SEPTEMBER
Sowing Sweet Peas -- Autumn-sown annuals -- Dahlias -- Worthless kinds
-- Staking -- Planting the rock-garden -- Growing small plants in a wall
-- The old wall -- Dry-walling -- How built -- How planted -- Hyssop --
A destructive storm -- Berries of Water-elder -- Beginning ground-work.
In the second week of September we sow Sweet Peas in shallow trenches.
The flowers from these are larger and stronger and come in six weeks
earlier than from those sown in the spring; they come too at a time when
they are especially valuable for cutting. Many other hardy Annuals are
best sown now. Some indeed, such as the lovely _Collinsia verna_ and the
large white Iberis, only do well if autumn-sown. Among others, some of
the most desirable are Nemophila, Platystemon, Love-in-a-Mist,
Larkspurs, Pot Marigold, Virginian Stock, and the delightful Venus's
Navel-wort (_Omphalodes linifolia_). I always think this daintily
beautiful plant is undeservedly neglected, for how seldom one sees it.
It is full of the most charming refinement, with its milk-white bloom
and grey-blue leaf and neat habit of growth. Any one who has never
before tried Annuals autumn-sown would be astonished at their vigour. A
single plant of Nemophila will often cover a square yard with its
beautiful blue bloom; and then, what a gain it is to have these pretty
things in full strength in spring and early summer, instead of waiting
to have them in a much poorer state later in the year, when other
flowers are in plenty.
Hardy Poppies should be sown even earlier; August is the best time.
Dahlias are now at their full growth. To make a choice for one's own
garden, one must see the whole plant growing. As with many another kind
of flower, nothing is more misleading than the evidence of the
show-table, for many that there look the best, and are indeed lovely in
form and colour as individual blooms, come from plants that are of no
garden value. For however charming in humanity is the virtue modesty,
and however becoming is the unobtrusive bearing that gives evidence of
its possession, it is quite misplaced in a Dahlia. Here it becomes a
vice, for the Dahlia's first duty in life is to flaunt and to swagger
and to carry gorgeous blooms well above its leaves, and on no account to
hang its head. Some of the delicately-coloured kinds lately raised not
only hang their heads, but also hide them away among masses of their
coarse foliage, and are doubly frauds, looking everything that is
desirable in the show, and proving worthless in the garden. It is true
that there are ways of cutting out superfluous green stuff and thereby
encouraging the blooms to show up, but at a busy season, when rank
leafage grows fast, one does not want to be every other day tinkering at
the Dahlias.
Careful and strong staking they must always have, not forgetting one
central stake to secure the main growth at first. It is best to drive
this into the hole made for the plant before placing the root, to avoid
the danger of sending the point of the stake through the tender tubers.
Its height out of the ground should be about eighteen inches less than
the expected stature of the plant. As the Dahlia grows, there should be
at least three outer stakes at such distance from the middle one as may
suit the bulk and habit of the plant; and it is a good plan to have
wooden hoops to tie to these, so as to form a girdle round the whole
plant, and for tying out the outer branches. The hoop should be only
loosely fastened--best with roomy loops of osier, so that it may be
easily shifted up with the growth of the plant. We make the hoops in the
winter of long straight rent rods of Spanish Chestnut, bending them
while green round a tub, and tying them with tarred twine or osier
bands. They last several years. All this care in staking the Dahlias is
labour well bestowed, for when autumn storms come the wind has such a
power of wrenching and twisting, that unless the plant, now grown into a
heavy mass of succulent vegetation, is braced by firm fixing at the
sides, it is in danger of being broken off short just above the ground,
where its stem has become almost woody, and therefore brittle.
Now is the moment to get to work on the rock-garden; there is no time of
year so precious for this work as September. Small things planted now,
while the ground is still warm, grow at the root at once, and get both
anchor-hold and feeding-hold of the ground before frost comes. Those
that are planted later do not take hold, and every frost heaves them up,
sometimes right out of the ground. Meanwhile those that have got a firm
root-hold are growing steadily all the winter, underground if not above;
and when the first spring warmth comes they can draw upon the reserve of
strength they have been hoarding up, and make good growth at once.
