LARGE AND SMALL GARDENS
A well done villa garden -- A small town garden -- Two delightful
gardens of small size -- Twenty acres within the walls -- A large
country house and its garden -- Terrace -- Lawn -- Parterre -- Free
garden -- Kitchen garden -- Buildings -- Ornamental orchard --
Instructive mixed gardens -- Mr. Wilson's at Wisley -- A window garden.
The size of a garden has very little to do with its merit. It is merely
an accident relating to the circumstances of the owner. It is the size
of his heart and brain and goodwill that will make his garden either
delightful or dull, as the case may be, and either leave it at the usual
monotonous dead-level, or raise it, in whatever degree may be, towards
that of a work of fine art. If a man knows much, it is more difficult
for him to deal with a small space than a larger, for he will have to
make the more sacrifice; but if he is wise he will at once make up his
mind about what he will let go, and how he may best treat the restricted
space. Some years ago I visited a small garden attached to a villa on
the outskirts of a watering-place on the south coast. In ordinary hands
it would have been a perfectly commonplace thing, with the usual weary
mixture, and exhibiting the usual distressing symptoms that come in the
train of the ministrations of the jobbing-gardener. In size it may have
been a third of an acre, and it was one of the most interesting and
enjoyable gardens I have ever seen, its master and mistress giving it
daily care and devotion, and enjoying to the full its glad response of
grateful growth. The master had built with his own hands, on one side
where more privacy was wanted, high rugged walls, with spaces for many
rock-loving plants, and had made the wall die away so cleverly into the
rock-garden, that the whole thing looked like a garden founded on some
ancient ruined structure. And it was all done with so much taste that
there was nothing jarring or strained-looking, still less anything
cockneyfied, but all easy and pleasant and pretty, while the happy look
of the plants at once proclaimed his sympathy with them, and his
comprehensive knowledge of their wants. In the same garden was a walled
enclosure where Tree Paeonies and some of the hardier of the oriental
Rhododendrons were thriving, and there were pretty spaces of lawn, and
flower border, and shrub clump, alike beautiful and enjoyable, all
within a small space, and yet not crowded--the garden of one who was a
keen flower lover, as well as a world-known botanist.
I am always thankful to have seen this garden, because it showed me, in
a way that had never been so clearly brought home to me, how much may be
done in a small space.
Another and much smaller garden that I remember with pleasure was in a
sort of yard among houses, in a country town. The house it belonged to,
a rather high one, was on its east side, and halfway along on the south;
the rest was bounded by a wall about ten feet high. Opposite the house
the owner had built of rough blocks of sandstone what served as a
workshop, about twelve feet long along the wall, and six feet wide
within. A low archway of the same rough stone was the entrance, and
immediately above it a lean-to roof sloped up to the top of the wall,
which just here had been carried a little higher. The roof was of large
flat sandstones, only slightly lapping over each other, with spaces and
chinks where grew luxuriant masses of Polypody Fern. It was contrived
with a cement bed, so that it was quite weather-tight, and the room was
lighted by a skylight at one end that did not show from the garden. A
small surface of lead-flat, on a level with the top of the wall, in one
of the opposite angles, carried an old oil-jar, from which fell masses
of gorgeous Tropaeolum, and the actual surface of the flat was a garden
of Stonecrops. The rounded coping of the walls, and the joints in many
places (for the wall was an old one), were gay with yellow Corydalis and
Snapdragons and more Stonecrops. The little garden had a few pleasant
flowering bushes, Ribes and Laurustinus, a Bay and an Almond tree. In
the coolest and shadiest corner were a fern-grotto and a tiny tank. The
rest of the garden, only a few yards across, was laid out with a square
bed in the middle, and a little path round, then a three-feet-wide
border next the wall, all edged with rather tall-grown Box. The middle
bed had garden Roses and Carnations, and Mignonette and Stocks. All
round were well-chosen plants and shrubs, looking well and happy, though
in a confined and rather airless space. Every square foot had been made
the most of with the utmost ingenuity, but the ingenuity was always
directed by good taste, so that nothing looked crowded or out of place.
