DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN.
[Illustration: _At the South Window._]
DAYS AND HOURS IN
A GARDEN.
BY
“E. V. B.”
“God Almighty first planted a garden;
And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”
BACON.
_NINTH EDITION._
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1896.
[Illustration: NOS ET MEDITEMUR IN HORTO]
TO
RICHARD CAVENDISH BOYLE.
WHOSE LOVE FOR NATURE AND FOR ART,
YEARS HAD NOT CHILLED
NOR TROUBLE CHANGED,
THESE RECORDS OF OUR GARDEN
WERE INSCRIBED BY
E. V. B.,
IN 1884.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
If for a sixth reprint of DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN a new Preface was
deemed advisable, still more so, perhaps, should there be something
new prefixed to the Seventh Edition, although, indeed, it contains
nothing that in any sense is new. Neither new words nor any new
vignettes appear therein. Nevertheless we venture to hope that perhaps
new readers may be found. Since the last edition was published some
three years have come and gone, with their world-old roll of seasons
and their burden of inevitable change. The garden has three times
slept beneath the rains and the snows of winter, and has awakened in
spring with the birds and the bees. Meanwhile, the shrubs are taller
and larger, and the trees have extended their roots and stretched out
their branches over lawns and gravel paths. And the summer shade, so
coveted in other days, has broadened, while, on the other hand, it has
become more hard to maintain in their wonted brilliancy our borders
and flowerful closes. The axe and the pruning-knife have been busy
during the winter months; and many a fine Laurel, in all its wealth of
glossy green, has been laid low, and with Yew and the full-foliaged
Phylleria, and more than one tall Deodara,--become a burnt sacrifice to
“Apollo’s sunny ray.” For the south sunshine must be let in, no matter
what the cost. In certain ways the garden may be said to _suffer_
change; and chiefly when the grace and softly rounded loveliness of
various evergreens which do not bear the shears--Cryptomeria Elegans,
Red Cedar, and the like--after a course of years begins to wane. Even
to the upward-pointing Cypress middle life in an English garden is not
becoming. And as the larger trees increase in size, so the overshadowed
lawns diminish. And thus the slower progress of some of our trees has
given place to a rapid growth, which bids fair to overstep all bounds
of such limited space as ours. The Douglas Fir and the branching Cedar
of Lebanon keep growing into one another, while Excelsa touches them
both, and wants to reach across to the clump of Yew and Laburnum. Their
near neighbour the Sequoia already rises to the height of fifty feet,
and measures over nine feet round at some two feet from the ground.
Nordmaniana alone (most beautiful of all), through having five times
lost his leader, is forced to greater moderation. Still, although no
future of green maturity can ever compensate the earlier, expectant
delight of watching our young trees’ youth, all is not lost; for the
pleasures carried away by Time, Time itself replaces by others to the
full as sweet. It may be that favourite plants become established and
yield a larger harvest of beauty, or that deep-laid plans ripen into
bright perfection, while a thousand garden joys arise fresh each year,
nay, well-nigh every day. As to the living frequenters of the garden,
whose presence there for the most part enhances our enjoyment of it,
the tomtits and nuthatches, are as busy with the cocoanuts which hang
for their use all winter from the Rose-arches as the mice and the
sparrows are with the crocuses; the white pigeons still circle in the
air and settle upon the gables, or preen their feathers in the sunshine
amongst the yellow stonecrop at the base of the old grey pillar in the
parterr; the swallows return year by year to their nests within the
porch; but the faithful satin-coated Collie lies still for ever under
the turf by the ivied wall, and the earth lies heavy on his noble head.
For these thirteen summers past he had taken his pleasure in the
garden--had chased marauding cats, or bounded after apples with any
playfellow of the hour, while his glad bark rang again; or as in later
days, had gravely followed the steps of his mistress about the walks,
or rolled upon the grass, or watched with lazy but unfailing interest
his friend the Gardener at work. Four words graven on a little white
marble tablet that shines amidst the dark ivy-leaves on the wall record
his name and character:--
[Illustration: CASSIO. TENDER AND TRUE. _May, 1876._ _Nov., 1889._]
Already the Snowdrops are giving way before impatient Hepaticas and
Primroses, the bare Elms are thickening with purple, and we begin to
count the Gentian buds. Everywhere Nature repairs herself in ceaseless
round. Only in our human lives some vacant spots there may be, where
the grass will not grow green again.
E. V. B.
HUNTERCOMBE MANOR,
_February_, 1890
_OCTOBER._
Fas est hic, Indulgere Genio.
[Illustration]
I.
OCTOBER 17, 1882.
Of Nuns and White Owls; Yews, Thrushes, and Nutcrackers.
THE GARDEN’S STORY. It is only eleven years old, though the place
itself is an old place--an old place without a history, for scarce a
record remains of it anywhere that we have ever found. Its name occurs
on a headstone in the parish churchyard, and on one or two monuments
within the chancel of the parish church. There is brief mention of it
in Evelyn’s _Diary_. It is there described as “a very pretty seate in
the forest, on a flat, with gardens exquisitely kept, tho’ large, and
the house, a staunch good old building.” It seems George Evelyn (the
author’s cousin) was amongst the many who have lived here once. At that
time eighty acres of wood surrounded the house, where now there lies
a treeless stretch of flat cornfields. Quite near, across the road,
are the ruins of an ancient nunnery. Our meadow under the high convent
wall is called the Walk Meadow, because here the nuns used to walk.