Except in the case of a rockery only a year old, there is sure to be
some part that wants to be worked afresh, and I find it convenient to do
about a third of the space every year. Many of the indispensable Alpines
and rock-plants of lowly growth increase at a great rate, some spreading
over much more than their due space, the very reason of this
quick-spreading habit being that they are travelling to fresh pasture;
many of them prove it clearly by dying away in the middle of the patch,
and only showing vigorous vitality at the edges.
Such plants as _Silene alpestris_, _Hutchinsia alpina_, _Pterocephalus_,
the dwarf alpine kinds of _Achillea_ and _Artemisia_, _Veronica_ and
_Linaria_, and the mossy Saxifrages, in my soil want transplanting every
two years, and the silvery Saxifrages every three years. As in much
else, one must watch what happens in one's own garden. We practical
gardeners have no absolute knowledge of the constitution of the plant,
still less of the chemistry of the soil, but by the constant exercise of
watchful care and helpful sympathy we acquire a certain degree of
instinctive knowledge, which is as valuable in its way, and probably
more applicable to individual local conditions, than the tabulated
formulas of more orthodox science.
One of the best and simplest ways of growing rock-plants is in a loose
wall. In many gardens an abrupt change of level makes a retaining wall
necessary, and when I see this built in the usual way as a solid
structure of brick and mortar--unless there be any special need of the
solid wall--I always regret that it is not built as a home for
rock-plants. An exposure to north or east and the cool backing of a mass
of earth is just what most Alpines delight in. A dry wall, which means a
wall without mortar, may be anything between a wall and a very steep
rock-work, and may be built of brick or of any kind of local stone. I
have built and planted a good many hundred yards of dry walling with my
own hands, both at home and in other gardens, and can speak with some
confidence both of the pleasure and interest of the actual making and
planting, and of the satisfactory results that follow.
The best example I have to show in my own garden is the so-called "Old
Wall," before mentioned. It is the bounding and protecting fence of the
Paeony ground on its northern side, and consists of a double dry wall
with earth between. An old hedge bank that was to come away was not far
off, within easy wheeling distance. So the wall was built up on each
side, and as it grew, the earth from the hedge was barrowed in to fill
up. A dry wall needs very little foundation; two thin courses
underground are quite enough. The point of most structural importance is
to keep the earth solidly trodden and rammed behind the stones of each
course and throughout its bulk, and every two or three courses to lay
some stones that are extra long front and back, to tie the wall well
into the bank. A local sandstone is the walling material. In the pit it
occurs in separate layers, with a few feet of hard sand between each.
The lowest layer, sometimes thirty to forty feet down, is the best and
thickest, but that is good building stone, and for dry walling we only
want "tops" or "seconds," the later and younger formations of stone in
the quarry. The very roughness and almost rotten state of much of this
stone makes it all the more acceptable as nourishment and root-hold to
the tiny plants that are to grow in its chinks, and that in a few months
will change much of the rough rock-surface to green growth of delicate
vegetation. Moreover, much of the soft sandy stone hardens by exposure
to weather; and even if a stone or two crumbles right away in a few
years' time, the rest will hold firmly, and the space left will make a
little cave where some small fern will live happily.
The wall is planted as it is built with hardy Ferns--_Blechnum_,
Polypody, Hartstongue, _Adiantum_, _Ceterach_, _Asplenium_, and _Ruta
muraria_. The last three like lime, so a barrow of old mortar-rubbish is
at hand, and the joint where they are to be planted has a layer of their
favourite soil. Each course is laid fairly level as to its front top
edge, stones of about the same thickness going in course by course. The
earth backing is then carefully rammed into the spaces at the uneven
backs of the stones, and a thin layer of earth over the whole course,
where the mortar would have been in a built wall, gives both a "bed" for
the next row of stones and soil for the plants that are to grow in the
joints.
[Illustration: JACK. (_See page 79._)]
[Illustration: THE "OLD WALL."]
The face of the wall slopes backward on both sides, so that its whole
thickness of five feet at the bottom draws in to four feet at the top.