And I think of two other gardens of restricted space, both long strips
of ground walled at the sides, whose owners I am thankful to count among
my friends--one in the favoured climate of the Isle of Wight, a little
garden where I suppose there are more rare and beautiful plants brought
together within a small space than perhaps in any other garden of the
same size in England; the other in a cathedral town, now a memory only,
for the master of what was one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever
seen now lives elsewhere. The garden was long in shape, and divided
about midway by a wall. The division next the house was a quiet lawn,
with a mulberry tree and a few mounded borders near the sides that were
unobstrusive, and in no way spoilt the quiet feeling of the lawn space.
Then a doorway in the dividing wall led to a straight path with a double
flower border. I suppose there was a vegetable garden behind the
borders, but of that I have no recollection, only a vivid remembrance of
that brilliantly beautiful mass of flowers. The picture was good enough
as one went along, especially as at the end one came first within sound
and then within sight of a rushing river, one of those swift, clear,
shallow streams with stony bottom that the trout love; but it was ten
times more beautiful on turning to go back, for there was the mass of
flowers, and towering high above it the noble mass of the giant
structure--one of the greatest and yet most graceful buildings that has
ever been raised by man to the glory of God.
It is true that it is not every one that has the advantage of a garden
bounded by a river and a noble church, but even these advantages might
have been lost by vulgar or unsuitable treatment of the garden. But the
mind of the master was so entirely in sympathy with the place, that no
one that had the privilege of seeing it could feel that it was otherwise
than right and beautiful.
Both these were the gardens of clergymen; indeed, some of our greatest
gardeners are, and have been, within the ranks of the Church. For have
we not a brilliantly-gifted dignitary whose loving praise of the Queen
of flowers has become a classic? and have we not among churchmen the
greatest grower of seedling Daffodils the world has yet seen, and other
names of clergymen honourably associated with Roses and Auriculas and
Tulips and other good flowers, and all greatly to their bettering? The
conditions of the life of a parish priest would tend to make him a good
gardener, for, while other men roam about, he stays mostly at home, and
to live with one's garden is one of the best ways to ensure its welfare.
And then, among the many anxieties and vexations and disappointments
that must needs grieve the heart of the pastor of his people, his
garden, with its wholesome labour and all its lessons of patience and
trust and hopefulness, and its comforting power of solace, must be one
of the best of medicines for the healing of his often sorrowing soul.
I do not envy the owners of very large gardens. The garden should fit
its master or his tastes just as his clothes do; it should be neither
too large nor too small, but just comfortable. If the garden is larger
than he can individually govern and plan and look after, then he is no
longer its master but its slave, just as surely as the much-too-rich man
is the slave and not the master of his superfluous wealth. And when I
hear of the great place with a kitchen garden of twenty acres within the
walls, my heart sinks as I think of the uncomfortable disproportion
between the man and those immediately around him, and his vast output of
edible vegetation, and I fall to wondering how much of it goes as it
should go, or whether the greater part of it does not go dribbling away,
leaking into unholy back-channels; and of how the looking after it must
needs be subdivided; and of how many side-interests are likely to
steal in, and altogether how great a burden of anxiety or matter of
temptation it must give rise to. A grand truth is in the old farmer's
saying, "The master's eye makes the pig fat;" but how can any one
master's eye fat that vast pig of twenty acres, with all its minute and
costly cultivation, its two or three crops a year off all ground given
to soft vegetables, its stoves, greenhouses, orchid and orchard houses,
its vineries, pineries, figgeries, and all manner of glass structures?
But happily these monstrous gardens are but few--I only know of or have
seen two, but I hope never to see another.
Nothing is more satisfactory than to see the well-designed and
well-organised garden of the large country house, whose master loves his
garden, and has good taste and a reasonable amount of leisure.
