GRASS, GROUND, OR GRAVEL
“Where a green, grassy turf is all I crave.”
“A turf of dull, down-trodden grass
Brings summer to my heart.”
When people first take possession of the new suburban garden, be it
ever so small or empty, three things are sure to be found in it; even
the builder bestows as much as that upon them, though it may not be
much to boast of either in quantity or quality. The three things
are grass, ground, and gravel; grass for the tiny lawn, ground for
the flower-beds, and gravel for the paths. Now, how are these to be
apportioned? Some people crave for nothing but flowers and vegetables,
so they are keenest about soil and ground; others desire to have a dry
place always ready to walk about or sit in, cheap to keep up, and handy
for their dog-kennels and other fancies. They are gravelites. Another
set of folk are only to be made happy by grass, and I am of that number.
One of the most extraordinary things in the world is that so many
garden-lovers who are kind enough to give advice about suburban plots
seldom have a good word for grass. I always think it must be because
they have never had to do without it themselves. The love of green turf
is, I think, one of the most deeply rooted feelings of human nature;
maybe it is a heritage from the days when pasture-land meant more to
us than it does now, and the coming or withholding of the green blade
spelled life or death. “The king himself is served by the field.”
The restful charm of the grassy garden appeals to me so much, that with
a tree or two, the simplest of flowers, and a rose-bush here and there,
I could content myself with nothing else, so I (for once ) cannot see
eye to eye with Mrs. Earle when she says, “I am all for reducing lawns
and turf except for paths in small gardens;” and elsewhere we are
advised to have red gravel or a bricked or tiled square to sit on while
we admire a wide border of flowers all round the edge. I should not
like such a garden as this at all, and could never feel at home in it.
Fancy no kindly turf to throw one’s self down upon in the noonday heat,
with a book in hand and a tree overhead, or if not a tree, a parasol.
If we had no lawn to be cut and trimmed, where would be the sounds that
most do “rout the brood of care, the sigh of scythe in morning dew,” or
the less poetical but still soothing monotone of the mowing-machine?
And what a loss never to smell the fresh scent of the new-cut blades
of grass as they are collected in box or barrow, and used to mulch the
wilting flowers; nor to note the deliciously neat appearance of the
well-rolled, carefully swept grass-plot, looking so much like a good
child that has just been washed and dressed, and repays so fully for
the sweet trouble it has given.
A writer on the subject of very diminutive gardens has described one
that belonged to a small suburban villa. It captivated my fancy. Narrow
was this tiny plot and very old, but it was grassed all over, and at
one end a child’s swing had been left standing, which was covered with
a thick growth of Ivy. How quaint and cool and pleasant on a summer’s
day, and what a setting for a touch of white or scarlet! Any flower
would look its best in such a garden.
Not long ago a contributor to _Country Life_ wrote an article on
English and Continental suburban gardens that interested me very
much, but I am sorry to say there was no mention whatever in it of
turf. Certainly there was not much room for grass in the plots that
were described, and in some of them the gradients were too steep for
grass-growing. The garden I liked best out of those mentioned was a
mere strip about thirty yards long by about ten or eleven yards wide.
In this small space (little more than a courtyard) was a border with
vines and fruit trees and flowers, a broad brick path, and then a
pleached alley of small Lime trees, the outer row close against the
boundary wall. This is another of the small gardens I have read of that
live in my memory and are a pleasure to think of.
Under the circumstances, it is difficult to see how its arrangement
could have been improved upon. I am sure the owners, being people of
taste, would have had turf also if possible, and I am still wondering
what was done _under_ the Lime avenue. The trees must have been sweet
when in flower, but alas! Lime foliage falters and falls down with the
first touch of frost, and then what a litter it makes. But no trees are
more delightful in summer; the wind stirs so gently in the boughs, with
eloquent soft speech of leaves.
It is now a good many years since it fell to my lot to plan and lay
out a new suburban garden, fortunately not one of the smallest, and
happily placed, inasmuch as the ground ran down to a railway cutting,
at that period almost sylvan in its wildness, with scattered Birch and
Fir trees and banks of Primroses. How many of this garden’s inhabitants
have been grateful since for the good broad stretch of turf that then
was carefully put down and has gone on improving and mellowing with
time and age. Blackbirds and thrushes have hopped about all over it,
finding many a meal, and so have round-eyed robins, though not at the
same moment; croquet and tennis have been played upon it,--first
croquet, then tennis, then croquet again in the cycle of the _môde_;
dainty tea-cups’ cheerful chink has softly sounded over it, and oft has
it been dinted by childish feet. In the morning it has been dim with
early dew, at noon a carpet all alive with shadows flung from leaves,
and in the evening warm and smooth and barred by sunshine. The lawn has
been as good as a sun-dial for telling the hours; the trees are the
pointers, here a Willow and there an Oak, and the dial-plate is the
grass itself. Whether in shade or sunshine, the lawn is always soft to
the foot and pleasant to the eye.
In this garden grass was made the keynote. Turf is the favourite
bordering for the shrubbery--a good wide border, that makes a handsome
edge and is pretty for flowers to tumble over; grass again where there
is room for another little lawn, that can be given up to flower-beds.
How much is said now about the dreadful practice of cutting up a lawn
to stick flower-beds in it, “shrieking spots of colour set down here
and there with little thought.” An authority I revere says “a lawn is
a place for grass; to spot bright beds all over it is to ruin it.” I
quite admit that to “spot,” if there is only room for one lawn, is
gross Vandalism, but I am quite as firmly convinced that no garden is
complete without some flower-beds set in turf. What else shows the
colours to so much advantage? Flower-beds in gravel, with a stiff
edging of Box, do not please me at all; they are formal, and the effect
is hard. Even these can be improved by a broad edging of grass to every
bed. Herbaceous borders are delightful; we cannot live without them,
but we do want beds too, they are so brilliant, so useful, and so
well-behaved. “Bedders” are the good children of the garden, herbaceous
plants the wayward. To manage them is like playing a game of croquet
with Wonderland Alice’s live flamingoes for hoops and mallets; the
plants have the same habit of taking their way, not ours, and this puts
us more than ever in conceit with our little plots of green enamel, set
with coloured flowers like jewels.
A grass walk, where there is room for it, is another charming feature.
In dry weather, when well kept, nothing is so pleasant to walk on. But
no small suburban garden can hope for this luxury; it is only to be
attained in large gardens, that have other walks for everyday wear and
tear.
One of the gardens haunted by me as a child had a very long grass
walk. There was a flower border on each side of it, and behind the
borders there were trees. How we all delighted in this part of the
garden-ground; how many were the friendships sworn along that silent
scented pathway. It was said, moreover, that every engagement in the
family dated from it.
Perhaps it is going too far to praise turf because it is healthy, and
poetry is no argument; but Fuller, about 1620, said that “to smell to
a turf of fresh earth is wholesome to the body.” Ruskin in his best
prose speaks lovingly of its “soft and countless peaceful spears,” and
Shakespeare simply revels in grass. The Bible, too, generally the first
poem a child loves and is influenced by, may be responsible for some
of the fascination of the green herb: “Like rain upon the mown grass;”
“Thou shalt lead me in the green pastures;” “He maketh the grass to
grow upon the mountains.” No wonder one loves and even idealizes grass.