MARCH
Flowering bulbs -- Dog-tooth Violet -- Rock-garden -- Variety of
Rhododendron foliage -- A beautiful old kind -- Suckers on grafted
plants -- Plants for filling up the beds -- Heaths -- Andromedas -- Lady
Fern -- _Lilium auratum_ -- Pruning Roses -- Training and tying climbing
plants -- Climbing and free-growing Roses -- The Vine the best
wall-covering -- Other climbers -- Wild Clematis -- Wild Rose.
In early March many and lovely are the flowering bulbs, and among them a
wealth of blue, the more precious that it is the colour least frequent
among flowers. The blue of _Scilla sibirica_, like all blues that have
in them a suspicion of green, has a curiously penetrating quality; the
blue of _Scilla bifolia_ does not attack the eye so smartly. _Chionodoxa
sardensis_ is of a full and satisfying colour, that is enhanced by the
small space of clear white throat. A bed of it shows very little
variation in colour. _Chionodoxa Lucilliae_, on the other hand, varies
greatly; one may pick out light and dark blue, and light and dark of
almost lilac colour. The variety _C. gigantea_ is a fine plant. There
are some pretty kinds of _Scilla bifolia_ that were raised by the Rev.
J. G. Nelson of Aldborough, among them a tender flesh-colour and a good
pink. _Leucojum vernum_, with its clear white flowers and polished
dark-green leaves, is one of the gems of early March; and, flowering at
the same time, no flower of the whole year can show a more splendid and
sumptuous colour than the purple of _Iris reticulata_. Varieties have
been raised, some larger, some nearer blue, and some reddish purple, but
the type remains the best garden flower. _Iris stylosa_, in sheltered
nooks open to the sun, when well established, gives flower from November
till April, the strongest rush of bloom being about the third week in
March. It is a precious plant in our southern counties, delicately
scented, of a tender and yet full lilac-blue. The long ribbon-like
leaves make handsome tufts, and the sheltered place it needs in our
climate saves the flowers from the injury they receive on their native
windy Algerian hills, where they are nearly always torn into tatters.
What a charm there is about the common Dogtooth Violet; it is pretty
everywhere, in borders, in the rock-garden, in all sorts of corners. But
where it looks best with me is in a grassy place strewn with dead
leaves, under young oaks, where the garden joins the copse. This is a
part of the pleasure-ground that has been treated with some care, and
has rewarded thought and labour with some success, so that it looks less
as if it had been planned than as if it might have come naturally. At
one point the lawn, trending gently upward, runs by grass paths into a
rock-garden, planted mainly with dwarf shrubs. Here are Andromedas,
Pernettyas, Gaultherias, and Alpine Rhododendron, and with them three
favourites whose crushed leaves give a grateful fragrance, Sweet Gale,
_Ledum palustre_, and _Rhododendron myrtifolium_. The rock part is
unobtrusive; where the ground rises rather quickly are a couple of
ridges made of large, long lumps of sandstone, half buried, and so laid
as to give a look of natural stratification. Hardy Ferns are grateful
for the coolness of their northern flanks, and Cyclamens are happy on
the ledges. Beyond and above is the copse, or thin wood of young silver
Birch and Holly, in summer clothed below with bracken, but now bristling
with the bluish spears of Daffodils and the buds that will soon burst
into bloom. The early Pyrenean Daffodil is already out, gleaming through
the low-toned copse like lamps of pale yellow light. Where the rough
path enters the birch copse is a cheerfully twinkling throng of the
Dwarf Daffodil (_N. nanus_), looking quite at its best on its carpet of
moss and fine grass and dead leaves. The light wind gives it a graceful,
dancing movement, with an active spring about the upper part of the
stalk. Some of the heavier trumpets not far off answer to the same wind
with only a ponderous, leaden sort of movement.
Farther along the garden joins the wood by a plantation of Rhododendrons
and broad grassy paths, and farther still by a thicket of the
free-growing Roses, some forming fountain-like clumps nine paces in
diameter, and then again by masses of flowering shrubs, gradating by
means of Sweetbriar, Water-elder, Dogwood, Medlar, and Thorn from garden
to wild wood.
