The Fruit Crop--Hautbois Strawberries--Lilium Auratum--Sweet
Williams--Carnations--The Bedding-out.
_August 15._--It is, I find, a dangerous thing to leave a garden
masterless for even a month. The best of gardens will probably fall
short in some respect, and I certainly discover several matters which
would have been otherwise had I remained at home. My readers will hardly
be interested by the details of my grievances; it is pleasanter to tell
where we have been successful.
The wall fruit, however, I must mention. The ants and the aphis, and
possibly some frost, have destroyed the Peach crop utterly. There is not
a single Peach, and the Nectarines, which are certainly a hardier fruit
with us, only number thirty in all! The Apricots have done fairly, and
were so early that we gathered three or four in the last days of July--a
full month before their usual time. The Moorpark Apricot, which we owe
to Sir William Temple, is still the best. By the way, he tells us that
the Roman name for Apricots is Mala epirotica. Is this the root of the
word Apricot, or may we still look upon it as from "apricus," the "sunny
fruit,"--the fruit that loves the sun and has caught its own bright
colour?[7]
[7] I believe, as a matter of fact, that the more received derivation
of Apricot is "praecox."
Of the smaller fruit Cherries have been a failure, with the exception
indeed of the Morellos. Gooseberries have done well, though I fear I
cannot compete with the giant Gooseberries of a Lancashire Gooseberry
show. The Currants, whether against the wall or on bushes, have been
capital, and the black Currants would take a prize at any show. We now
net up some Currant bushes for the later autumn. The Raspberries, which
we train in arches, have done tolerably, and we should have a second
crop of the white ones in October.
The Strawberries have been an average crop, and the little Alpines have
been capital--so large, so highly flavoured, and so redolent of
Switzerland!
I am trying, too, for the first time, to grow Hautbois Strawberries,
which are almost unknown with us. We are as yet not very successful, and
I well know how capricious a fruit it is as regards setting. A year or
two ago I was breakfasting with a well-known and most courtly physician
in London, who is since dead. A dish of beautiful Hautbois was on the
table. We were all admiring. "Yes," said our host, "they are now getting
very rare. Sometimes a patient says to me, 'May I not have a little
fruit?' 'Certainly not!' is my answer. 'Surely a few Strawberries?'
Then, that I may not seem a great curmudgeon, I say, 'Well, a few
Strawberries, but be sure they are Hautbois;' _and I know they can't get
them!_" To ordinary Strawberries a Hautbois is what a Tea Rose is to
ordinary Roses; it has an aroma all its own, and unlike all others.
In the flower garden the finest bed is one which I have now had for the
last three years. It is a bed of Lilium auratum, with the dark
Heliotrope growing in between. I take up the Lily bulbs for the winter,
bring them on in heat, and then plant them out. They are really
beautiful, and each year they seem more vigorous. Some have four
blossoms, some have six or eight, and one has as many as ten. The strong
perfume lies heavy on that end of the garden, and I think this Lily
should never be brought inside the house. It is curious how the blossoms
vary; in some the golden stripes are so much deeper, in some the dark
claret spots are so much more numerous.
Another bed is of Lilium speciosum, planted to take the place of a bed
of Sweet William, which was quite a glow of colour in the earlier part
of the summer. This dear old Sweet William, which was the favourite in
the old cottage gardens, and which, with the Lad's-love and the Pink,
was the chosen flower for the buttonhole of the country boy, is now far
too much neglected. Its rich velvet clusters of twenty different shades
make a bed of exquisite beauty. It is over too soon, but it can be
_supplanted_ (may I say?) by something else. In a second bed of Sweet
Williams I placed Gladiolus bulbs, and now they are coming into flower
from out the green cushion, from which we have cut the withered
blossoms.
A bed of the sweet little pink Pinks has of course been over some time,
and though the bed is now quite bare of bloom--for I cannot disturb the
roots--it is well worth sacrificing some colour in autumn for the three
summer weeks of delicious perfume. Clusters of white Pinks have been no
less sweet on the herbaceous borders, and now the Clove Carnations take
their place.
