FEBRUARY
Distant promise of summer -- Ivy-berries -- Coloured leaves -- _Berberis
Aquifolium_ -- Its many merits -- Thinning and pruning shrubs -- Lilacs
-- Removing suckers -- Training _Clematis flammula_ -- Forms of trees --
Juniper, a neglected native evergreen -- Effect of snow -- Power of
recovery -- Beauty of colour -- Moss-grown stems.
There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the
yet distant, but surely coming, summer. Perhaps it is a warm, mossy
scent that greets one when passing along the southern side of a
hedge-bank; or it may be in some woodland opening, where the sun has
coaxed out the pungent smell of the trailing ground Ivy, whose blue
flowers will soon appear; but the day always comes, and with it the glad
certainty that summer is nearing, and that the good things promised will
never fail.
How strangely little of positive green colour is to be seen in copse and
woodland. Only the moss is really green. The next greenest thing is the
northern sides of the trunks of beech and oak. Walking southward they
are all green, but looking back they are silver-grey. The undergrowth is
of brambles and sparse fronds of withered bracken; the bracken less
beaten down than usual, for the winter has been without snow; only where
the soil is deeper, and the fern has grown more tall and rank, it has
fallen into thick, almost felted masses, and the stalks all lying one
way make the heaps look like lumps of fallen thatch. The bramble
leaves--last year's leaves, which are held all the winter--are of a
dark, blackish-bronze colour, or nearly red where they have seen the
sun. Age seems to give them a sort of hard surface and enough of a
polish to reflect the sky; the young leaves that will come next month
are almost woolly at first. Grassy tufts show only bleached bents, so
tightly matted that one wonders how the delicate young blades will be
able to spear through. Ivy-berries, hanging in thick clusters, are still
in beauty; they are so heavy that they weigh down the branches. There is
a peculiar beauty in the form and veining of the plain-shaped leaves
belonging to the mature or flowering state that the plant reaches when
it can no longer climb, whether on a wall six feet high or on the
battlements of a castle. Cuttings grown from such portions retain this
habit, and form densely-flowering bushes of compact shape.
Beautiful colouring is now to be seen in many of the plants whose leaves
do not die down in winter. Foremost amongst these is the Foam-flower
(_Tiarella cordifolia_). Its leaves, now lying on the ground, show
bright colouring, inclining to scarlet, crimson, and orange. _Tellima_,
its near relation, is also well coloured. _Galax aphylla_, with its
polished leaves of hard texture, and stalks almost as stiff as wire, is
nearly as bright; and many of the Megaseas are of a fine bronze red, the
ones that colour best being the varieties of the well-known _M.
crassifolia_ and _M. cordifolia_. Among shrubs, some of the nearly
allied genera, popularly classed under the name Andromeda, are beautiful
in reddish colour passing into green, in some of the leaves by tender
gradation, and in others by bold splashing. _Berberis Aquifolium_ begins
to colour after the first frosts; though some plants remain green, the
greater number take on some rich tinting of red or purple, and
occasionally in poor soil and in full sun a bright red that may almost
be called scarlet.
What a precious thing this fine old Berberis is! What should we do in
winter without its vigorous masses of grand foliage in garden and
shrubbery, to say nothing of its use indoors? Frequent as it is in
gardens, it is seldom used as well or thoughtfully as it deserves. There
are many places where, between garden and wood, a well-considered
planting of Berberis, combined with two or three other things of larger
stature, such as the fruiting Barberry, and Whitethorn and Holly, would
make a very enjoyable piece of shrub wild-gardening. When one reflects
that _Berberis Aquifolium_ is individually one of the handsomest of
small shrubs, that it is at its very best in mid-winter, that every leaf
is a marvel of beautiful drawing and construction, and that its ruddy
winter colouring is a joy to see, enhanced as it is by the glistening
brightness of the leaf-surface; and further, when one remembers that in
spring the whole picture changes--that the polished leaves are green
again, and the bushes are full of tufted masses of brightest yellow
bloom, and fuller of bee-music than any other plant then in flower; and
that even then it has another season of beauty yet to come, when in the
days of middle summer it is heavily loaded with the thick-clustered
masses of berries, covered with a brighter and bluer bloom than almost
any other fruit can show,--when one thinks of all this brought together
in one plant, it seems but right that we should spare no pains to use it
well. It is the only hardy shrub I can think of that is in one or other
of its varied forms of beauty throughout the year. It is never leafless
or untidy; it never looks mangy like an Ilex in April, or moulting like
a Holly in May, or patchy and unfinished like Yew and Box and many other
evergreens when their young leafy shoots are sprouting.
