THE FLOWER-BORDER AND PERGOLA
The flower-border -- The wall and its occupants -- _Choisya ternata_ --
Nandina -- Canon Ellacombe's garden -- Treatment of colour-masses --
Arrangement of plants in the border -- Dahlias and Cannas -- Covering
bare places -- The pergola -- How made -- Suitable climbers -- Arbours
of trained Planes -- Garden houses.
I have a rather large "mixed border of hardy flowers." It is not quite
so hopelessly mixed as one generally sees, and the flowers are not all
hardy; but as it is a thing everybody rightly expects, and as I have
been for a good many years trying to puzzle out its wants and ways, I
will try and describe my own and its surroundings.
There is a sandstone wall of pleasant colour at the back, nearly eleven
feet high. This wall is an important feature in the garden, as it is the
dividing line between the pleasure garden and the working garden; also,
it shelters the pleasure garden from the sweeping blasts of wind from
the north-west, to which my ground is much exposed, as it is all on a
gentle slope, going downward towards the north. At the foot of the wall
is a narrow border three feet six inches wide, and then a narrow alley,
not a made path, but just a way to go along for tending the wall
shrubs, and for getting at the back of the border. This little alley
does not show from the front. Then the main border, fourteen feet wide
and two hundred feet long. About three-quarters of the way along a path
cuts through the border, and passes by an arched gateway in the wall to
the Paeony garden and the working garden beyond. Just here I thought it
would be well to mound up the border a little, and plant with groups of
Yuccas, so that at all times of the year there should be something to
make a handsome full-stop to the sections of the border, and to glorify
the doorway. The two extreme ends of the border are treated in the same
way with Yuccas on rather lesser mounds, only leaving space beyond them
for the entrance to the little alley at the back.
[Illustration: A FLOWER-BORDER IN JUNE.]
The wall and border face two points to the east of south, or, as a
sailor would say, south-south-east, half-way between south and
south-east. In front of the border runs a path seven feet wide, and
where the border stops at the eastern end it still runs on another sixty
feet, under the pergola, to the open end of a summer-house. The wall at
its western end returns forward, square with its length, and hides out
greenhouses, sheds, and garden yard. The path in front of the border
passes through an arch into this yard, but there is no view into the
yard, as it is blocked by some Yews planted in a quarter-circle.
Though wall-space is always precious, I thought it better to block out
this shorter piece of return wall on the garden side with a hedge of
Yews. They are now nearly the height of the wall, and will be allowed to
grow a little higher, and will eventually be cut into an arch over the
arch in the wall. I wanted the sombre duskiness of the Yews as a rich,
quiet background for the brightness of the flowers, though they are
rather disappointing in May and June, when their young shoots are of a
bright and lively green. At the eastern end of the border there is no
return wall, but another planting of Yews equal to the depth of the
border. Notched into them is a stone seat about ten feet long; as they
grow they will be clipped so as to make an arching hood over the seat.
The wall is covered with climbers, or with non-climbing shrubs treated
as wall-plants. They do not all want the wall for warmth or protection,
but are there because I want them there; because, thinking over what
things would look best and give me the greatest pleasure, these came
among them. All the same, the larger number of the plants on the wall do
want it, and would not do without it. At the western end, the only part
which is in shade for the greater part of the day, is a _Garrya
elliptica_. So many of my garden friends like a quiet journey along the
wall to see what is there, that I propose to do the like by my reader;
so first for the wall, and then for the border. Beyond the _Garrya_, in
the extreme angle, is a _Clematis montana_. When the _Garrya_ is more
grown there will not be much room left for the Clematis, but then it
will have become bare below, and can ramble over the wall on the north
side, and, in any case, it is a plant with a not very long lifetime, and
will be nearly or quite worn out before its root-space is reached or
wanted by its neighbours. Next on the wall is the beautiful Rose Acacia
(_Robinia hispida_). It is perfectly hardy, but the wood is so brittle
that it breaks off short with the slightest weight of wind or snow or
rain. I never could understand why a hardy shrub was created so brittle,
or how it behaves in its native place. I look in my "Nicholson," and see
that it comes from North America. Now, North America is a large place,
and there may be in it favoured spots where there is no snow, and only
the very gentlest rain, and so well sheltered that the wind only blows
in faintest breaths; and to judge by its behaviour in our gardens, all
these conditions are necessary for its well-being. This troublesome
quality of brittleness no doubt accounts for its being so seldom seen in
gardens. I began to think it hopeless when, after three plantings in the
open, it was again wrecked, but at last had the happy idea of training
it on a wall. Even there, though it is looked over and tied in twice a
year, a branch or two often gets broken. But I do not regret having
given it the space, as the wall could hardly have had a better ornament,
so beautiful are its rosy flower-clusters and pale-green leaves. As it
inclines to be leggy below, I have trained a Crimson Rambler Rose over
the lower part, tying it in to any bare places in the _Robinia_.