It is curious that so familiar a flower as the Pink should be scarcely
mentioned by the great poets. Shakspeare only just names it, and I do
not think Marvell does. Milton, in his _Lycidas_, barely alludes to "the
white Pink," and Cowley has no separate poem in its praise. Indeed, one
may say generally that, with the exception of the Rose, the flowers in
which the poets have rejoiced, and which they have immortalised, are the
flowers of spring. Cowley, who wrote as a horticulturist, is the almost
solitary exception. There is, however, a rather pretty and fanciful
little song of Herrick's "To Carnations:"--
"Stay while ye will, or goe;
And leave no scent behind ye:
Yet trust me, I shall know
The place where I may find ye:
Within my Lucia's cheek,
Whose livery ye weare,
Play ye at hide or seek,
I'm sure to find ye there."
For the ordinary bedding-out of ordinary gardens I have a real contempt.
It is at once gaudy and monotonous. A garden is left bare for eight
months in the year, that for the four hottest months there shall be a
blaze of the hottest colour. The same combinations of the same flowers
appear wherever you go. Calceolarias, Verbenas, and Zonal Pelargoniums,
with a border of Pyrethrum or Cerastium--and that is about all. There
is no thought and no imagination. The "bedding-stuff" is got together
and planted out, and each year of planting is a repetition of the year
before; and thus, as Forbes Watson says so truly, "Gardeners are
teaching us to think too little about the plants individually, and to
look at them chiefly as an assemblage of beautiful colours. It is
difficult in those blooming masses to separate one from another; all
produce so much the same sort of impression. The consequence is, people
see the flowers on our beds without caring to know anything about them,
or even to ask their names." Any interest in the separate plants is
impossible, and then they are, almost without exception, scentless
plants, to which no association attaches, and which are cared for merely
because they give a line or patch of red or yellow to the garden. "The
lust of the eye and the pride of life,"--there is little purer pleasure
to be drawn from "bedding stuff" than those words convey. However, there
is already a reaction setting in, and the use of Echeverias and the like
gives evidence at least of a more refined taste in colour, though in
themselves nothing can be less interesting. Meanwhile, as some
bedded-out beds will always be necessary, we may try to diversify them
as much as possible. The following are among my most successful:--A bed
of Agapanthus, with its beautiful foliage and sky-blue umbels, is
surrounded with bright yellow Peacock Gazania; a bed of scarlet Lobelia
cardinalis (is this the "Cardinal Flower" that American writers speak
of?) is edged with the white Ribbon-grass, and that again with the blue
Lobelia speciosa; and a second bed of the same Lobelia cardinalis, the
bronze foliage of which harmonises so well with the spikes of glowing
red, has the Lobelia speciosa next to it, and the Golden Pyrethrum as a
border. Another bed is of Humea elegans, edged with the white
variegated-leaved Miss Kingsbury Pelargonium, and that again with the
blue Lobelia. Into other beds I have introduced the variegated Aloe and
the Aralia, as centres for the more dwarf and brightly-coloured
Verbenas.
Of the variegated Pelargoniums I find the Beauty of Calderdale the most
effective and most vigorous, and though I am told "Mrs. Pollock has a
most excellent constitution," she does less well with me. One other bed,
which is now over, has been too pretty for me not to mention; it was a
bed of Antirrhinums of all colours, and I shall certainly repeat it
another year. Lastly, I have a large bed of Clematis Jackmanii in full
glory. Last year it did fairly well, but the plants were comparatively
weak, and the flowers trailed upon the ground. This year the plants have
grown vigorously, and I have trained Withies all across the bed, so that
the purple blossoms twine and cling around them, and are now a perfect
mass of blossom.
On the house a Clematis lanuginosa, with its large discs of lilac-grey,
is also very handsome, and seems to be doing as well as possible.
In the outer garden a great cluster of yellow Broom has made the border
near the front door aglow with golden light; and in the vinery a
beautiful Clethra arborea--The Lily of the Valley Tree--has been laden
with bunches of its delicate and delicately-scented flowers.
The weather has broken completely during the last fortnight, and it is
now too much, and not too little rain, of which we are complaining.