We have been thinning the shrubs in one of the rather large clumps next
to the lawn, taking the older wood in each clump right out from the
bottom and letting more light and air into the middle. Weigelas grow
fast and very thick. Quite two-thirds have been cut out of each bush of
Weigela, Philadelphus, and Ribes, and a good bit out of Ceanothus,
"Gloire de Versailles," my favourite of its kind, and all the oldest
wood from _Viburnum plicatus_. The stuff cut out makes quite a
respectable lot of faggoting. How extremely dense and hard is the wood
of Philadelphus! as close-grained as Box, and almost as hard as the
bright yellow wood of Berberis.
Some of the Lilacs have a good many suckers from the root, as well as on
the lower part of the stem. These must all come away, and then the trees
will have a good dressing of manure. They are greedy feeders, and want
it badly in our light soil, and surely no flowering shrub more truly
deserves it. The Lilacs I have are some of the beautiful kinds raised in
France, for which we can never be thankful enough to our good neighbours
across the Channel. The white variety, "Marie Legraye," always remains
my favourite. Some are larger and whiter, and have the trusses more
evenly and closely filled, but this beautiful Marie fills one with a
satisfying conviction as of something that is just right, that has
arrived at the point of just the best and most lovable kind of beauty,
and has been wisely content to stay there, not attempting to pass beyond
and excel itself. Its beauty is modest and reserved, and temperate and
full of refinement. The colour has a deliciously-tender warmth of white,
and as the truss is not over-full, there is room for a delicate play of
warm half-light within its recesses. Among the many beautiful coloured
Lilacs, I am fond of Lucie Baltet and Princesse Marie. There may be
better flowers from the ordinary florist point of view, but these have
the charm that is a good garden flower's most precious quality. I do not
like the cold, heavy-coloured ones of the bluish-slaty kinds. No shrub
is hardier than the Lilac; I believe they flourish even within the
Arctic Circle. It is very nearly allied to Privet; so nearly, that the
oval-leaved Privet is commonly used as a stock. Standard trees flower
much better than bushes; in this form all the strength seems to go
directly to the flowering boughs. No shrub is more persistent in
throwing up suckers from the root and from the lower part of the stem,
but in bush trees as well as in standards they should be carefully
removed every year. In the case of bushes, three or four main stems will
be enough to leave. When taking away suckers of any kind whatever, it is
much better to tear them out than to cut them off. A cut, however close,
leaves a base from which they may always spring again, but if pulled or
wrenched out they bring away with them the swollen base that, if left
in, would be a likely source of future trouble.
Before the end of February we must be sure to prune and train any plants
there may be of _Clematis flammula_. Its growth is so rapid when once it
begins, that if it is overlooked it soon grows into a tangled mass of
succulent weak young stuff, quite unmanageable two months hence, when it
will be hanging about in helpless masses, dead and living together. If
it is left till then, one can only engirdle the whole thing with a soft
tarred rope and sling it up somehow or anyhow. But if taken now, when
the young growths are just showing at the joints, the last year's mass
can be untangled, the dead and the over-much cut out, and the best
pieces trained in. In gardening, the interests of the moment are so
engrossing that one is often tempted to forget the future; but it is
well to remember that this lovely and tenderly-scented Clematis will be
one of the chief beauties of September, and well deserves a little
timely care.