Now that the Rhododendrons, planted nine years ago, have grown to a
state and size of young maturity, it is interesting to observe how much
they vary in foliage, and how clearly the leaves show the relative
degree of relationship to their original parents, the wild mountain
plants of Asia Minor and the United States. These, being two of the
hardiest kinds, were the ones first chosen by hybridisers, and to these
kinds we owe nearly all of the large numbers of beautiful garden
Rhododendrons now in cultivation. The ones more nearly related to the
wild _R. ponticum_ have long, narrow, shining dark-green leaves, while
the varieties that incline more to the American _R. catawbiense_ have
the leaves twice as broad, and almost rounded at the shoulder where they
join the stalk; moreover, the surface of the leaf has a different
texture, less polished, and showing a grain like morocco leather. The
colour also is a lighter and more yellowish green, and the bush is not
so densely branched. The leaves of all the kinds are inclined to hang
down in cold weather, and this habit is more clearly marked in the
_catawbiense_ varieties.
There is one old kind called _Multum maculatum_--I dare say one of the
earliest hybrids--for which I have a special liking. It is now despised
by florists, because the flower is thin in texture and the petal
narrow, and the truss not tightly filled. Nevertheless I find it quite
the most beautiful Rhododendron as a cut flower, perhaps just because of
these unorthodox qualities. And much as I admire the great bouncing
beauties that are most justly the pride of their raisers, I hold that
this most refined and delicate class of beauty equally deserves faithful
championship. The flowers of this pretty old kind are of a delicate
milk-white, and the lower petals are generously spotted with a
rosy-scarlet of the loveliest quality. The leaves are the longest and
narrowest and darkest green of any kind I know, making the bush
conspicuously handsome in winter. I have to confess that it is a shy
bloomer, and that it seems unwilling to flower in a young state, but I
think of it as a thing so beautiful and desirable as to be worth waiting
for.
Within March, and before the busier season comes upon us, it is well to
look out for the suckers that are likely to come on grafted plants. They
may generally be detected by the typical _ponticum_ leaf, but if the
foliage of a branch should be suspicious and yet doubtful, if on
following the shoot down it is seen to come straight from the root and
to have a redder bark than the rest, it may safely be taken for a
robber. Of course the invading stock may be easily seen when in flower,
but the good gardener takes it away before it has this chance of
reproaching him. A lady visitor last year told me with some pride that
she had a most wonderful Rhododendron in bloom; all the flower in the
middle was crimson, with a ring of purple-flowered branches outside. I
am afraid she was disappointed when I offered condolence instead of
congratulation, and had to tell her that the phenomenon was not uncommon
among neglected bushes.
When my Rhododendron beds were first planted, I followed the usual
practice of filling the outer empty spaces of the clumps with hardy
Heaths. Perhaps it is still the best or one of the best ways to begin
when the bushes are quite young; for if planted the right distance
apart--seven to nine feet--there must be large bare spaces between; but
now that they have filled the greater part of the beds, I find that the
other plants I tried are more to my liking. These are, foremost of all,
_Andromeda Catesbaei_, then Lady Fern, and then the dwarf _Rhododendron
myrtifolium_. The main spaces between the young bushes I plant with
_Cistus laurifolius_, a perfectly hardy kind; this grows much faster
than the Rhododendrons, and soon fills the middle spaces; by the time
that the best of its life is over--for it is a short-lived bush--the
Rhododendrons will be wanting all the space. Here and there in the inner
spaces I put groups of _Lilium auratum_, a Lily that thrives in a peaty
bed, and that looks its best when growing through other plants;
moreover, when the Rhododendrons are out of flower, the Lily, whose
blooming season is throughout the late summer and autumn, gives a new
beauty and interest to that part of the garden.
The time has come for pruning Roses, and for tying up and training the
plants that clothe wall and fence and pergola. And this sets one
thinking about climbing and rambling plants, and all their various ways
and wants, and of how best to use them. One of my boundaries to a road
is a fence about nine feet high, wall below and close oak paling above.
It is planted with free-growing Roses of several types--Aimee Vibert,
Madame Alfred Carriere, Reine Olga de Wurtemburg, and Bouquet d'Or, the
strongest of the Dijon teas. Then comes a space of _Clematis Montana_
and _Clematis flammula_, and then more Roses--Madame Plantier, Emelie
Plantier (a delightful Rose to cut), and some of the grand Sweetbriars
raised by Lord Penzance.