The great Walnut tree, which they might possibly have known, only died
after we came. It was cut down for firewood, and its hollows were full
of big chestnut-coloured “rat bats,” very fierce and strong. At that
time also white owls lived in the ruins, and used to come floating over
the lawn at twilight--until the days of gun licenses, since when, they
have disappeared. Dim legends surround the place, but nothing clear or
certain is known or even said, and there is not a ghost anywhere. All
we know is, that since taking possession, wherever a hole is dug in
the garden to plant a tree, the spade is sure to strike against some
old brick foundation of such firm construction that they have to use
the pick to break it up. Bones of large dogs also are found all about
the place whenever the ground is broken--remains of the watch dogs, or
hunting dogs, of the olden time--also quaintly shaped tobacco-pipes.
I know of nothing to support the tradition that monks abode here once.
There were signs of an upstairs room having at some remote time been
used as a chapel; a piscina in the wall and a narrow lancet window
having been found and destroyed, when the house was in the builder’s
hands eleven years ago. Broken arches, also, and mouldings in chalk
and stone, were dug up out of the foundations of some outhouses at the
same time. “They say” there is an underground passage between the Abbey
and the house, but we do not believe it, and we do not believe in the
murder of a monk for his money, said to have been committed by a nun in
the upper room now a guest-chamber. Such vague traditions are sure to
hang around old walls, like mists about a damp meadow. Very distinct,
however, and carved in no vague characters, are certain initials and
dates still visible on the stems of the trees in the Lime avenue. For
in old times--
“Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.”
When the trees are bare and the western sky is bright, you can see them
quite plainly--large capital letters, often a pair, enclosed in a large
heart with the date. The dates run from 1668 on to late in 1700. Those
old village lovers must have had sharp pen-knives, which cut deep! They
and their names have long passed away and been forgotten; but, for so
much as is traced in the living bark, these Limes have proved as good
as any marble monument; much better than the long wooden “rails” which
are still in fashion hereabouts. Since the place was ours this short
avenue of twenty-four trees has been taken in from the public road; and
now the Limes give us cool shade and fragrance and many midges in the
hot summer days. I fear there is nothing more to be discovered about
the past history of the House than we now already know. We must be
content, and follow as we best may George Herbert’s concise admonition--
“When you chance for to find
An old house to your mind,
Be good to the poor,
As God gives you store.”
We have had the great pleasure of making the garden. The feature of the
place was, and is, two symmetrically planted groups of magnificent Elms
in the park field, in which every season we hope the rooks will build.
There was everything to be done in the garden, to which these Elms form
a background. We found hardly any flowers; a large square lawn laid out
in beds, with unsatisfactory turf and shrubberies beyond, a long, broad
terrace walk, old brick walls, with stone balls on the corners, two
or three old wrought iron gates in the wrong places, dabs of kitchen
garden and potato plots, stable-yard and carriage entrance occupying
the whole south front, with a few pleasant trees, a young Wellingtonia,
a Stone Pine, a Venetian Sumach (_Rhus cotinus_), and a very large red
Chestnut (from a seed brought from Spain in the waistcoat pocket of one
of our predecessors here, fifty years ago, and said to be the first of
the kind raised in England). Such was our new playground in 1871. Here
we brought a skilful Gardener, possessed of common sense and uncommon
good taste--can one say much more in a few words?--and aided by our
own most unscientific but exceeding love for flowers and gardening, we
set to work at once. These “gardens on a flat” are transformed.
[Illustration: _Kitchen Garden, East Lawn, etc._]
There now are close-trimmed Yew hedges, some of those first planted
being 8 feet 6 inches high, and nearly 3 feet through, while others
are kept low and square. There are Yews cut in pyramids and buttresses
against the walls, and Yews in every stage of natural growth. I love
the English Yew, with its “thousand years of gloom!” (an age that ours,
however, have not yet attained). The Wellingtonia, planted in 1866,
has shot up to over forty feet high, and far outgrown its youthful
Jack-in-the-Green look. The Stone Pine, alas! has split in two, and
been propped up; and although half killed since by frost, it yet bears
a yearly harvest of fine cones, chiefly collected for use as fire
revivers--though the seeds ripen for sowing, or eating. The borders
are filled with the dearest old-fashioned plants; the main entrance is
removed to the north side; the stable-yard is removed also, and instead
thereof are turf and straight walks, and a sun-dial, and a parterre
for bedding-out things--the sole plot allowed here for scarlet
Pelargoniums and the like. In this parterre occurs the only foliage
plant we tolerate--a deep crimson velvet-leaved Coleus. The centre bed
is a raised square of yellow Stonecrop and little white Harebells; with
an old stone pedestal, found in a stonemason’s yard, bearing a leaden
inscription--“to Deborah”--surmounted by a ball, on which the white
pigeons picturesquely perch. There are green walks between Yew hedges
and flower borders, Beech hedges, and a long green tunnel--the _Allée
Verte_--so named in remembrance of a bower-walk in an old family place,
no longer in existence. There are nooks and corners, and a grand,
well-shaded tennis-lawn, and crown of all, there is the “Fantaisie”!
