I.

Introductory--The House--The Latest Flowers--The Arbutus--

Chrysanthemums--Fallen Leaves--Planting--The Apple-room--

The Log-house--Christmas.

_December 3._--These notes are written for those who love gardens as I

do, but not for those who have a professional knowledge of the subject;

and they are written in the hope that it may not be quite impossible to

convey to others some little of the delight, which grows (more certainly

than any bud or flower) from the possession and management of a garden.

I cannot, of course, by any words of mine, give the hot glow of colour

from a bed of scarlet Ranunculus with the sun full upon it, or bring out

the delicious scent of those double Tuberoses, which did so well with me

this autumn; but I can at least speak of my plans and projects, tell

what I am doing, and how each month I succeed or fail,--and thus share

with others the uncertainty, the risks and chances, which are in reality

the great charm of gardening. And then, again, gardening joins itself,

in a thousand ways, with a thousand associations, to books and

literature, and here, too, I shall have much to say.

* * * * *

Lancashire is not the best possible place for a garden, and to be within

five miles of a large town is certainly no advantage. We get smoke on

one side, and salt breezes on another, and, worst of all, there comes

down upon us every now and then a blast, laden with heavy chemical

odours, which is more deadly than either smoke or salt. Still we are

tolerably open, and in the country. As I sit writing at my library

window, I see, beyond the lawn, field after field, until at last the eye

rests on the spire of a church three miles away.

A long red-gabled house, with stone facings, and various creepers

trained round it,--a small wood (in which there is a rookery) screening

us from a country road, and from the west,--lawns with some large trees

and several groups of evergreens,--and the walled garden, the outer

garden, and the orchard;--it is to these that I invite you. Exclusive

of meadow-land there are only some four acres, but four acres are enough

for many gardening purposes, and for very great enjoyment.

These are certainly what the American poet Bryant calls "the melancholy

days, the saddest in the year." The late autumn flowers are over;--the

early spring ones are still buried under the soil. I could only find

this morning a single blighted monthly Rose, a Wallflower or two, an

uneasy-looking Polyanthus, and some yellow Jasmine against the

house--and that was all. Two days of early frost had killed the rest.

Oddly enough, however, a small purple flower caught my eye on the mixed

border; it was a Virginian Stock,--but what it was doing at this

unwonted season who can say? Then, of course, the Arbutus is still in

bloom, as it has been for the last two months, and very beautiful it is.

There is a large bush of it just as you enter the walled garden, and,

though the pink clusters of blossom are now past their best, they are

more welcome than ever in the present dearth of flowers. Can any one

tell me why my Arbutus does not fruit? It has only borne one single

berry in the last four years; and yet the Arbutus fruits abundantly in

other places in Lancashire, and at Lytham, close to the sea, I saw

clusters of berries only the other day. Sometimes I fancy there is a

better chance of the fruit setting if the pollen is from another tree,

and I have lately planted a second Arbutus for the experiment. I am very

fond of the Arbutus; it carries me back to the days of Horace, for we

remember how his goats, wandering along the lower slopes of Lucretilis,

would browse upon the thickets of Arbutus that fringed its side.

Lastly, the Chrysanthemums are in flower, though not in the inner

garden. Some I have tended and trained, and they are now looking

handsome enough in the porch and vestibule of the house. Some I have

planted, and allowed to grow as they like, in front of the shrubbery

borders; these have failed very generally with me this year--they look

brown and withered, and the blooms are small, and the stems long and

ragged, while many have entirely disappeared. The best of them all is

Bob, with his bright, red, merry face, only surpassed by a trained Julia

Lagraviere in the porch. Another favourite Chrysanthemum of mine is the

Fleur de Marie, with its large white discs, all quilled inside and

feathered round the edge. Fastened up against a wall, I have seen it,

year after year, a mass of splendid snowy blossom. The Chrysanthemum has

three merits above almost every flower. It comes in the shortest and

darkest days; it blooms abundantly in the smoke of the largest cities;

it lasts longer than any flower when cut and put into water. If flowers

have their virtues, the virtue of the Chrysanthemum is its unselfish

kindliness.

In the outer garden, we have been busy with the fallen leaves, brushing

them away from the walks and lawn, leaving them to rot in the wood,

digging them into the shrubbery borders. This work is finished now, and

we have swept up a great stack for future use at the end of two years.