[Illustration: PATHWAY ACROSS THE SOUTH BORDER IN JULY.]
[Illustration: OUTSIDE VIEW OF THE BRICK PERGOLA SHOWN AT PAGE 214,
AFTER SIX YEARS' GROWTH.]
Next along the wall is _Solanum crispum_, much to be recommended in our
southern counties. It covers a good space of wall, and every year shoots
up some feet above it; indeed it is such a lively grower that it has to
endure a severe yearly pruning. Every season it is smothered with its
pretty clusters of potato-shaped bloom of a good bluish-lilac colour.
After these I wanted some solid-looking dark evergreens, so there is a
Loquat, with its splendid foliage equalling that of _Magnolia
grandiflora_, and then Black Laurustinus, Bay, and Japan Privet; and
from among this dark-leaved company shoots up the tender green of a
Banksian Rose, grown from seed of the single kind, the gift of my kind
friend Commendatore Hanbury, whose world-famed garden of La Mortola,
near Ventimiglia, probably contains the most remarkable collection of
plants and shrubs that have ever been brought together by one man. This
Rose has made good growth, and a first few flowers last year--seedling
Roses are slow to bloom--lead me to expect a good show next season.
In the narrow border at the foot of the wall is a bush of _Raphiolepis
ovata_, always to me an interesting shrub, with its thick, roundish,
leathery leaves and white flower-clusters, also bushes of Rosemary, some
just filling the border, and some trained up the wall. Our Tudor
ancestors were fond of Rosemary-covered walls, and I have seen old
bushes quite ten feet high on the garden walls of Italian monasteries.
Among the Rosemaries I always like, if possible, to "tickle in" a China
Rose or two, the tender pink of the Rose seems to go so well with the
dark but dull-surfaced Rosemary. Then still in the wall-border comes a
long straggling mass of that very pretty and interesting herbaceous
Clematis, _C. Davidiana_. The colour of its flower always delights me;
it is of an unusual kind of greyish-blue, of very tender and lovely
quality. It does well in this warm border, growing about three feet
high. Then on the wall come _Pyrus Maulei_ and _Chimonanthus_,
Claret-Vine, and the large-flowered _Ceanothus_ Gloire de Versailles,
hardy _Fuchsia_, and _Magnolia Soulangeana_, ending with a big bush of
_Choisya ternata_, and rambling above it a very fine kind of _Bignonia
grandiflora_.
Then comes the archway, flanked by thick buttresses. A Choisya was
planted just beyond each of these, but it has grown wide and high,
spreading across the face of the buttress on each side, and considerably
invading the pathway. There is no better shrub here than this delightful
Mexican plant; its long whippy roots ramble through our light soil with
every sign of enjoyment; it always looks clean and healthy and well
dressed, and as for its lovely and deliciously sweet flowers, we cut
them by the bushel, and almost by the faggot, and the bushes scarcely
look any the emptier.
Beyond the archway comes the shorter length of wall and border. For
convenience I planted all slightly tender things together on this bit of
wall and border; then we make one job of covering the whole with
fir-boughs for protection in winter. On the wall are _Piptanthus
nepalensis_, _Cistus ladaniferus_, _Edwardsia grandiflora_, and another
Loquat, and in the border a number of Hydrangeas, _Clerodendron
foetidum_, _Crinums_, and _Nandina domestica_, the Chinese so-called
sacred Bamboo. It is not a Bamboo at all, but allied to _Berberis_; the
Chinese plant it for good luck near their houses. If it is as lucky as
it is pretty, it ought to do one good! I first made acquaintance with
this beautiful plant in Canon Ellacombe's most interesting garden at
Bitton, in Gloucestershire, where it struck me as one of the most
beautiful growing things I had ever seen, the beauty being mostly in the
form and colouring of the leaves. It is not perhaps a plant for
everybody, and barely hardly; it seems slow to get hold, and its full
beauty only shows when it is well established, and throws up its
wonderfully-coloured leaves on tall bamboo-like stalks.
