At the time the picture was painted, Mynthurst was in the occupation of
Mrs. Wilson, to the work of whose niece, Miss Radcliffe, the garden owes
much of its charm.
It lies in the pleasant district between Reigate and Dorking, on a
southward sloping hill-side. The house is a modern one of Tudor
character, standing on a terrace that has a retaining wall and steps to
a lower level. The garden lies open to the south and south-westerly
gales, the prevalent winds of the district, but it is partly sheltered
by the walls of the kitchen garden, and by a yew hedge which runs
parallel with one of the walls; the space so inclosed making a sheltered
place for the rose garden. Here Roses rise in ranks one above the other,
and have a delightful and most suitable carpet of Love-in-a-mist. This
pretty annual, so welcome in almost any region of the garden, is
especially pretty with Roses of tender colouring; whites, pale yellows,
and pale pinks. A picture elsewhere shows it combined with Rose
_Viscountess Folkestone_.
Beyond the rose garden, a path leads away at a right angle between the
orchard and the kitchen-garden wall. Here is the subject of the picture.
A broad border runs against the wall, as long as the length of the
kitchen garden. A border so wide is difficult to manage unless it has a
small blind alley at the back rather near the wall, to give access to
what is on the wall and to the taller plants in the back of the border.
But here it is arranged in another way. The front edge of the border is
not continuous, but has little paths at intervals cutting across it and
reaching nearly to the wall. This method of obtaining easy access also
has its merits, though it involves a large amount of edging. Mynthurst
has a strong soil, an advantage not always to be had in this district,
so that Roses can be well grown, and some of the Lilies. Here the Tiger
Lily, that fine autumn flower, does finely. It is one of the Lilies that
is puzzling, or as we call it, capricious, which only means that we
gardeners are ignorant and do not understand its vagaries. For in some
other heavy soils it refuses to grow, and in some light ones it
luxuriates; but it is so good a plant that it should be tried in every
garden.
It is a pretty plan to have the orchard in connexion with the
flower-borders; though from the point of view of good gardening the
wisdom is doubtful of having clumps of flowers round the trunks of the
fruit-trees. Shallow-rooted annuals for a season or two may do no harm,
but the disturbance of the ground needful for constant cultivation, with
the inevitable consequence of worry and irritation of the fruit-trees’
roots, can hardly fail to be harmful, though the effect meanwhile is
certainly pretty. The evil may not show at once, but is likely to
follow.
One does not often see so strong a Canterbury Bell in the autumn as the
one in the picture. It must have been a weak or belated plant of last
year that made strong growth in early summer. Sometimes one sees such a
plant that had remained in the kitchen-garden reserve bed; left there
because it was weaker than the ones taken for planting out in autumn. It
is not generally known that these capital plants will bear potting when
they are almost in bloom, so that when a few are so left, they can be
used as highly decorative room plants, and have the advantage of lasting
much longer than when in the open border, exposed to the sun. One defect
these good plants have, which is the way the dying flowers suddenly turn
brown. Instead of merely fading and falling, and so decently veiling
their decadence, the brown flowers hang on and are very unsightly. It is
only, however, a challenge to the vigilance of the careful gardener;
they must be visited in the morning garden-round and the dead flowers
removed. It is like the care needed to arrest the depredations of the
mullein caterpillar. It is no use wondering whether it will come, or
hoping it will not appear; _it always comes_ where there are mulleins,
about the second week of June. When the first tiny enemy is seen, any
mulleins there may be should be visited twice a day.
[Illustration: MYNTHURST