The Beech and the Oak leaves we (in opposition to some authorities) hold

to be the most valuable, but of course we cannot keep them distinct from

the rest. These fallen leaves--of which we make our loam for potting

purposes--what endless moralities they have occasioned! The oldest and

the youngest poets speak of them. It is Homer, who compares the

generations of men to the generations of the leaves, as they come and

go, flourish and decay, one succeeding the other, unresting and

unceasingly. It is Swinburne, who says in his poems--

"Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,

Cast forth without fruit upon air;

Take Rose-leaf, and Vine-leaf, and Bay-leaf

Blown loose from the hair."

During this open weather we have been getting on with our planting.

Those beds of Rhododendrons just under the drawing-room windows have

become too thick. They are all good sorts--John Waterer, Lady Emily

Cathcart, and the rest--and must have sufficient room. We move a number

of them to the other side of the house, opposite the front door, where

till now there has been a bed of the common Rhododendrons, and this in

turn we plant as a fresh bed elsewhere.

There will be now some space to spare in the hybrid beds, and I shall

plant in them a number of roots of the Lilium candidum--the dear old

white Lily of cottage gardens. They will come up each year from between

the Rhododendrons, and will send their sweet subtle odour through the

open windows into the house. And as I write I am told of a recipe

showing how, in the Wortlore of old, the firm white petals were esteemed

of use. You must gather them while still fresh, place them unbroken in a

wide-necked bottle, packed closely and firmly together, and then pour

in what brandy there is room for. In case of cut or bruise no remedy, I

am told, is more efficacious, and certainly none more simple.

_December 23._--The weather is still mild and open. We have had three

days' sharp frost, but it soon passed, and, while it lasted, it spared

even the Chrysanthemums. "Bob" looks better than ever. During the frost

was the time to look over the Apple-room, the Mushroom-bed, and the

Log-house.

The Pears we are now using are the Winter Nelis, which I believe is

known also as the Bonne de Malines. It is a capital Pear at this season

of the year, and in these parts, and trained on my south-west walls,

bears well, though the trees are young. I only planted them some four

years ago, and, as all the world knows,--

"You plant Pears

For your heirs."

The Mushrooms are late this year; the spawn appeared less good than

usual, and I expected a total failure, but, after all, there is promise

of a dish for Christmas Day. I do not care to grow Mushrooms when the

green vegetables are in full glory but now they are very welcome.

As for the Log-house, it is full. We have cut down several trees, and

huge Yule logs lie in heaps, ready for the hall fire. We shall want them

before the winter is over. If Horace had to say to Thaliarchus in Italy

(this is Lord Denman's version)--

"Dissolve the cold, while on the dogs

With lavish hand you fling the logs,"--

surely in these northern latitudes, and in this dearth of coal, the

advice is doubly seasonable. And then a log fire is so charming. It does

more than warm and blaze--it glows and sparkles. But Mr. Warner, the

American, has just given us in his _Backlog Studies_ long pages about

wood-fires, and I need only refer to that very pleasant little book. One

quotation, however, I will give:--

"We burn in it Hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this

aromatic forest timber and its clear flame. The Birch is also a

sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritual flame, and an

even temper--no snappishness. Some prefer the Elm, which holds fire

so well; and I have a neighbour who uses nothing but Apple-tree

wood--a solid, family sort of wood, fragrant also, and full of

delightful associations. But few people can afford to burn up their

fruit-trees."

But besides the dead wood, we have just cut our fresh Christmas boughs.

Up against an outhouse I have an immense Ivy, almost as large as one you

see growing up some old castle: it spreads along the wall, covering it

all over on both sides; then it climbs up a second wall at right angles

to the first, and throws its trailing branches down to the very ground:

and now they are one mass of blossom.

It is from this ivy that we gather our best Christmas greenery; but

there are also cuttings from the Box, Yew, and Holly;--and one

variegated Holly has been beautiful, for its mottled leaves have in some

sprays become of a perfectly clear and creamy white--the colour of fine

old ivory. Mistletoe does not grow with us, and we have to buy it in the

market of our town. By the way, how strangely the idea of an English

Mistletoe bough now associates itself with that very uncomfortable

Italian story of the bride and the oaken chest. How curious, too, that,

in this country at least, the memory of poor Ginevra is due not to

Rogers's poem, but to Haynes Bayly's ballad.

To-morrow will be Christmas Eve, and to-morrow (so the legend says), in

the vale of Avalon,--at the old abbey, where King Arthur was buried and

St. Dunstan lived--"outbuds the Glastonbury Thorn"--the sacred Thorn,

which sprang from the staff St. Joseph planted there. Unhappily no such

Thorns grow in my Lancashire garden.