This is a tiny plantation in the field--I mean the Park--date 1874,
connected with the garden by a turf walk, with a breadth of flowers
and young evergreen trees intermixed, on either hand. Here all my most
favourite flowers grow in wild profusion. The turf walk is lost, after
a break of Golden Yew, in a little wood--a few paces round--just large
enough for the birds to build in, and with room for half-a-dozen
wild Hyacinths and a dozen Primroses under the trees; with moss, Wood
Sorrel, and white and puce-coloured Periwinkles, and many a wild thing,
meant to encourage the delusion of a savage wild! I am afraid I never
can be quite serious about a garden; I always am inclined to find
delight in fancies, and reminiscences of a child’s garden, and the
desire to get everything into it if I could. This “Fantaisie” was a
dream of delight during the past summer--from April, when a nightingale
possessed in song the half-hidden entrance under low embowering Elm
branches and Syringa--through all the fairy days and months, up to
quite lately. Yes, even last week, it was fragrant with Mignonette
and Ragged Jack (I mean that Alpine Pink _Dianthus Plumarius_), gay
with yellow Zinnias and blue Salvia in rich luxuriance, with a host of
smaller, less showy things--with bunches of crimson Roses, and pink La
France, blooming out from a perfect mist of white and pinkish Japan
Anemones, white Sweet Peas, and a few broad Sunflowers towering at the
back--their great stems coruscating all over with stars of gold; and
here and there clusters of purple Clematis, leaning sadly down from a
faggot of brown leaves and dead, wiry stalks,--or turning from their
weak embrace of some red-brown Cryptomeria Elegans. Even last week the
borders throughout the garden looked filled and cheerful--brilliant
with scarlet Lobelia and tall deep red Phloxes, and bushes of
blue-leaved starry Marguerites, and the three varieties of Japan
Anemone, with strange orange Tigridias and Auratum Lilies and Ladies’
Pincushion (_Scabious_, the “Saudades” of the Portuguese language of
Flowers), and every kind of late as well as summer Roses, the evening
Primrose (_Œnothera_) making sunshine in each shady spot, with here and
there the burning flame of a Tritoma; though these last have not done
well this autumn.
Out near the carriage drive are Golden Rod and crimsoned patches of
Azalea, and a second blow of late and self-sown Himalayan (so called)
Poppies. In one narrow bit of south border one finds that pretty blue
daisy (_Kaulfussia Amelloides_)--such an odd, pretty little thing. I
remember a bed of it in the garden of my childhood, and I possess a
portrait of it, done for me by my mother; and then, never met with it
again till a year or two ago, when unexpectedly it looked up at me,
somewhere in a remote country churchyard. I am afraid our present stock
comes from that very plant. Until now, the long border of many-coloured
Verbenas was still rather gay, and the three east gables of the house
were all aflame with Virginian Creeper. But two days of rain spoilt us
entirely. The variegated Maple slipped its white garment all at once
in the night, causing a melancholy gap. In the kitchen garden a bright
red Rose or two remains, but along the east border the half-blown buds
are rotted away. In the centre of one drenched pink bloom I saw a poor
drone, drowned as he sat idly there. Small black-headed titmice are
jerking about among the tallest Rose trees, insect hunting; and still
tinier wrens flit here and there, bent on the same quest. Great spotted
missel thrushes are now haunting the pillar Yews, beginning to taste
the luscious banquet just ready for them. While thus perched amongst
the sweet scarlet Yew berries and dark foliage, the thrushes always
bring to one’s mind a design in old tapestry.
And this reminds me of the good and abundant fruit-feast we have
ourselves enjoyed this season. Strawberries and Raspberries were
not much, but such Gooseberries, Apricots, and Nectarines! Peaches,
plenty enough, but no flavour. Figs, enough to satisfy even _our_
greediness,--though we have but one tree, on a west wall. Pears,
especially Louise Bonne, first-rate and plenty. Apples, a small crop,
but sufficient. Wood Strawberries have been ripening under the windows
till within the last few days: I planted them there for the sake of
the delicious smell of the leaves when decaying--a smell said to be
perceptible only to the happy few. Nuts (Filberts and Kentish Cobs)
were plentiful, but we were only allowed a very few dishes of them.
A large number of nuthatches settled in the garden as soon as the
nuts were ripe; they nipped them off, and, carrying them to the old
Acacia tree, which stands conveniently near, stuck them in the rough
bark and cracked them at their ease (or rather punched holes in them).
The Acacia’s trunk at one time quite bristled over with the empty
nutshells, while the husks lay at the roots. The fun of watching these
busy thieves at work more than made up for the loss of nuts. We had
a great abundance of large green and yellow wall Plums, also a fair
quantity of purple. Of sweet Cherries, unless gathered rather unripe,
my dear blackbirds and starlings never leave us many. But there were
a good lot of Morellos; they don’t care a bit for them. Whilst on the
subject of fruit, let me say that never a shot is fired in the garden,
unless to destroy weazels. Our “garden’s sacred round” is free to every
bird that flies--the delight of seeing them, and of hearing their
music, compensates to the full any ravages they may indulge in. Thanks
to netting without stint, and our Gardener’s incomparable patience and
longsuffering, I enjoy the garden and my birds in peace; and if they
ever do any harm, we never know it; fruit and green Peas never fail
us!... Here is a sunny morning; and the cows are whisking their tails
under the Elms, as if it were July. But indeed the last lingering
trace of summer has vanished: the garden is in ruins, and already the
redbreast is singing songs of triumph.