I think that the first thing in such a place is to have large unbroken
lawn spaces--all the better if they are continuous, passing round the
south and west sides of the house. I am supposing a house of the best
class, but not necessarily of the largest size. Immediately adjoining
the house, except for the few feet needed for a border for climbing
plants, is a broad walk, dry and smooth, and perfectly level from end to
end. This, in the case of many houses, and nearly always with good
effect, is raised two or three feet above the garden ground, and if the
architecture of the house demands it, has a retaining wall surmounted by
a balustrade of masonry and wrought stone. Broad and shallow stone
steps lead down to the turf both at the end of the walk and in the
middle of the front of the house, the wider and shallower the better,
and at the foot of the wall may be a narrow border for a few climbing
plants that will here and there rise above the coping of the parapet. I
do not think it desirable where there are stone balusters or other
distinct architectural features to let them be smothered with climbing
plants, but that there should be, say, a _Pyrus japonica_ or an
Escallonia, and perhaps a white Jasmine, and on a larger space perhaps a
cut-leaved or a Claret Vine. Some of the best effects of the kind I have
seen were where the bush, being well established, rose straight out of
the grass, the border being unnecessary except just at the beginning.
The large lawn space I am supposing stretches away a good distance from
the house, and is bounded on the south and west by fine trees; away
beyond that is all wild wood. On summer afternoons the greater part of
the lawn expanse is in cool shade, while winter sunsets show through the
tree stems. Towards the south-east the wood would pass into shrub
plantations, and farther still into garden and wild orchard (of which I
shall have something to say presently). At this end of the lawn would be
the brilliant parterre of bedded plants, seen both from the shaded lawn
and from the terrace, which at this end forms part of its design. Beyond
the parterre would be a distinct division from the farther garden,
either of Yew or Box hedge, with bays for seats, or in the case of a
change of level, of another terrace wall. The next space beyond would be
the main garden for hardy plants, at its southern end leading into the
wild orchard. This would be the place for the free garden or the reserve
garden, or for any of the many delightful ways in which hardy flowers
can be used; and if it happened by good fortune to have a stream or any
means of having running water, the possibilities of beautiful gardening
would be endless.
[Illustration: GARLAND-ROSE WREATHING THE END OF A TERRACE WALL.]
Beyond this again would come the kitchen garden, and after that the
stables and the home farm. If the kitchen garden had a high wall, and
might be entered on this side by handsome wrought-iron gates, I would
approach it from the parterre by a broad grass walk bounded by large Bay
trees at equal intervals to right and left. Through these to the right
would be seen the free garden of hardy flowers.
For the kitchen garden a space of two acres would serve a large country
house with all that is usually grown within walls, but there should
always be a good space outside for the rougher vegetables, as well as a
roomy yard for compost, pits and frames, and rubbish.
And here I wish to plead on behalf of the gardener that he should have
all reasonable comforts and conveniences. Nothing is more frequent, even
in good places, than to find the potting and tool sheds screwed away
into some awkward corner, badly lighted, much too small, and altogether
inadequate, and the pits and frames scattered about and difficult to get
at. Nothing is more wasteful of time, labour, or temper. The working
parts of a large garden form a complicated organisation, and if the
parts of the mechanism do not fit and work well, and are not properly
eased and oiled, still more, if any are missing, there must be
disastrous friction and damage and loss of power. In designing garden
buildings, I always strongly urge in connection with the heating system
a warmed potting shed and a comfortable messroom for the men, and over
this a perfectly dry loft for drying and storing such matters as shading
material, nets, mats, ropes, and sacks. If this can be warmed, so much
the better. There must also be a convenient and quite frost-proof place
for winter storing of vegetable roots and such plants as Dahlias,
Cannas, and Gladiolus; and also a well-lighted and warmed workshop for
all the innumerable jobs put aside for wet weather, of which the chief
will be repainting and glazing of lights, repairing implements, and
grinding and setting tools. This shop should have a carpenter's bench
and screw, and a smith's anvil, and a proper assortment of tools. Such
arrangements, well planned and thought out, will save much time and loss
of produce, besides helping to make all the people employed more
comfortable and happy.