From midsummer onward these Roses are continually cut for flower, and
yield an abundance of quite the most ornamental class of bloom. For I
like to have cut Roses arranged in a large, free way, with whole
branches three feet or four feet long, easy to have from these
free-growing kinds, that throw out branches fifteen feet long in one
season, even on our poor, sandy soil, that contains no particle of that
rich loam that Roses love. I think this same Reine Olga, the grand
grower from which have come our longest and largest prunings, must be
quite the best evergreen Rose, for it holds its full clothing of
handsome dark-green leaves right through the winter. It seems to like
hard pruning. I have one on a part of the pergola, but have no pleasure
from it, as it has rushed up to the top, and nothing shows but a few
naked stems.
[Illustration: GARDEN DOOR-WAY WREATHED WITH CLEMATIS GRAVEOLENS.]
[Illustration: COTTAGE PORCH WREATHED WITH THE DOUBLE WHITE ROSE (_R.
alba_).]
One has to find out how to use all these different Roses. How often one
sees the wrong Roses used as climbers on the walls of a house. I have
seen a Gloire de Dijon covering the side of a house with a profitless
reticulation of bare stem, and a few leaves and flowers looking into the
gutter just under the edge of the roof. What are generally recommended
as climbing Roses are too ready to ramp away, leaving bare, leggy growth
where wall-clothing is desired. One of the best is climbing Aimee
Vibert, for with very little pruning it keeps well furnished nearly to
the ground, and with its graceful clusters of white bloom and
healthy-looking, polished leaves is always one of the prettiest of
Roses. Its only fault is that it does not shed its dead petals, but
retains the whole bloom in dead brown clusters.
But if a Rose wishes to climb, it should be accommodated with a suitable
place. That excellent old Rose, the Dundee Rambler, or the still
prettier Garland Rose, will find a way up a Holly-tree, and fling out
its long wreaths of tenderly-tinted bloom; and there can be no better
way of using the lovely Himalayan _R. Brunonis_, with its long, almost
blue leaves and wealth of milk-white flower. A common Sweetbriar will
also push up among the branches of some dark evergreen, Yew or Holly,
and throw out aloft its scented branches and rosy bloom, and look its
very best.
But some of these same free Roses are best of all if left in a clear
space to grow exactly as they will without any kind of support or
training. So placed, they grow into large rounded groups. Every year,
just after the young laterals on the last year's branches have flowered,
they throw out vigorous young rods that arch over as they complete their
growth, and will be the flower-bearers of the year to come.
Two kinds of Roses of rambling growth that are rather tender, but
indispensable for beauty, are Fortune's Yellow and the Banksias. Pruning
the free Roses is always rough work for the hands and clothes, but of
all Roses I know, the worst to handle is Fortune's Yellow. The prickles
are hooked back in a way that no care or ingenuity can escape; and
whether it is their shape and power of cruel grip, or whether they have
anything of a poisonous quality, I do not know; but whereas hands
scratched and torn by Roses in general heal quickly, the wounds made by
Fortune's Yellow are much more painful and much slower to get well. I
knew an old labourer who died of a rose-prick. He used to work about the
roads, and at cleaning the ditches and mending the hedges. For some time
I did not see him, and when I asked another old countryman, "What's gone
o' Master Trussler?" the answer was, "He's dead--died of a canker-bush."
The wild Dog-rose is still the "canker" in the speech of the old people,
and a thorn or prickle is still a "bush." A Dog-rose prickle had gone
deep into the old hedger's hand--a "bush" more or less was nothing to
him, but the neglected little wound had become tainted with some
impurity, blood-poisoning had set in, and my poor old friend had truly
enough "died of a canker-bush."
The flowering season of Fortune's Yellow is a very short one, but it
comes so early, and the flowers have such incomparable beauty, and are
so little like those of any other Rose, that its value is quite without
doubt. Some of the Tea Roses approach it in its pink and copper
colouring, but the loose, open, rather flaunting form of the flower, and
the twisted set of the petals, display the colour better than is
possible in any of the more regular-shaped Roses. It is a good plan to
grow it through some other wall shrub, as it soon gets bare below, and
the early maturing flowering tips are glad to be a little sheltered by
the near neighbourhood of other foliage.
I do not think that there is any other Rose that has just the same rich
butter colour as the Yellow Banksian, and this unusual colouring is the
more distinct because each little Rose in the cluster is nearly evenly
coloured all over, besides being in such dense bunches. The season of
bloom is very short, but the neat, polished foliage is always pleasant
to see throughout the year. The white kind and the larger white are both
lovely as to the individual bloom, but they flower so much more shyly
that the yellow is much the better garden plant.