[Illustration]
_NOVEMBER._
“The True Pleasure of a Garden.”--BACON.
[Illustration]
II.
NOVEMBER, 1882.
Of Blossoms, Buds, and Bowers--Of May and June and July Flowers.
_November_ 3.--The ruin is complete! and cleared away, too.... Yet
there is consolation, and something very comfortable, in the neatness
of the dug borders, and the beds made up for the winter.
The symmetrically banked-up Celery--crested with the richest green,
in the kitchen garden--rather takes my fancy; so also does the fine
bit of colour in some huge heaps of dead leaves, that I see already
stored in the rubbish yard. The dead leaves have to be swept away from
lawn and garden walks--but I believe we do not consider any except
those of Beach and Oak to be of much service. It is my heresy, that
leaves do not fall till the goodness of them has decayed. They are of
use, however, when left to cover the ground above tender roots. In
the Fantaisie the earthy bed can scarce be seen, so close lies this
warm counterpane of leaves! The great Elms, on the greyest days, now
make sunshine of their own. Their lofty breadths of yellow gold tower
above the zone of garden trees. When the sun illumines them, and the
light winds pass, it is a dream to watch the glittering fall of autumn
leaves. The ancient times return, and Jove once more showers gold
around some sleeping Danae! During the first days of the month, the
parterr was done, Tulips put in, and a lot of Crocuses in double row.
In a few beds the dwarf evergreens, which had been removed for the
summer, are planted in again--just to make the parterr’s emptiness
look less cheerless from the dining-room windows. Between these small
evergreen bushes, in their season, will come up spikes of Hyacinths,
of varied hue. I do not care for a whole bed of Hyacinths or Tulips;
they give me little real pleasure unless the colours be mixed. One
chief charm of a garden, I think, depends on surprise. There is a kind
of dulness in Tulips and Hyacinths, sorted, and coming up all one size
and colour. I love to watch the close-folded Tulip bud, rising higher
and higher daily--almost hourly--from its brown bed; and never to be
quite certain of the colour that is to be, till one morning I find
the rose, or golden, or ruby cup in all its finished beauty; perhaps
not at all what was expected. And then, amid these splendours, will
suddenly appear one shorter or taller than the rest, of the purest,
rarest white. How that white Tulip, coming as it were by chance, is
valued! And so, again this year a mixed lot are planted. There was
a time when we had only one Tulip in all the garden. I used to look
for it regularly in a certain shady border under a Laburnum tree; an
old-fashioned, dull, purple and white-striped flower, but it never
failed to show, at the very end of every season. I had a regard for
that Tulip, and last summer it was a disappointment vainly to wait for
its appearance in the accustomed spot. Many there were of its kind,
surpassing it in loveliness; but then they were not the same.
Hyacinth beds will be a new thing here, but I doubt if they will
make us quite so happy as has hitherto the unexpected advent of some
stray pyramid of small odorous bells, pink, blue, or creamy-white,
in out-of-the-way places about the garden. After their flowering is
over, the pot-bulbs are always turned out somewhere in the borders.
When a plant has lived with us for a time under the same roof, or even
in the green-house, giving out for us its whole self of sweetness or
of beauty, it seems so cruel that it should at last be thrown away as
if worthless and forgotten! Some Narcissus that have had their day
have just been put into a round bed on the further lawn, mixed with
the “Mrs. Sinkins” white Pink; and there is a rim all round of double
lilac Primroses. I have long wished to have plenty of that dear old
neglected Primrose; so now we have a number of healthy roots from an
old garden in Derbyshire. In the centre of this bed is a very tall
dead Cupressus, one of our few failures in transplantation last spring.
A Cobæa, which was to have grown up quick and made a “bonnie green
gown” for the poor bare tree, proved failure number two. It absolutely
refused to grow, or do anything but look stunted and miserable, till
one day, late in October, there it was running up the tree as fast as
possible, clothing every twig with leaves and tendrils, and large,
deep, bell-like blossoms! Its day must be short, however, at the wrong
end of the year, and even now its bells are chilled to a greenish hue.
A fine red climbing Rose on one side, and one of the old Blairii on the
other, will make a kinder and more beautiful summer garment.
We have made a new Lavender border, and now I hope to have enough for
the bees, and afterwards enough, when dried, to lay within the drawers
and wardrobes, and give us “all the perfume of summer, when summer
is gone;” enough, too, for pot-pourri, though we do not always make
this fresh each year. It takes time, and there is so little time in
these days! and often the Roses are too wet, and the Lavender too
scarce. The recipe we use is an old one: the paper is yellow, and the
ink faded. But our best pot-pourri of these days comes not near the
undying fragrance of some Rose leaves--three generations old--that we
still preserve in one or two old covered jars and bowls of Oriental
porcelain. Along the south wall, an oblong bed is planted with dark
purple Heartsease, and two more with yellow. There are six beds, and
in the spring they will glow resplendently with a setting of Crocuses,
white, yellow, and lilac; meanwhile a good layer of cocoanut fibre
gives a look of comfort for the winter; and moreover, rather annoys the
field-mice.