I think that a garden should never be large enough to be tiring, that if
a large space has to be dealt with, a great part had better be laid out
in wood. Woodland is always charming and restful and enduringly
beautiful, and then there is an intermediate kind of woodland that
should be made more of--woodland of the orchard type. Why is the orchard
put out of the way, as it generally is, in some remote region beyond the
kitchen garden and stables? I should like the lawn, or the hardy flower
garden, or both, to pass directly into it on one side, and to plant a
space of several acres, not necessarily in the usual way, with orchard
standards twenty-five feet apart in straight rows (though in many places
the straight rows might be best), but to have groups and even groves of
such things as Medlars and Quinces, Siberian and Chinese Crabs, Damsons,
Prunes, Service trees, and Mountain Ash, besides Apples, Pears, and
Cherries, in both standard and bush forms. Then alleys of Filbert and
Cob-nut, and in the opener spaces tangles or brakes of the many
beautiful bushy things allied to the Apple and Plum tribe--_Cydonia_ and
_Prunus triloba_ and _Crataegus_ of many kinds (some of them are tall
bushes or small trees with beautiful fruits); and the wild Blackthorn,
which, though a plum, is so nearly related to pear that pears may be
grafted on it. And then brakes of Blackberries, especially of the
Parsley-leaved kind, so free of growth and so generous of fruit. How is
it that this fine native plant is almost invariably sold in nurseries as
an American bramble? If I am mistaken in this I should be glad to be
corrected, but I believe it to be only the cut-leaved variety of the
native _Rubus affinis_.
I have tried the best of the American kinds, and with the exception of
one year, when I had a few fine fruits from Kittatinny, they had been a
failure, whereas invariably when people have told me that their American
Blackberries have fruited well, I have found them to be the
Parsley-leaved.
Some members of the large Rose-Apple-Plum tribe grow to be large forest
trees, and in my wild orchard they would go in the farther parts. The
Bird-cherry (_Prunus padus_) grows into a tree of the largest size. A
Mountain Ash will sometimes have a trunk two feet in diameter, and a
head of a size to suit. The American kind, its near relation, but with
larger leaves and still grander masses of berries, is a noble small
tree; and the native white Beam should not be forgotten, and choice
places should be given to Amelanchier and the lovely double Japan Apple
(_Pyrus malus floribunda_). To give due space and effect to all these
good things my orchard garden would run into a good many acres, but
every year it would be growing into beauty and profit. The grass should
be left rough, and plentifully planted with Daffodils, and with Cowslips
if the soil is strong. The grass would be mown and made into hay in
June, and perhaps mown once more towards the end of September. Under the
nut-trees would be Primroses and the garden kinds of wood Hyacinths and
Dogtooth Violets and Lily of the Valley, and perhaps Snowdrops, or any
of the smaller bulbs that most commended themselves to the taste of the
master.
Such an orchard garden, well-composed and beautifully grouped, always
with that indispensable quality of good "drawing," would not only be a
source of unending pleasure to those who lived in the place, but a
valuable lesson to all who saw it; for it would show the value of the
simple and sensible ways of using a certain class of related trees and
bushes, and of using them with a deliberate intention of making the best
of them, instead of the usual meaningless-nohow way of planting. This,
in nine cases out of ten, means either ignorance or carelessness, the
planter not caring enough about the matter to take the trouble to find
out what is best to be done, and being quite satisfied with a mixed lot
of shrubs, as offered in nursery sales, or with the choice of the
nurseryman. I do not presume to condemn all mixed planting, only stupid
and ignorant mixed planting. It is not given to all people to take their
pleasures alike; and I have in my mind four gardens, all of the highest
interest, in which the planting is all mixed; but then the mixture is of
admirable ingredients, collected and placed on account of individual
merit, and a ramble round any one of these in company with its owner is
a pleasure and a privilege that one cannot prize too highly. Where the
garden is of such large extent that experimental planting is made with a
good number of one good thing at a time, even though there was no
premeditated intention of planting for beautiful effect, the fact of
there being enough plants to fall into large groups, and to cover some
extent of ground, produces numbers of excellent results. I remember
being struck with this on several occasions when I have had the
happiness of visiting Mr. G. F. Wilson's garden at Wisley, a garden
which I take to be about the most instructive it is possible to see. In
one part, where the foot of the hill joined the copse, there were hosts
of lovely things planted on a succession of rather narrow banks. Almost
unthinkingly I expressed the regret I felt that so much individual
beauty should be there without an attempt to arrange it for good effect.