In summer-time one never really knows how beautiful are the forms of the
deciduous trees. It is only in winter, when they are bare of leaves,
that one can fully enjoy their splendid structure and design, their
admirable qualities of duly apportioned strength and grace of poise, and
the way the spread of the many-branched head has its equivalent in the
wide-reaching ground-grasp of the root. And it is interesting to see
how, in the many different kinds of tree, the same laws are always in
force, and the same results occur, and yet by the employment of what
varied means. For nothing in the growth of trees can be much more unlike
than the habit of the oak and that of the weeping willow, though the
unlikeness only comes from the different adjustment of the same sources
of power and the same weights, just as in the movement of wind-blown
leaves some flutter and some undulate, while others turn over and back
again. Old apple-trees are specially noticeable for their beauty in
winter, when their extremely graceful shape, less visible when in
loveliness of spring bloom or in rich bounty of autumn fruit, is seen to
fullest advantage.
Few in number are our native evergreens, and for that reason all the
more precious. One of them, the common Juniper, is one of the best of
shrubs either for garden or wild ground, and yet, strangely enough, it
is so little appreciated that it is scarcely to be had in nurseries.
Chinese Junipers, North American Junipers, Junipers from Spain and
Greece, from Nepaul and Siberia, may be had, but the best Juniper of all
is very rarely grown. Were it a common tree one could see a sort of
reason (to some minds) for overlooking it, but though it is fairly
abundant on a few hill-sides in the southern counties, it is by no means
widely distributed throughout the country. Even this reason would not be
consistent with common practice, for the Holly is abundant throughout
England, and yet is to be had by the thousand in every nursery. Be the
reason what it may, the common Juniper is one of the most desirable of
evergreens, and is most undeservedly neglected. Even our botanists fail
to do it justice, for Bentham describes it as a low shrub growing two
feet, three feet, or four feet high. I quote from memory only; these may
not be the words, but this is the sense of his description. He had
evidently seen it on the chalk downs only, where such a portrait of it
is exactly right. But in our sheltered uplands, in sandy soil, it is
a small tree of noble aspect, twelve to twenty-eight feet high. In form
it is extremely variable, for sometimes it shoots up on a single stem
and looks like an Italian Cypress or like the upright Chinese Juniper,
while at other times it will have two or more tall spires and a dense
surrounding mass of lower growth, while in other cases it will be like a
quantity of young trees growing close together, and yet the trees in all
these varied forms may be nearly of an age.
[Illustration: SCOTCH FIRS THROWN ON TO FROZEN WATER BY SNOWSTORM.]
The action of snow is the reason of this unlikeness of habit. If, when
young, the tree happens to have one main stem strong enough to shoot up
alone, and if at the same time there come a sequence of winters without
much snow, there will be the tall, straight, cypress-like tree. But if,
as is more commonly the case, the growth is divided into a number of
stems of nearly equal size, sooner or later they are sure to be laid
down by snow. Such a winter storm as that of the end of December 1886
was especially disastrous to Junipers. Snow came on early in the evening
in this district, when the thermometer was barely at freezing point and
there was no wind. It hung on the trees in clogging masses, with a
lowering temperature that was soon below freezing. The snow still
falling loaded them more and more; then came the fatal wind, and all
through that night we heard the breaking trees. When morning came there
were eighteen inches of snow on the ground, and all the trees that
could be seen, mostly Scotch fir, seemed to be completely wrecked. Some
were entirely stripped of branches, and stood up bare, like
scaffold-poles. Until the snow was gone or half gone, no idea could be
formed of the amount of damage done to shrubs; all were borne down and
buried under the white rounded masses. A great Holly on the edge of the
lawn, nearly thirty feet high and as much in spread, whose head in
summer is crowned with a great tangle of Honeysuckle, had that crowned
head lying on the ground weighted down by the frozen mass. But when the
snow was gone and all the damage could be seen, the Junipers looked
worse than anything. What had lately been shapely groups were lying
perfectly flat, the bare-stemmed, leafless portions of the inner part of
the group showing, and looking like a faggot of dry brushwood, that,
having been stood upright, had burst its band and fallen apart in all
directions. Some, whose stems had weathered many snowy winters, now had
them broken short off half-way up; while others escaped with bare life,
but with the thick, strong stem broken down, the heavy head lying on the
ground, and the stem wrenched open at the break, like a half-untwisted
rope. The great wild Junipers were the pride of our stretch of heathy
waste just beyond the garden, and the scene of desolation was truly
piteous, for though many of them already bore the marks of former
accidents, never within our memory had there been such complete and
comprehensive destruction.