All the stones are laid at a right angle to the plane of the
inclination--that is to say, each stone tips a little down at the back,
and its front edge, instead of being upright, faces a little upward. It
follows that every drop of gentle rain that falls on either side of the
wall is carried into the joints, following the backward and downward
pitch of the stones, and then into the earth behind them.
The mass of earth in the middle of the wall gives abundant root-room for
bushes, and is planted with bush Roses of three kinds, of which the
largest mass is of _Rosa lucida_. Then there is a good stretch of
Berberis; then Scotch Briars, and in one or two important places
Junipers; then more Berberis, and Ribes, and the common Barberry, and
neat bushes of _Olearia Haastii_.
The wall was built seven years ago, and is now completely clothed. It
gives me a garden on the top and a garden on each side, and though its
own actual height is only 4-1/2 feet, yet the bushes on the top make it
a sheltering hedge from seven to ten feet high. One small length of
three or four yards of the top has been kept free of larger bushes, and
is planted on its northern edge with a very neat and pretty dwarf kind
of Lavender, while on the sunny side is a thriving patch of the hardy
Cactus (_Opuntia Raffinesquiana_). Just here, in the narrow border at
the foot of the wall, is a group of the beautiful _Crinum Powelli_,
while a white Jasmine clothes the face of the wall right and left, and
rambles into the Barberry bushes just beyond. It so happened that these
things had been planted close together because the conditions of the
place were likely to favour them, and not, as is my usual practice, with
any intentional idea of harmonious grouping. I did not even remember
that they all flower in July, and at nearly the same time; and one day
seeing them all in bloom together, I was delighted to see the success of
the chance arrangement, and how pretty it all was, for I should never
have thought of grouping together pink and lavender, yellow and white.
The northern face of the wall, beginning at its eastern end, is planted
thus: For a length of ten or twelve paces there are Ferns, Polypody and
Hartstongue, and a few _Adiantum nigrum_, with here and there a Welsh
Poppy. There is a clump of the wild Stitchwort that came by itself, and
is so pretty that I leave it. At the foot of the wall are the same, but
more of the Hartstongue; and here it grows best, for not only is the
place cooler, but I gave it some loamy soil, which it loves. Farther
along the Hartstongue gives place to the wild Iris (_I. foetidissima_),
a good long stretch of it. Nothing, to my mind, looks better than these
two plants at the base of a wall on the cool side. In the upper part of
the wall are various Ferns, and that interesting plant, Wall Pennywort
(_Cotyledon umbilicus_). It is a native plant, but not found in this
neighbourhood; I brought it from Cornwall, where it is so plentiful in
the chinks of the granite stone-fences. It sows itself and grows afresh
year after year, though I always fear to lose it in one of our dry
summers. Next comes the common London Pride, which I think quite the
most beautiful of the Saxifrages of this section. If it was a rare
thing, what a fuss we should make about it! The place is a little dry
for it, but all the same, it makes a handsome spreading tuft hanging
over the face of the wall. When its pink cloud of bloom is at its best,
I always think it the prettiest thing in the garden. Then there is the
Yellow Everlasting (_Gnaphalium orientale_), a fine plant for the upper
edge of the wall, and even better on the sunny side, and the white form
of _Campanula caespitosa_, with its crowd of delicate little white
bells rising in June, from the neatest foliage of tender but lively
green. Then follow deep-hanging curtains of Yellow Alyssum and of hybrid
rock Pinks. The older plants of Alyssum are nearly worn out, but there
are plenty of promising young seedlings in the lower joints.
[Illustration: ERINUS ALPINUS, CLOTHING STEPS IN ROCK-WALL.]
Throughout the wall there are patches of Polypody Fern, one of the best
of cool wall-plants, its creeping root-stock always feeling its way
along the joints, and steadily furnishing the wall with more and more of
its neat fronds; it is all the more valuable for being at its best in
early winter, when so few ferns are to be seen. Every year, in some bare
places, I sow a little seed of _Erinus alpinus_, always trying for
places where it will follow some other kind of plant, such as a place
where rock Pink or Alyssum has been. All plants are the better for this
sort of change. In the seven years that the wall has stood, the stones
have become weathered, and the greater part of the north side, wherever
the stone work shows, is hoary with mosses, and looks as if it might
have been standing for a hundred years.
