Yesterday Loki’s family motored energetically some fifty miles and back
to a garden party near London.
A wonderful house with wonderful lawns and gardens—one feels that the
hideous tide of brick and mortar must inevitably sweep over and destroy
it before another generation comes and goes, so that there is a kind of
pathos in its very beauty.
[Illustration: flower]
Out of the unlovely mean streets along which the tram-line runs its
abominable way, one turns off into the cool country road. The long
avenue is bordered by wide fields where, as we passed yesterday, the
new-mown grass was lying in silver furrows. The country is quite flat;
but the richness of the green, the incidents of lake and timber, give it
a placid English fairness of its own.
The Lady of Villino Loki went with a keen eye to garden hints, and her
first thrill was a Honeysuckle screen in the little garden of the second
lodge. Such a Honeysuckle screen! It had once, she supposes, been an
arch, for it rose to a kind of gable peak in the centre, but it was
filled in either by design or natural luxuriance till it was a complete
mass of bloom, a solid wall of blossom. Never had she beheld such a
thing before. She wants Honeysuckle at the Villino, as she said already,
and she is fired with fresh enthusiasm. Why should she not have a hedge
of Honeysuckle, not too far from the house itself? It is settled. She
will buy fifty in November and try.
The weather, which had been misty, thundery and unpromising, cleared
just upon our arrival at the great “Adam” house. The lawns were in their
perfection, the shade of the Cedars was cut out on the sun-golden turf,
the massed flowers were vivid against their cunningly devised
backgrounds. Naturally Villino Loki, even in its wildest dreams, cannot
emulate this great and carefully cherished place; but one can find
practical suggestions here and there. We cannot mass rare and
golden-hued Maples over a broad band of yellow Calceolarias anywhere on
our terraced lawns; but it is very instructive to see the management of
certain herbaceous borders, where three or four large pillars of Rambler
Roses alternate with mauve and silver-leaved Japanese Maples at the
back; the foreground being of the usual herbaceous order.
We had no idea that the dwarf bright yellow Evening Primroses would look
so well grouped together. And Nemesia, “Heavenly Blue,” has become the
one annual our souls long for: blue flowers are all too rare.
Everything was most kindly labelled. We do not know if it is possible to
obtain any seedlings this time of year; but certainly, next year, this
adorable little plant, Nemesia, with its most exquisite turquoise blue
colourings and its splendid efflorescence, shall enter largely into our
schemes. In between the Nemesia, bushes of Campanula Persicifolia rose
with cool restrained tones; the contrast was one to be copied also.
Another not impossible example was a Rose screen, starting with a
background of close growing Ramblers, some ten or twelve feet high,
supplemented midway by some of the larger Bush Roses and running down to
the edge of the turf in front with pegged-down Teas; so that, to the
very top, it was one mass of varied bloom. We do not see any reason why
such an effect should not be copied, even in a small garden.
The _standard_ Scarlet Geraniums we must admire from a respectful
distance. They are as much beyond our humble resources as the _standard_
Heliotrope we so much admired a year ago in a millionaire’s huge grounds
not very far from us. These last rose out of a bed of mauve Violas. The
ambitious soul of the mistress of the Villino hungered to copy it; but
she knew that hunger would never be assuaged.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: PICKING UP WRINKLES]
We have had a frightful disappointment in the “Miss Wilmott” Verbenas.
For two summers it has been the same story. Last year they came up “all
colours,” though purchased from a well-known firm! This year, to make
quite sure, we ordered seedlings to be specially grown for us from a
local nursery. The wretch has sent a collection of measly little
starveling things which cannot be expected to do anything for weeks and
weeks. Of course they should not have been accepted; but the deed was
done in our absence. We are much inclined to have the beds cleared, and
Heliotrope or rose-coloured Ivy-leaf Geraniums put in instead. It is too
late for anything else. Gardeners are so tiresome! They are as bad as
cooks, who will accept with perfect equanimity, fish ready to illustrate
the proverb and game prepared to walk to its own funeral, and then say
that “they thought it was ‘a bit high’ perhaps, but they weren’t quite
sure!”
[Illustration: flowers]
We have forced for the house several plants of Canterbury Bells,
glorious purple and white, which have grown to an extraordinary size and
fill the Compton pots on the landing in very decorative fashion.
The front landing and stairs are wondrous pretty in the Villino: and the
colour scheme—Tangerine yellow for the curtains and grey for the
carpet—somehow suits the little place, with its Roman air. In the round
bow window there is a large copy of the Samothraki Nike on a white
stand; and in front of her we place flower-pots all the year
round—generally Orange trees in the winter, with which we are
successful.