[Illustration: OLD JUNIPER, SHOWING FORMER INJURIES.]
[Illustration: JUNIPER, LATELY WRECKED BY SNOWSTORM.]
But now, ten years later, so great is their power of recovery, that
there are the same Junipers, and, except in the case of those actually
broken off, looking as well as ever. For those with many stems that were
laid down flat have risen at the tips, and each tip looks like a
vigorous young ten-year-old tree. What was formerly a massive,
bushy-shaped Juniper, some twelve feet to fifteen feet high, now covers
a space thirty feet across, and looks like a thick group of
closely-planted, healthy young ones. The half broken-down trees have
also risen at the tips, and are full of renewed vigour. Indeed, this
breaking down and splitting open seems to give them a new energy, for
individual trees that I have known well, and observed to look old and
over-worn, and to all appearance on the downward road of life, after
being broken and laid down by snow, have some years later, shot up again
with every evidence of vigorous young life. It would be more easily
accounted for if the branch rooted where it touched the ground, as so
many trees and bushes will do; but as far as I have been able to
observe, the Juniper does not "layer" itself. I have often thought I had
found a fine young one fit for transplanting, but on clearing away the
moss and fern at the supposed root have found that it was only the tip
of a laid-down branch of a tree perhaps twelve feet away. In the case of
one of our trees, among a group of laid-down and grown-up branches, one
old central trunk has survived. It is now so thick and strong, and has
so little top, that it will be likely to stand till it falls from sheer
old age. Close to it is another, whose main stem was broken down about
five feet from the ground; now, what was the head rests on the earth
nine feet away, and a circle of its outspread branches has become a
wholesome group of young upright growths, while at the place where the
stem broke, the half-opened wrench still shows as clearly as on the day
it was done.
Among the many merits of the Juniper, its tenderly mysterious beauty of
colouring is by no means the least; a colouring as delicately subtle in
its own way as that of cloud or mist, or haze in warm, wet woodland. It
has very little of positive green; a suspicion of warm colour in the
shadowy hollows, and a blue-grey bloom of the tenderest quality
imaginable on the outer masses of foliage. Each tiny, blade-like leaf
has a band of dead, palest bluish-green colour on the upper surface,
edged with a narrow line of dark green slightly polished; the back of
the leaf is of the same full, rather dark green, with slight polish; it
looks as if the green back had been brought up over the edge of the leaf
to make the dark edging on the upper surface. The stems of the twigs are
of a warm, almost foxy colour, becoming darker and redder in the
branches. The tips of the twigs curl over or hang out on all sides
towards the light, and the "set" of the individual twigs is full of
variety. This arrangement of mixed colouring and texture, and infinitely
various position of the spiny little leaves, allows the eye to
penetrate unconsciously a little way into the mass, so that one sees as
much tender shadow as actual leaf-surface, and this is probably the
cause of the wonderfully delicate and, so to speak, intangible quality
of colouring. Then, again, where there is a hollow place in a bush, or
group, showing a cluster of half-dead stems, at first one cannot tell
what the colour is, till with half-shut eyes one becomes aware of a
dusky and yet luminous purple-grey.
The merits of the Juniper are not yet done with, for throughout the
winter (the time of growth of moss and lichen) the rugged-barked old
stems are clothed with loveliest pale-green growths of a silvery
quality. Standing before it, and trying to put the colour into words,
one repeats, again and again, pale-green silver--palest silvery green!
Where the lichen is old and dead it is greyer; every now and then there
is a touch of the orange kind, and a little of the branched stag-horn
pattern so common on the heathy ground. Here and there, as the trunk or
branch is increasing in girth, the silvery, lichen-clad, rough outer
bark has parted, and shows the smooth, dark-red inner bark; the outer
covering still clinging over the opening, and looking like grey ribands
slightly interlaced. Many another kind of tree-stem is beautiful in its
winter dress, but it is difficult to find any so full of varied beauty
and interest as that of the Juniper; it is one of the yearly feasts that
never fails to delight and satisfy.