There is nothing much more difficult to do in outdoor gardening than to
plant a mixed border well, and to keep it in beauty throughout the
summer. Every year, as I gain more experience, and, I hope, more power
of critical judgment, I find myself tending towards broader and simpler
effects, both of grouping and colour. I do not know whether it is by
individual preference, or in obedience to some colour-law that I can
instinctively feel but cannot pretend even to understand, and much less
to explain, but in practice I always find more satisfaction and facility
in treating the warm colours (reds and yellows) in graduated harmonies,
culminating into gorgeousness, and the cool ones in contrasts;
especially in the case of blue, which I like to use either in distinct
but not garish contrasts, as of full blue with pale yellow, or in
separate cloud-like harmonies, as of lilac and pale purple with grey
foliage. I am never so much inclined to treat the blues, purples, and
lilacs in gradations together as I am the reds and yellows. Purples and
lilacs I can put together, but not these with blues; and the pure blues
always seem to demand peculiar and very careful treatment.
The western end of the flower-border begins with the low bank of Yuccas,
then there are some rather large masses of important grey and glaucous
foliage and pale and full pink flower. The foliage is mostly of the
Globe Artichoke, and nearer the front of _Artemisia_ and _Cineraria
maritima_. Among this, pink Canterbury Bell, Hollyhock, Phlox,
Gladiolus, and Japan Anemone, all in pink colourings, will follow one
another in due succession. Then come some groups of plants bearing
whitish and very pale flowers, _Polygonum compactum_, _Aconitum
lycoctonum_, Double Meadowsweet, and other Spiraeas, and then the colour
passes to pale yellow of Mulleins, and with them the palest blue
Delphiniums. Towards the front is a wide planting of _Iris pallida
dalmatica_, its handsome bluish foliage showing as outstanding and yet
related masses with regard to the first large group of pale foliage.
Then comes the pale-yellow _Iris flavescens_, and meanwhile the group
of Delphinium deepens into those of a fuller blue colour, though none of
the darkest are here. Then more pale yellow of Mullein, Thalictrum, and
Paris Daisy, and so the colour passes to stronger yellows. These change
into orange, and from that to brightest scarlet and crimson, coming to
the fullest strength in the Oriental Poppies of the earlier year, and
later in Lychnis, Gladiolus, Scarlet Dahlia, and Tritoma. The
colour-scheme then passes again through orange and yellow to the paler
yellows, and so again to blue and warm white, where it meets one of the
clumps of Yuccas flanking the path that divides this longer part of the
border from the much shorter piece beyond. This simple procession of
colour arrangement has occupied a space of a hundred and sixty feet, and
the border is all the better for it.
The short length of border beyond the gateway has again Yuccas and
important pale foliage, and a preponderance of pink bloom, Hydrangea for
the most part; but there are a few tall Mulleins, whose pale-yellow
flowers group well with the ivory of the Yucca spikes and the clear pink
of the tall Hollyhocks. These all show up well over the masses of grey
and glaucous foliage, and against the rich darkness of dusky Yew.
Dahlias and Cannas have their places in the mixed border. When it is
being dismantled in the late autumn all bare places are well dug and
enriched, so that when it comes to filling-up time, at the end of May, I
know that every spare bit of space is ready and at the time of
preparation I mark places for special Dahlias, according to colour, and
for groups of the tall Cannas where I want grand foliage.
There are certain classes of plants that are quite indispensable, but
that leave a bare or shabby-looking place when their bloom is over. How
to cover these places is one of the problems that have to be solved. The
worst offender is Oriental Poppy; it becomes unsightly soon after
blooming, and is quite gone by midsummer. I therefore plant _Gypsophila
paniculata_ between and behind the Poppy groups, and by July there is a
delicate cloud of bloom instead of large bare patches. _Eryngium
Oliverianum_ has turned brown by the beginning of July, but around the
group some Dahlias have been planted, that will be gradually trained
down over the space of the departed Sea-Holly, and other Dahlias are
used in the same way to mask various weak places.
