There is a large mass of it on the side of the
wall, and we find that the root is at the highest point of the whole
mass. The stems with the flowers and leaves hang down below the root; it
is a trailing plant.
There are, however, other roots clinging to the wall here and there
below the main root. The plant, like several others, is able to throw
out fresh roots from the joints of its stems, and these give it a firmer
hold.
The flowers are small, and their colour is a pale lilac-blue with a
bright yellow spot in the centre. These flowers too are spurred. The
leaves are smooth and thick--what is called fleshy. They are divided
into five lobes or divisions, and are not unlike an ivy-leaf in shape.
When we turn a leaf or two over we see that the under side of some is
dark purple.
[Illustration: IVY-LEAVED TOADFLAX.]
This little plant is usually said to prefer a damp situation, and to
blossom from May till October. This wall beside the steps is certainly
rather damp, for the moisture from the garden above soaks down to it. In
my own garden, however, the ivy-leaved Toadflax grows on some very dry
old walls, and I have found it in flower in the middle of December.
Neither the Toadflax nor the Red Valerian are really natives of England.
They were brought to our country many hundreds of years ago. They have
spread so much that they have now become wildflowers. In the same way
many others of our wild flowers were once unknown in England.
Now that we have come down the steps into the foldyard we see that it
lies a good deal below the house and garden. Built round the foldyard
are the stables for the cart-horses, the cowhouses, and the great barn.
Behind the stables is the rickyard. That, like the garden, is above the
foldyard; from it there are only two or three steps to the door of the
loft or "tallet" above the stables. It is there that we will go now.
The wall of the tallet is of stone and is very old; the roof is tiled.
There is a little hole cut in the bottom of the door, and you will see
one like it in the door of the granary. It is made so that old Tib and
the other cats can go in and catch mice. Growing between the stones of
the wall just by the tallet door is the plant I want to show you now.
It is the Stonecrop. Some of the stems grow upright, while others are
trailing. At the top of each upright stem is a cluster of bright yellow
flowers. Some of these are fully open, and we see that each blossom has
five pointed petals. The trailing stems have no flowers at all, they are
barren; but the leaves on the barren stems are much more numerous and
closer together than those on the upright flowering stems.
[Illustration: COMMON STONECROP.]
These leaves are very curious. They are not flat like the leaves of the
Red Valerian, the Toadflax, and most other flowers; they are very thick
and fleshy--something like a short round pointed stick. They grow close
against the stalk, not in pairs, but alternately, first a leaf on one
side of the stalk, then a leaf on the other. They are erect too; that
is, they point in the same direction as the stalk.
On the barren stems the leaves grow so closely that they quite cover the
stalk. They have a hot sharp taste, and the plant is sometimes called
"Wall-Pepper." The roots are very thin and can spread easily through
narrow chinks of the wall.
We will see one more plant of the walls before we look for flowers
elsewhere. Our next plant is not very common at Willow Farm; still I
know where to look for it. Built against one side of the big barn in the
foldyard is a little lean-to shed. Often there are calves in it; but
just now we are more interested in something that is on the roof.
Standing close to the wall of the shed is a cattle crib--a kind of big
square box or trough on legs, in which hay or chaff is put for the
cattle. The shed is not very high, and by standing on the crib we can
scramble on to the roof. Here is the plant we want to see.
It is the Houseleek, of which a clump is growing between the tiles.
Almost flat on the tiles is a dense mass of large green fleshy leaves.
These leaves are evergreen, they do not die and fall off in winter. From
this cluster of leaves rise straight thick stems nearly a foot high. The
stems are thickly covered with erect leaves which grow smaller towards
the top of the stem.
At the top of the stem is a cluster of very handsome rosy-red flowers.
Each blossom is star-shaped when fully open, and generally has twelve
petals.
[Illustration: HOUSE LEEK.]
If we could see the roots we should find them very thread-like or
fibrous, like those of other flowers we have been looking at to-day. I
do not think I can very well show you the roots, however; we should have
to pull up a plant, and that would not please Ben, the cowman, at all.
There is a belief in country places that it is bad luck to disturb the
Houseleek--that someone in the house on which it grows is sure to die
soon afterwards. Certainly the plant is not growing on a house
here--only on the calves' cot. Still, if any misfortune should happen to
the calves we might be blamed by Ben. Besides, it would be a pity to
disturb so handsome a plant, would it not?
We have spent some time in looking at these flowers on the walls and
roof because we think them very wonderful. We see how little soil they
can have in which to grow, and how, in dry weather, they can have very
little moisture either. Yet the leaves of several of them are thick and
fleshy, and the flowers of some are large and beautiful. What could be
more handsome than the blossoms of the Wallflower, the Red Valerian, and
the Houseleek?