The sunny side is nearly clear of moss, and I have planted very few
things in its face, because the narrow border at its foot is so precious
for shrubs and plants that like a warm, sheltered place. Here are
several Choisyas and Sweet Verbenas, also _Escallonia_, _Stuartia_, and
_Styrax_, and a long straggling group of some very fine Pentstemons. In
one space that was fairly clear I planted a bit of Hyssop, an old sweet
herb whose scent I delight in; it grows into a thick bush-like plant
full of purple flower in the late summer, when it attracts quantities of
bumble-bees. It is a capital wall-plant, and has sown its own seed, till
there is a large patch on the top and some in its face, and a
broadly-spreading group in the border below. It is one of the plants
that was used in the old Tudor gardens for edgings; the growth is close
and woody at the base, and it easily bears clipping into shape.
The fierce gales and heavy rains of the last days of September wrought
sad havoc among the flowers. Dahlias were virtually wrecked. Though each
plant had been tied to three stakes, their masses of heavy growth could
not resist the wrenching and twisting action of the wind, and except in
a few cases where they were well sheltered, their heads lay on the
ground, the stems broken down at the last tie. If anything about a
garden could be disheartening, it would be its aspect after such a storm
of wind. Wall shrubs, only lately made safe, as we thought, have great
gaps torn out of them, though tied with tarred string to strong iron
staples, staples and all being wrenched out. Everything looks battered,
and whipped, and ashamed; branches of trees and shrubs lie about far
from their sources of origin; green leaves and little twigs are washed
up into thick drifts; apples and quinces, that should have hung till
mid-October, lie bruised and muddy under the trees. Newly-planted roses
and hollies have a funnel-shaped hole worked in the ground at their
base, showing the power of the wind to twist their heads, and giving
warning of a corresponding disturbance of the tender roots. There is
nothing to be done but to look round carefully and search out all
disasters and repair them as well as may be, and to sweep up the
wreckage and rubbish, and try to forget the rough weather, and enjoy the
calm beauty of the better days that follow, and hope that it may be long
before such another angry storm is sent. And indeed a few quiet days of
sunshine and mild temperature work wonders. In a week one would hardly
know that the garden had been so cruelly torn about. Fresh flowers take
the place of bruised ones, and wholesome young growths prove the
enduring vitality of vegetable life. Still we cannot help feeling,
towards the end of September, that the flower year is nearly at an end,
though the end is a gorgeous one, with its strong yellow masses of the
later perennial Sunflowers and Marigolds, Goldenrod, and a few belated
Gladioli; the brilliant foliage of Virginian Creepers, the leaf-painting
of _Vitis Coignettii_, and the strong crimson of the Claret Vine.
The Water-elder (_Viburnum opulus_) now makes a brave show in the edge
of the copse. It is without doubt the most beautiful berry-bearing shrub
of mid-September. The fruit hangs in ample clusters from the point of
every branch and of every lateral twig, in colour like the brightest of
red currants, but with a translucent lustre that gives each separate
berry a much brighter look; the whole bush shows fine warm colouring,
the leaves having turned to a rich red. Perhaps it is because it is a
native that this grand shrub or small tree is generally neglected in
gardens, and is almost unknown in nurserymen's catalogues. It is the
parent of the well-known Guelder-Rose, which is merely its
double-flowered form. But the double flower leaves no berry, its
familiar white ball being formed of the sterile part of the flower only,
and the foliage of the garden kind does not assume so bright an autumn
colouring.
The nights are growing chilly, with even a little frost, and the work
for the coming season of dividing and transplanting hardy plants has
already begun. Plans are being made for any improvements or alterations
that involve ground work. Already we have been at work on some broad
grass rides through the copse that were roughly levelled and laid with
grass last winter. The turf has been raised and hollows filled in, grass
seed sown in bare patches, and the whole beaten and rolled to a good
surface, and the job put out of hand in good time before the leaves
begin to fall.