There is a perennial Sunflower, with tall black stems, and pale-yellow
flowers quite at the top, an old garden sort, but not very good as
usually grown; this I find of great value to train down, when it throws
up a short flowering stem from each joint, and becomes a spreading sheet
of bloom.
One would rather not have to resort to these artifices of sticking and
training; but if a certain effect is wanted, all such means are lawful,
provided that nothing looks stiff or strained or unsightly; and it is
pleasant to exercise ingenuity and to invent ways to meet the needs of
any case that may arise. But like everything else, in good gardening it
must be done just right, and the artist-gardener finds that hardly the
placing of a single plant can be deputed to any other hand than his own;
for though, when it is done, it looks quite simple and easy, he must
paint his own picture himself--no one can paint it for him.
I have no dogmatic views about having in the so-called hardy
flower-border none but hardy flowers. All flowers are welcome that are
right in colour, and that make a brave show where a brave show is
wanted. It is of more importance that the border should be handsome than
that all its occupants should be hardy. Therefore I prepare a certain
useful lot of half-hardy annuals, and a few of what have come to be
called bedding-plants. I like to vary them a little from year to year,
because in no one season can I get in all the good flowers that I should
like to grow; and I think it better to leave out some one year and have
them the next, than to crowd any up, or to find I have plants to put out
and no space to put them in. But I nearly always grow these half-hardy
annuals; orange African Marigold, French Marigold, sulphur Sunflower,
orange and scarlet tall Zinnia, Nasturtiums, both dwarf and trailing,
_Nicotiana affinis_, Maize, and Salpiglossis. Then Stocks and China
Asters. The Stocks are always the large white and flesh-coloured summer
kinds, and the Asters, the White Comet, and one of the blood-red or
so-called scarlet sorts.
Then I have yellow Paris Daisies, _Salvia patens_, Heliotrope,
_Calceolaria amplexicaulis_, Geraniums, scarlet and salmon-coloured and
ivy-leaved kinds, the best of these being the pink Madame Crousse.
[Illustration: END OF FLOWER-BORDER AND ENTRANCE OF PERGOLA.]
[Illustration: SOUTH BORDER DOOR AND YUCCAS IN AUGUST.]
The front edges of the border are also treated in rather a large way. At
the shadier end there is first a long straggling bordering patch of
_Anemone sylvestris_. When it is once above ground the foliage remains
good till autumn, while its soft white flower comes right with the
colour of the flowers behind. Then comes a long and large patch of the
larger kind of _Megasea cordifolia_, several yards in length, and
running back here and there among taller plants. I am never tired of
admiring the fine solid foliage of this family of plants, remaining, as
it does, in beauty both winter and summer, and taking on a splendid
winter colouring of warm red bronze. It is true that the flowers of the
two best-known kinds, _M. cordifolia_ and _M. crassifolia_, are
coarse-looking blooms of a strong and rank quality of pink colour, but
the persistent beauty of the leaves more than compensates; and in the
rather tenderer kind, _M. ligulata_ and its varieties, the colour of the
flower is delightful, of a delicate good pink, with almost scarlet
stalks. There is nothing flimsy or temporary-looking about the Megaseas,
but rather a sort of grave and monumental look that specially fits them
for association with masonry, or for any place where a solid-looking
edging or full-stop is wanted. To go back to those in the edge of the
border: if the edging threatens to look too dark and hard, I plant
among or just behind the plants that compose it, pink or scarlet Ivy
Geranium or trailing Nasturtium, according to the colour demanded by the
neighbouring group. _Heuchera Richardsoni_ is another good front-edge
plant; and when we come to the blue and pale-yellow group there is a
planting of _Funkia grandiflora_, whose fresh-looking pale-green leaves
are delightful with the brilliant light yellow of _Calceolaria
amplexicaulis_, and the farther-back planting of pale-blue Delphinium,
Mullein, and sulphur Sunflower; while the same colour of foliage is
repeated in the fresh green of the Indian Corn. Small spaces occur here
and there along the extreme front edge, and here are planted little
jewels of colour, of blue Lobelia, or dwarf Nasturtium, or anything of
the colour that the place demands.