Under the Holly hedge, facing south, a narrow border has been made
ready to receive a quantity of white Iris roots. The Holly hedge,
planted for shelter and for pleasure, along a broad walk on one side of
the carriage drive, is not in itself a success as yet. It was put in
four years ago, but the trees were too old, I think; this year it is
flushed all over with scarlet berries.
I am sorry to have to remove my beloved white Irises, but they have
increased so enormously as to make some change necessary. Nearly twenty
years ago I carried home from the south of France a few small roots in
a green pitcher. For half that time they grew and multiplied on the
sunny terraces of a sweet Somersetshire garden, and now for ten other
years the same roots, transplanted here, have flourished, if possible,
still more abundantly. It may be fancy only, but I think our white
Irises might not have succeeded as they do, had they not been loved so
well. Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose--the white Iris is
mine--the Fleur-de-lys of France--the lily of Florence. Nothing can
be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see
these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at
five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and
as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt
there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the
whiteness of other flowers. We have given away a great many, but I
fear I am not altogether sorry that they do not seem always to succeed
elsewhere as they do with us. I am trying to collect every different
Iris I know of. We have now several which are very beautiful, and we
should have more were it not that numbers die off after, perhaps, one
short summer’s loveliness. They dwindle and become sickly, and then
altogether disappear. Almost our whole stock of one well-established
kind--an old inhabitant of the garden--was destroyed by mice two
seasons ago. The flower is bronze-brown, with a golden blaze in the
middle. La Marquise (Iris Lurida?), an old-fashioned dove-coloured
sort, with purple frays on the falls, will grow anywhere. So will the
large, broad-leaved, pale lilac kind, and the yellow Algerian. A little
black wild Iris, that fringes the vineyard trenches about Florence, we
have either lost or it will not flower. They call it here “La Vedova.”
I brought home some roots once from Bellosguardo, and we put them in
where all the warmest rays of the south sun would find them. But only
the long, narrow, wild onion-like leaves appear--or, I fancy, they are
the Vedova’s leaves. Still I do not lose hope, but watch for it always
when March comes round; and some day, somewhere, I think, my little
“widow” is sure to surprise me. The wild yellow Italian Tulip, that
came with the Iris, succeeds here well. The patch of pale gold never
fails, by the first week in April, to enliven the sunny side of a Yew
hedge. A few untidy yellow blooms, supported on slender limp stalks,
live there, just the same as in their own dear Italy. I stoop down to
gather one, and for a moment the English garden is not there.... Before
me lies a grassy vineyard path--there are the great open farm-sheds,
full of sunlight and sunlit shade--and the pair of grey long-horned
oxen, calmly waiting for the yoke. Near them, with her knitting, stands
a patient sad-eyed woman, while happy children run down the path at
play, or tie up bunches of yellow Tulips under the fig-trees.... Then
there is a tall, white flag Iris, whose place is not yet fairly fixed.
It is a handsome thing, and quite unlike the Fleur-de-lys. I think of
mixing it in with the yellow Flags and Osmunda Regalis beside the
little watercourse. Last July, to watch the slow blooming of some
Japanese Iris in the kitchen garden gave me intense delight. They grew
tall and straight, with curiously ribbed leaves. The single flower at
the top of each stem opened out very flat, with rounded petals, rich
purple in colour, and measuring nearly seven inches across. One saw at
once it was the purple flower the Prince, in the German fairy tale,
found on the mountains, and carried off to disenchant his love with,
in the old witch’s cottage by the wood--only a large pearl lay in the
centre of that flower. (There is no such thing as anachronism in fairy
tales!)
We have gathered in our harvest of winter decorations for the hall
and corridors. There is Pampas-grass with its silken plumes, and soft
tassels of all kinds of downy German grasses, and Everlastings of
all lovely shades of orange and red. They have hung in bunches head
downwards in the vinery to dry for weeks past, and they will last for
the next twelve months as fresh as they are now. I have been told
of a great bouquet of Everlasting Flowers, in a Dutch gentleman’s
drawing-room at the Cape, which was affirmed to be two hundred years
old. We have sheaves of Honesty, also--“Money in your Pocket,” as the
poor say--which are to gleam like flakes of mother-o’-pearl in the
firelight of December’s dusky afternoons. We left plenty in the garden,
however, where they will stand a good deal more of rough weather
before they fall to pieces. Honesty is always handsome, in all stages
of its growth; and like the people who take things easily, it thrives
everywhere. With us it is quite at home in a damp north border, close
under a line of Elms. All through June and July, the violet glow of a
mass of it in full bloom made a brilliant effect; and now, in these
November days, the ripe seed-vessels are transformed--their outer husk
has shelled off, leaving only the silvery centre. The other day, in my
early walk, just where the Allée Verte ends (no longer green, it is now
a golden corridor, with, underfoot, crisp russet leaves), I seemed to
come upon--not Wordsworth’s host of dancing Daffodils, but a company
of spirits! The slanting sunbeams fell upon a clump of Honesty, and
touched with fire every one of the myriad little silver moons. Though
no wind stirred, they seemed to quiver with ghostly life in a shimmer
of opal lights.
* * * * *
_Nov_. 18.--Winter is striding on, and every bit of colour in the
garden becomes more precious than ever. Only a few days ago I made a
nosegay of crimson summer Roses, a fine Auratum Lily, a Gladiolus, a
Welsh Poppy, and a large red-rimmed annual Poppy, with a wonderful
spray of Flexuosa Honeysuckle, that filled the room with its fragrance.