Mr. Wilson stopped, and looking at me straight with a kindly smile, said
very quietly, "That is your business, not mine." In spite of its being a
garden whose first object is trial and experiment, it has left in my
memory two pictures, among several lesser ones, of plant-beauty that
will stay with me as long as I can remember anything, one an autumn and
one a spring picture--the hedge of _Rosa rugosa_ in full fruit, and a
plantation of _Primula denticulata_. The Primrose was on a bit of level
ground, just at the outer and inner edges of the hazel copse. The plants
were both grouped and thinly sprinkled, just as nature plants--possibly
they grew directly there from seed. They were in superb and luxuriant
beauty in the black peaty-looking half-boggy earth, the handsome
leaves of the brilliant colour and large size that told of perfect
health and vigour, and the large round heads of pure lilac flower
carried on strong stalks that must have been fifteen inches high. I
never saw it so happy and so beautiful. It is a plant I much admire, and
I do the best I can for it on my dry hill; but the conditions of my
garden do not allow of any approach to the success of the Wisley plants;
still I have treasured that lesson among many others I have brought away
from that good garden, and never fail to advise some such treatment when
I see the likely home for it in other places.
[Illustration: A ROADSIDE COTTAGE GARDEN.]
Some of the most delightful of all gardens are the little strips in
front of roadside cottages. They have a simple and tender charm that one
may look for in vain in gardens of greater pretension. And the old
garden flowers seem to know that there they are seen at their best; for
where else can one see such Wallflowers, or Double Daisies, or White
Rose bushes; such clustering masses of perennial Peas, or such well-kept
flowery edgings of Pink, or Thrift, or London Pride?
Among a good many calls for advice about laying out gardens, I remember
an early one that was of special interest. It was the window-box of a
factory lad in one of the great northern manufacturing towns. He had
advertised in a mechanical paper that he wanted a tiny garden, as full
of interest as might be, in a window-box; he knew nothing--would
somebody help him with advice? So advice was sent and the box prepared.
If I remember rightly the size was three feet by ten inches. A little
later the post brought him little plants of mossy and silvery
saxifrages, and a few small bulbs. Even some stones were sent, for it
was to be a rock-garden, and there were to be two hills of different
heights with rocky tops, and a longish valley with a sunny and a shady
side.
It was delightful to have the boy's letters, full of keen interest and
eager questions, and only difficult to restrain him from killing his
plants with kindness, in the way of liberal doses of artificial manure.
The very smallness of the tiny garden made each of its small features
the more precious. I could picture his feeling of delightful
anticipation when he saw the first little bluish blade of the Snowdrop
patch pierce its mossy carpet. Would it, could it really grow into a
real Snowdrop, with the modest, milk-white flower and the pretty green
hearts on the outside of the inner petals, and the clear green stripes
within? and would it really nod him a glad good-morning when he opened
his window to greet it? And those few blunt reddish horny-looking snouts
just coming through the ground, would they really grow into the
brilliant blue of the early Squill, that would be like a bit of
midsummer sky among the grimy surroundings of the attic window, and
under that grey, soot-laden northern sky? I thought with pleasure how he
would watch them in spare minutes of the dinner-hour spent at home, and
think of them as he went forward and back to his work, and how the
remembrance of the tender beauty of the full-blown flower would make him
glad, and lift up his heart while "minding his mule" in the busy
restless mill.