The whole thing sounds much more elaborate than it really is; the
trained eye sees what is wanted, and the trained hand does it, both by
an acquired instinct. It is painting a picture with living plants.
I much enjoy the pergola at the end of the sunny path. It is pleasant
while walking in full sunshine, and when that sunny place feels just a
little too hot, to look into its cool depth, and to feel that one has
only to go a few steps farther to be in shade, and to feel that little
air of wind that the moving summer clouds say is not far off, and is
only unfelt just here because it is stopped by the wall. It feels
wonderfully dark at first, this gallery of cool greenery, passing into
it with one's eyes full of light and colour, and the open-sided
summer-house at the end looks like a black cavern; but on going into it,
and sitting down on one of its broad, low benches, one finds that it is
a pleasant subdued light, just right to read by.
The pergola has two openings out of it on the right, and one on the
left. The first way out on the right is straight into the nut-walk,
which leads up to very near the house. The second goes up two or three
low, broad steps made of natural sandstone flags, between groups of
Ferns, into the Michaelmas Daisy garden. The opening on the left leads
into a quiet space of grass the width of the flower and wall border
(twenty feet), having only some peat-beds planted with Kalmia. This is
backed by a Yew hedge in continuation of the main wall, and it will soon
grow into a cool, quiet bit of garden, seeming to belong to the pergola.
Now, standing midway in the length of the covered walk, with the eye
rested and refreshed by the leafy half-light, on turning round again
towards the border it shows as a brilliant picture through the bowery
framing, and the value of the simple method of using the colours is seen
to full advantage.
I do not like a mean pergola, made of stuff as thin as hop-poles. If
means or materials do not admit of having anything better, it is far
better to use these in some other simple way, of which there are many to
choose from--such as uprights at even intervals, braced together with a
continuous rail at about four feet from the ground, and another rail
just clear of the ground, and some simple trellis of the smaller stuff
between these two rails. This is always pretty at the back of a
flower-border in any modest garden. But a pergola should be more
seriously treated, and the piers at any rate should be of something
rather large--either oak stems ten inches thick, or, better still, of
fourteen-inch brickwork painted with lime-wash to a quiet stone-colour.
In Italy the piers are often of rubble masonry, either round or square
in section, coated with very coarse plaster, and lime-washed white. For
a pergola of moderate size the piers should stand in pairs across the
path, with eight feet clear between. Ten feet from pier to pier along
the path is a good proportion, or anything from eight to ten feet, and
they should stand seven feet two inches out of the ground. Each pair
should be tied across the top with a strong beam of oak, either of the
natural shape, or roughly adzed on the four faces; but in any case, the
ends of the beams, where they rest on the top of the piers, should be
adzed flat to give them a firm seat. If the beams are slightly curved or
cambered, as most trunks of oak are, so much the better, but they must
always be placed camber side up. The pieces that run along the top, with
the length of the path, may be of any branching tops of oak, or of larch
poles. These can easily be replaced as they decay; but the replacing of
a beam is a more difficult matter, so that it is well to let them be
fairly durable from the beginning.
[Illustration: STONE-BUILT PERGOLA WITH WROUGHT OAK BEAMS.]
[Illustration: PERGOLA WITH BRICK PIERS AND BEAMS OF ROUGH OAK. (_See
opposite page 202._)]
The climbers I find best for covering the pergola are Vines, Jasmine,
Aristolochia, Virginia Creeper, and Wistaria. Roses are about the worst,
for they soon run up leggy, and only flower at the top out of sight.
A sensible arrangement, allied to the pergola, and frequent in Germany
and Switzerland, is made by planting young Planes, pollarding them at
about eight feet from the ground, and training down the young growths
horizontally till they have covered the desired roof-space.
There is much to be done in our better-class gardens in the way of
pretty small structures thoroughly well-designed and built. Many a large
lawn used every afternoon in summer as a family playground and place to
receive visitors would have its comfort and usefulness greatly increased
by a pretty garden-house, instead of the usual hot and ugly, crampy and
uncomfortable tent. But it should be thoroughly well designed to suit
the house and garden. A pigeon-cote would come well in the upper part,
and the face or faces open to the lawn might be closed in winter with
movable shutters, when it would make a useful store-place for garden
seats and much else.