A little while since, in one sheltered corner, Salvia Patens still
held its own in unsullied blue. Marigolds were plenty; St. John’s Wort
must have made a mistake in its dates, for it was all over polished
yellow buds ready to unclose; Mignonette and a few Sweet Peas lingered
still. Here and there one came upon a white Snap-dragon or a flash of
rose-red Phlox (“Farewell Summers” they call them in the West). It
was impossible not to admire the vigour and beauty of Primroses and
Polyanthus of every colour. One only hopes this abundant autumnal bloom
may not interfere with their blossoming in the spring; it is certainly
finer than I ever remember in former seasons. A rockwork of big flints
was quite gay with Virginian Stock and Primroses. To-day the frost is
most severe. The Marigolds look unlike themselves, with a white cap
border of frost, quilled round their orange faces; the half-opened
buds in a Tea Rose bed are like fancy Moss Roses; only the moss is
white, and every leaf is fringed with little sharp-pointed crystals.
The China Rose tree by the green door in the wall is covered with pink
roses, which I forgot to gather yesterday for my flower-glasses. This
morning the frost has curiously changed them. The delicate petals
are stiffened all through, as if they were turned into wax models,
though their lovely pink is not dimmed, and they smell as sweet as if
nothing had happened. By this time our Irish Yews have resumed their
wonted sadness. The berries are all carried off, and the blackbirds
have fattened so well on them, and on the bunches of grapes (left for
their benefit on the house Vines), that they rise from the lawn quite
heavily. I never saw such fat blackbirds! The seed of the Yew berries,
which is believed to be the only poisonous part, is, I think, in most
cases, left unswallowed; and in one little tree I found the remnants
of an old nest filled with a compact mass of Yew seeds. The large blue
titmouse carries off his berry to the Sumach tree, and there pecks off
the pulp, holding it down with his foot. The larger thrushes are gone,
I know not where; only one small bird, with richly spotted breast, is
still seen about the grass, under the Stone Pine.
The Chrysanthemums in the greenhouse must have the last word. Nothing
could be more beautiful than they are now, and have been for several
weeks past. Some of the Japanese kinds are indescribably lovely;
arrayed in tints that make one think of a sea-shell, or the clouds
about an April sunrise. There is something, perhaps, in their delicious
confusion of petals, that helps this wonderful effect of colour. The
other sorts, which are stiffer in arrangement, and more decided in
colour, are to me somewhat less delightful. A tiny wren was among the
Chrysanthemums this morning, noiselessly flitting in and out, like a
little shade; evidently in a state of the highest enjoyment. No doubt I
and the bird both took our pleasure with them--in different ways!
[Illustration]
_DECEMBER._
“Once a Dream did Weave a Shade.”...
“He who goeth into his garden to look for spiders and cobwebs will
doubtless find them; but he who goes out to seek a flower may return
to his house with one blooming in his bosom.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
III.
DECEMBER.
Of Spiders’ Webs, Christmas Roses, King Arthur, and the Tree I Love.
_December_ 6.--Among the strange and beautiful sights of the garden
during the hard hoar-frost that ushered in the first days of the month,
not the least beautiful were the spiders’ webs. Passing along the Larch
Walk, the oak palings that divide us on that side from the new road
(the old road, made by Richard, King of the Romans, in the thirteenth
century, is now within the grounds) were hung all over with white
rags--or so it seemed at first sight. And then, just for one second,
that curious momentary likeness of like to unlike chanced. I remembered
the street of palaces at Genoa, the day when I saw it last; the
grand old walls covered with fluttering rags of advertisements--yes,
advertisements in English: “Singer’s Sewing Machine.” The white rags
on our palings were spiders’ webs both new and old, a marvellous
number, thus crystallized, as it were, into existence by the frost,
where scarcely one had been before. In open weather the webs are as
good as invisible to human eyes; but now that frost had thickened
the minutest threads to the size of Berlin wool--though in beauty of
texture they resembled fine white velvet chenille--there was a sudden
revelation of these wonderful works of art! One feels, if the nets
show only half as large and thick to a fly’s eye, the spider’s trade
must be a poor one. Here is a calculation that will probably interest
nobody: 567 feet of pales over 5 feet high, and an average of 18 webs
to every 9 feet. It may prove, however, something of the unsuspected
multitude of spiders in a given area, though it is nothing to the acres
of ploughed land that the level sun-ray of an autumn afternoon will
show completely netted over with gossamer. Making the most of a few
minutes’ inspection--for I should myself have frozen had I watched much
longer these frozen webs--I could see but two varieties of work--the
cobweb which usurped the corners, and the beautiful wheel-within-wheel
net. In them all one might observe once more that ever-recurring stern
immutability of the thing called Instinct. Here, for instance, are two
sets of spiders living close neighbours for years together. Each set
makes its snares on an opposite plan; and although they cannot help
seeing each other’s work continually, neither takes the least hint from
the other. The plain cobweb is never made more intricate; the artist
of the wheel never dreams that she might do her spinning to a simpler
pattern. Happy people! They trouble not their heads about improvements;
yet, on looking closer at the last-named webs, there seemed something
of the faintest indication of a slight individuality; so far at least,
that in a dozen nets there would be five or six worked within a square
of four lines, while the remainder had five, tied rather carelessly in
a knot below. Perhaps the variation marks two distinct species; or
it may be only accidental. Next day every visible trace of the strong
beautiful webwork I had so admired was gone with the frost. The spider
may have “spread her net abroad with cords” as usual, but there was no
magician’s wand to touch it.