Alas! we leave the little Paradise to-morrow! However, we are still in
such an intermediary stage that we mind less than when we lost all the
glories of the Azaleas. For anyone of an impatient disposition, this
time of the first setting out of the bedding plants is a trying ordeal.
We are going this afternoon on a surreptitious round with “plantoids” to
which Adam objects, but in the virtues of which we are believers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: PITFALLS OF AMBITION]
The longer we labour at garden experiences, the more it is borne in upon
us that ambitiousness is to be avoided. No amateurs—however splendid
their visions may be—should attempt “Wild Gardens,” or “Bog Gardens” on
their own unaided efforts. This does not refer to the flinging of
wild-flower seeds in woodland glades, but to the digging up of harmless
and unobtrusive patches of field and bank for the insertion of
seedlings, which apparently will never be at home in that particular
aspect and soil. The worst of it is that the energetic workers are so
ensnared by the mental vision that they very often fail to perceive the
paltriness of the material result.
“We had to have the meadow mown and to dig it up, just along there,”
said an energetic gardening neighbour to us the other day, pointing out
with pride a dreadful stretch of raw and muddy earth that lay
meaninglessly along the lush field. “And we _think_ the things will do
now.”
The things—poor little sprigs of white Violas, and other most
unadaptable garden children—were looking very ill and faint at long
distances from each other. And in any case, even if they were eventually
to flourish, the meadow was quite beautiful enough in itself and needed
no such adornment. But we had not the heart to tell her so. We said,
“How nice that will be,” but took the lesson to ourselves.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: TANTALISING NOVELTIES]
A visit to the Horticultural Show at Holland House—even the humblest
gardener can take away lessons from these displays of lavish beauty. We
wonder whether it would be possible for us to have a pool anywhere upon
our sandy height. And, if so, why should we not build rough rock-work
round it on one side; fill it with the cool misty mauve of the Nipeta,
the cool pale yellow spires of the Dwarf Mulleins, and the faint pinks
of Spiræa; and against this background, walled about by a bank of the
mysterious Iris “Morning Mist,” let a little slender lead statue rise
out of the water? Coolness and mystery! Shall we ever encompass that
delightful effect?... The flat flagged paths on the other side of the
water should be bordered by Iris; and they should dip down into the pool
itself, where just two or three Water Lilies should rock their
gold-centred cups. Oh, dear! If we had sufficient money how beautiful we
could make our corner of the earth!
Oh, and the Clematis!—It was a shock to find that we had to pay seven
and sixpence each to go in, but it was worth it, for we have plunged to
the extent of a dozen adorable Clematis from the very fountain head—if
one can so strain the poor English language—of Clematis culture itself.
And the Roses! “Coronation,” a new bright scarlet climbing Wichuriana;
Tausendschön and Blush Rambler, old favourites, but so beautiful! There
were two or three pillars of unnamed seedlings, exquisite apple-blossom
beauties, which we longed to purchase, but which were not yet in the
market. A firmer, richer apple-blossom best describes the bloom of the
new discovery.
Quite beyond our pockets, but most attractive, were the standard Ivies,
golden and variegated, fifteen years old ... at the modest charge of six
guineas each! Could we ever wait fifteen years to see such developments?
After all, why not? The grower assured us they were perfectly hardy, and
more they were cut the better. They would look charming on the terrace.
Such balls of gold!
Lilies at the top of a rock-garden or at the top of a rough wall have a
most charming effect.
We have invested in three and sixpence worth of new fertiliser
guaranteed to “produce an appearance like dark green Utrecht velvet in
ten days on the roughest lawn.”
“Would you like your lawn to look like that, Madam?” asked the red
headed youth in charge of squares that didn’t look in the least like
real grass, but a kind of artificial compound as above mentioned.
“Very much!” said one of us, who was struck by the unnatural hue and
smoothness of the exhibit.—“Do mind the sun on your head!” she added
parenthetically to the delicate member of our party, who is always on
her mind. “Oh, pray Madam, do not trouble to shade me,” said the
red-haired youth modestly. “I am quite all right, I assure you.”
We had a vision of Loki’s Ma-Ma in her quaint Directoire dress, all
striped black-and-cream chiffon and dim orange, with her absurd little
Directoire tulle hat and its one coquettish rose ‹absurd but not
unbecoming› spending the rest of the afternoon in sudden philanthropic
frenzy, shading the red-haired youth from the July sunshine, while he
volubly touted for orders for patent fertilisers! Innately polite, we
explained. He was not in the least abashed.
“I do feel it very hot,” he remarked simply.
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