But the best of all climbing or rambling plants, whether for wall or
arbour or pergola, is undoubtedly the Grape-Vine. Even when trimly
pruned and trained for fruit-bearing on an outer wall it is an admirable
picture of leafage and fruit-cluster; but to have it in fullest beauty
it must ramp at will, for it is only when the fast-growing branches are
thrown out far and wide that it fairly displays its graceful vigour and
the generous magnificence of its incomparable foliage.
The hardy Chasselas, known in England by the rather misleading name
Royal Muscadine, is one of the best, both for fruit and foliage. The
leaves are of moderate size, with clearly serrated edges and that
strongly waved outline that gives the impression of powerful build, and
is, in fact, a mechanical contrivance intended to stiffen the structure.
The colour of the leaves is a fresh, lively green, and in autumn they
are prettily marbled with yellow. Where a very large-leaved Vine is
wanted nothing is handsomer than the North American _Vitis Labrusca_ or
the Asiatic _Vitis Coignettii_, whose autumn leaves are gorgeously
coloured. For a place that demands more delicate foliage there is the
Parsley-Vine, that has a delightful look of refinement, and another that
should not be forgotten is the Claret-Vine, with autumnal colouring of
almost scarlet and purple, and abundance of tightly clustered black
fruit, nearly blue with a heavy bloom.
Many an old house and garden can show the far-rambling power of the
beautiful _Wistaria Chinensis_, and of the large-leaved _Aristolochia
Sipho_, one of the best plants for covering a pergola, and of the
varieties of _Ampelopsis_, near relations of the Grape-Vine. The limit
of these notes only admits of mention of some of the more important
climbers; but among these the ever-delightful white Jasmine must have a
place. It will ramble far and fast if it has its own way, but then gives
little flower; but by close winter pruning it can be kept full of bloom
and leaf nearly to the ground.
[Illustration: WILD HOP, ENTWINING WORMWOOD AND COW-PARSNIP.]
The woods and hedges have also their beautiful climbing plants.
Honeysuckle in suitable conditions will ramble to great heights--in this
district most noticeable in tall Hollies and Junipers as well as in high
hedges. The wild Clematis is most frequent on the chalk, where it laces
together whole hedges and rushes up trees, clothing them in July with
long wreaths of delicate bloom, and in September with still more
conspicuous feathery seed. For rapid growth perhaps no English plant
outstrips the Hop, growing afresh from the root every year, and almost
equalling the Vine in beauty of leaf. The two kinds of wild Bryony are
also herbaceous climbers of rapid growth, and among the most beautiful
of our hedge plants.
The wild Roses run up to great heights in hedge and thicket, and never
look so well as when among the tangles of mixed growth of wild forest
land or clambering through some old gnarled thorn-tree. The common
Brambles are also best seen in these forest groups; these again in form
of leaf show somewhat of a vine-like beauty.
In the end of March, or at any time during the month when the wind is in
the east or north-east, all increase and development of vegetation
appears to cease. As things are, so they remain. Plants that are in
flower retain their bloom, but, as it were, under protest. A kind of
sullen dulness pervades all plant life. Sweet-scented shrubs do not give
off their fragrance; even the woodland moss and earth and dead leaves
withhold their sweet, nutty scent. The surface of the earth has an arid,
infertile look; a slight haze of an ugly grey takes the colour out of
objects in middle distance, and seems to rob the flowers of theirs, or
to put them out of harmony with all things around. But a day comes, or,
perhaps, a warmer night, when the wind, now breathing gently from the
south-west, puts new life into all growing things. A marvellous change
is wrought in a few hours. A little warm rain has fallen, and plants,
invisible before, and doubtless still underground, spring into glad
life.
What an innocent charm there is about many of the true spring flowers.
Primroses of many colours are now in bloom, but the prettiest, this
year, is a patch of an early blooming white one, grouped with a delicate
lilac. Then comes _Omphalodes verna_, with its flowers of brilliant blue
and foliage of brightest green, better described by its pretty
north-country name, Blue-eyed Mary. There are Violets of many colours,
but daintiest of all is the pale-blue St. Helena; whether it is the
effect of its delicate colouring, or whether it has really a better
scent than other varieties of the common Violet, I cannot say, but it
always seems to have a more refined fragrance.