* * * * *
The orchard ought to be very gay in the spring. Daffodils have been
dropped in all over the turf, and a round patch dug round each Apple
tree is to be filled with yellow Wallflowers. This is an experiment,
and I do not feel sure that I shall like the flowers so well as the
trees simply growing out of the grass. A change, however, is always
pleasant; though, perhaps, one might hardly care to lay out the garden
differently every year, as the Chinese are said to do. I had a dream,
of the orchard grass enamelled with many-coloured Crocuses--in loving
reminiscence of certain flowery Olive grounds I know; but after all,
the imitation would have been as poor as a winter sky compared to the
glowing blue of June. I am not without hope some day--that golden “some
day” which so seldom comes--to naturalize in our orchards the real
_enamelling_ of the Olive groves--that often-used phrase is too hard
in sound and in its usual meaning to express the loveliness of those
lilac star Anemones--with here and there a salmon-pink, or a fiery
scarlet, blazing like a sun in the living green beneath the trees. I
used to think nothing on this earth could come so near a vision of the
star-strewn fields of Paradise.
In the north, or entrance court, we have been busy transplanting some
large Apple trees that had overgrown their place, and setting free the
trimmed Yews between which they grew. The blackness of these formal,
cut Yews shows well against the old walls, which are covered with very
aged Greengages and golden Drops. On the turf between each of the
pyramid Yews, broad oblong beds have been made; in April we hope to
plant them with pink China Roses, which are to grow very dwarf, and to
flower the whole year through! The border round the Roses may be blue
Nemophila; or perhaps the lovely Santolina Fragrans, with the soft grey
foliage.
I think the “going in” to one’s house should be as bright and cheerful
as it is possible to make it. But how hard it is to brighten up a north
aspect! ours has hitherto been far too gloomy. In the garden, the bed
of Roman Roses is warmly matted over for the winter. This brave little
red China Rose is one of my great favourites; it goes on flowering for
ever! Even now, when the matting is raised a little bit, I can see buds
and leaves and the red of opening blooms. I call it the Roman Rose
chiefly because it grows at Florence; which is so very Irish, that I
think there must have been some better reason now forgotten. The Rose
hedges in the beautiful Boboli Gardens are crimsoned over with blossoms
as early as the end of March; with us, however, it needs protection
when planted in the open ground.
Under the east wall is our only Christmas Rose; it is a very large
plant, and over it was built up, about a month ago, a little green
bower of Spruce Fir branches. The shelter is to save the blooms from
frost, which so often tarnishes their whiteness with red. Almost
daily, as I passed, I have peeped in to watch the cluster of white
buds nestled snugly within. The buds have duly swelled and lifted one
by one their heads, and now this morning our first bunch of perfect
Christmas Roses has been gathered. This flower must, I think, be dear
to every one with a heart for flowers. Its expression is so full of
innocence and freshness--for it is not only human persons who have
expression in their faces! and then the charm of its Myrtle-like
stamens and clear-cut petals--snow-cold to the touch--and its pretty
way of half-hiding among the dark leaves--always ready to be found
when sought--and always with so many more blossoms than had been hoped
for! To some, indeed, the associations bound up with the Christmas
Rose--with even the sound of its name--may be dearer than all its
outward loveliness; recalling, perhaps, the house and garden of their
childhood, and happy Christmases of long ago; “the old familiar faces,”
and tones of the voices that are gone. I must here make the confession
that last year, in my anxiety for the whitest possible of blossoms, I
had glass placed over the plant; and in spite of warnings, put matting
over that; all which ended at Christmas in a fine show of green Roses!
In the pits there are several of the smaller kind coming on in pots,
which will soon be ready to cut. These are easy enough in their ways.
But the Christmas Rose out in the border is a difficult thing to grow;
full of quirks and fancies, and like a woman, hard to please. Once,
however, it settles down in any spot, it will thrive there; and then
will sooner die than take to a new place.
_Dec_. 13.--Our second white frost has vanished, and the grass appears
again with a moist and pleasant smell. The forest of the Fantaisie
is thinned, and the encircling Laurels trimmed. The whole took just
half a winter’s day to do. At the end of the turf walk, between the
bushes and the golden Yews, peers out a Spindle tree, with its pink
and scarlet fruit. The birds seem not to care for it, for the fruit is
all there--untouched. I wonder if the name of Spindle comes from the
unnatural thinness of the tree!
After these many years of working to a special end, we seem now to have
almost reached it in one direction, for the garden looks well-nigh
as green and furnished in winter as in summer--so far, at least, as
the outline of verdure goes. The Yew hedges, and Pines, and perennial
greens are at their best now, in mid-winter; they would even seem to
have grown and thickened out since the summer died away. Watching the
growth of these trees and hedges has been the delight and solace of
many a troubled time, and one cannot but feel the most affectionate
interest in them. In the centre of a triangular-shaped bit of lawn,
surrounded by Conifers, we have placed a large stone vase on a square
stone pedestal. The vase is old and grey, and had long stood in another
place, where it made no show. The grey stone looks well against the
warm greens that back it, and will look better when the season comes
to fill it with bright summer flowers. The trees that stand around
all wear a sort of charmed double life--at least to me--silently,
fancifully.
It was at a time of sickness that the sleepless hours of the long
winter nights came to be passed in spirit with the trees in the garden,
and especially with half-a-dozen or so of our beautiful straight young
Pines. Dare I tell the secret? They all became knights and ladies of
King Arthur’s Court! The great Wellingtonia standing a little apart is
Arthur himself. The Nordmanniana, with its whorls of deepest green and
strong upward shoot of fifteen inches in the year, is Sir Launcelot.
The gold-green softly-feathered Douglas Fir, Sir Bedevere. The young
Cedar of Lebanon, with fretted boughs of graceful downward sweep,
Sir Agravaine. Sir Bors is a rounded solemn English Yew, of slow and
steadfast growth. Sir Palomides--a fine pillar-shaped Thuia--towers
between Sir Gawaine and Sir Gaheris, who are both clad in the wondrous
green with almost metallic lustre of Cupressus Lawsoniana erecta
viridis. These all stand round the triangular lawn, and amongst them
comes, by some strange chance, St. Eulalie, a lovely Pine (_Abies
Amabilis_), whose robe of grey-blue tufted foliage wraps her feet, and
trails upon the grass.
Beyond, on the long lawn next “the par,” stands Sir Tristram, the fine
young Pinsapo; he all but perished in the frost of 1879-80, but now he
seems to have drawn new strength and vigorous green from that nearly
fatal conflict with his terrible enemy. On the house lawn, the Deodara,
is the fairy Morgan-le-faye. Near her stood Sir La Cote-mal-taille,
an ill-formed Lawsoniana; but he is now transplanted elsewhere. King
Mark is a rather wretched ill-grown Cedrus, in summer almost hidden by
Laburnums. Dame Bragwaine is a curious Cryptomeria Elegans; she has
so many names (seven, at least, that I know of), and she takes such
odd diverse disguises! once, loaded with heavy snow, she had to be
supported by a stake, and took the semblance of a bear leaning on a
ragged staff. In summer she is green, and in winter she wears a dress
of purple brown; in rain or heavy dew she is spangled all over with
diamonds and pearls. Queen Guinevere was never represented; no tree
was found to fit her character. But near King Arthur and Sir Tristram,
the two great Pampas tufts, still waving wintry plumes, are “La Beale
Isoude” and “Isoude les Blaunch Mains.”
From our foolish garden-dreaming let us rest, and turn with a long look
of revering love to the great Oak, that stands in his strength out
in the park field, beyond the garden. On three sides round are lines
of guardian Elms, in all their pride of delicate leafless intricacy;
alone, amid the leafless ones, rises the Oak, wearing still his crown
of brown, sere leaves. Smooth and straight grows up the giant stem,
full twenty feet to the spring of the lowest branch. Two brother
Oaks stand on either side. Their form is more rounded, more perfect;
but high above them the great Oak uprears his head--unconcerned, and
grandly branched, though shattered by every fierce west wind that
blows. Every storm works some loss, but from the way each torn limb
lies, you would say he had thrown it down in proud defiance. The
wood-pigeons shelter among the summer leaves; the autumn ripens a rich
store of acorns; and now, as I survey him from the terrace walk, or
gaze upwards from the wet dead leaves beneath, through all the mystery
of his bare and spreading boughs, I think of Keats’ stanza--
“In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity;
The North cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them,
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.”
The Oak is to my mind the tree of trees; and the destruction of its
foliage, by insect ravages, that has year by year saddened so many
parks and woods, has not come near us, I rejoice to say. Our few
(there are but four or five) are safe as yet. I heard the gardener of
one great place that had suffered much acknowledge as the cause the
scarcity of birds.
[Illustration]
_JANUARY, 1883._
“To the Attentive Eye, each Moment of the Year has its own
Beauty.”--EMERSON.
[Illustration]
IV.
JANUARY.
Of Field-Mice, and the Thorn of Joseph of Arimathea--Of “Poor
Johnnys”--A Lilac Gem--and Greenhouse Flowers.
_January 5, 1883._--A large body of the army of the small ones of
the earth has attacked us, and it is no fault of theirs if we are
not despoiled of the best of our spring delights. The field-mice
have at length found out the Crocuses; we, on our side, have set
traps in their way, and large numbers have fallen--quite flat, poor
little things!--under the heavy bricks. We believe we should have
slain many more, had not some clever creature made a practice of
examining the traps during the night, devouring the cheese, and in
some way withdrawing the bit of stick, so as to let the brick fall
harmless. Suspicion points towards one person especially--the old
white fox-terrier, who lives in the stables, and is master (in his own
opinion) of all that department, and whom neither gates nor bars can
prevent going anywhere he chooses to go. “Impossible!” says he, with
Mirabeau; “don’t mention that stupid word!” Up to this time field-mice
have not troubled us much. In the days when there was always a hawk or
two hovering over the ploughed land, or keeping watch over the green
meadows, and when we used to hear the owls in the summer nights, and
saw the white owl who lived somewhere near by sail silently in the grey
of evening across the lawn--in those days we knew little of the plague
of field-mice. But now we have changed all that; cheap gun licences
have put a gun into every one’s hand, the vermin is ruthlessly shot,
and the balance of Nature is destroyed.