There is the grandest luxuriance of foliage, with thick tall stems,
crowned by spathes in spiral lines of perfect grace. The rich texture
of these flowers is marvellous; white as the drifted snow, with a
lemon scent. Our success is perhaps due, not only to good management,
but to what one may call imported bulbs. Four years ago they were
thrown out of a garden at Cannes, as worthless rubbish, on to the
road-side. I passed that way one day, while a little peasant girl was
collecting some of these bulbs in her pinafore. I asked her what they
were. “_Des lis!_” she said. So I immediately gathered up some for
myself, and they were done up in newspapers and packed in our trunks
and brought home. In grim contrast to these joyous flowers of light
is the Serpent Flower, a tropical member of the Arum family. I saw
it, once only, eleven years ago, in the beautiful garden of Palazzo
Orenga, at Mortola, near Ventimiglia. It grew on the edge of a ravine,
under the deep shade of a low stone wall. Right up from a cluster of
black-spotted leaves the centre spiral rose to about ten or twelve
inches, bending over at the top into a sort of hood, like the hooded
head of a cobra. The creature--flower I cannot say--took the attitude
exactly of a snake preparing to spring, the body marked and spotted the
same as a snake, with the hood greyish-brown. The whole thing seemed
something more than a good imitation only of the reptile whose name it
bears. The first glance gave a sort of shock, as if on a sudden one had
become aware of the actual presence at one’s feet of a deadly serpent;
and yet the terrifying object is, I believe, used by the Indians as an
antidote to snake-bite.
All over the Olive grounds of the same country where the Serpent Arum
is acclimatized, about this time or early in March, appear the little
brown “Sporacci”--tiny hooded Arums of quaint form, little odd monks
with yellow tongues hanging out (Arum Arisarum). My window is full of
Paper Narcissus--Narcissus is Remembrance; and for the sake of past
days, I love it--they succeed a set of blue Roman Hyacinths, dear also
from association, and beautiful in their full tones of blue and green.
The perfume of both flowers brings back vividly the sweet South, where
I knew them wild. I must end with a little bit out of a letter sent
me from that southern land which has the power to create lovers of
Nature:--
“I am longing for sunshine, to bring to life all the flowers I am
watching for near the torrent beds. My ignorance of flowers has this
advantage, that each leaf is a mystery to me, and I know not what
flower it frames, so each will be a surprise as it appears.”
[Illustration]
_MARCH._
“Out of the Snow, the Snowdrop--
Out of Death comes Life.”...
DAVID GRAY.
[Illustration]
VI.
MARCH.
Of Rooks, and the Close of Day--Of Fairy Garlands, Snowdrops, and Wild
Ivy.
_March_ 9.--We are rejoicing in the fulfilment of a long-felt wish,
and at last we possess a rookery! There are the nests, seven of them,
in the Elms, in full view of our east windows. The grand old trees
have always seemed to us a most tempting position for the rooks, who
themselves have half thought so too. But it has taken them long to come
to a decision. On many a spring morning for these eleven years past
have we observed them settling upon the trees in hundreds. But after a
short interval of noise and clamour, they would rise and depart. They
were only coquetting a little with us, or bent on kindling delusive
hopes. “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody,” however; so the storm
of April 29 last year, which uprooted some of our best trees, laid low
also part of a neighbouring rookery. The shock seems to have decided
the rooks, and to have won their confidence in our noble 300-year-old
Elms. The seven nests were begun and nearly built in about as many
days. How busy the old rooks are! And how, with no hands and only one
beak, they can make up those neat bundles of moss and dry grass, just
like potatoes, that we see them carrying to line the nests with, is
difficult to understand. During the rough snowy weather no work was
done; but a rook or two sat all day just above the nests on the very
topmost twigs, swaying in the wind, as if to watch and test their
security. One evening at dusk, after the rooks had gone off for the
night, an inquisitive starling came peeping about. He flew up from his
own lower range, visiting every nest; made a minute inspection inside
and out, and then decamped in a great hurry, afraid of being found out.
Near the great Elms, but far below the new black colony, is the
dovecote. Beautiful white fantail pigeons, varied by two or
three purple-necked greys, here live joyous lives. On the steep,
heather-thatched roof they preen, and coo, and make love together, or
rise with sudden dash into the air, and wheel in circling flight over
the lawns and flower-beds. On sunny days, when they pass and repass the
house, swift gleams flash along the rooms within; brown oak panellings
reflecting back the sunshine from their silver plumes. Often, through
long summer afternoons, will these bright shadows come and go upon
the walls, like visions of happy ghosts upon the wing. It is not all
poetry, however, with our fantails, I am afraid; for the handsomest of
them all choked himself with too greedily swallowing a slug one day,
and was found stretched dead upon the lawn. Sometimes a poor tailless
fugitive, escaped from the nearest public-house shooting-match, will
take refuge with our pigeons and feed shyly with them for a day or so;
but only one ever remained, and she went to live with the bantam cock,
whose pert little wife had deserted him.
The day has been cold, with scattered flakes of snow falling; and now,
in the grey still evening, the air is suffused with a certain splendid
sobriety of colouring, if it may be so described. The turf has lost
that living green it showed a month ago, for since then bitter winds
have swept the garden; the Yews look dark and sombre, dark pyramids
and lines; the older Yews, of large and natural growth, are powdered
over with dim gold-dust. Such profuse bloom on the Yews seems to soften
their blackness. Beyond the Yew hedges’ dusky outline glows a richer
green of Laurel, Cedar, and Firs, with the russet sheen of Beech, half
seen between the budding fulness of Thorn and Laburnum. Beyond all
stand the Elms; they form a background of infinite delicacy, purpling
under that nameless change, more felt than seen, which the turn of
the year has brought. Nearer home, in this pale evening light, the
hoary old garden walls, with here and there a ruddier tint of redder
brick, or faintest blush upon them of Pyrus Japonica, join their
mellow tones to the intense but quiet colour of the hour. A mass of
common sweet-scented white Clematis, whose summer glory has long since
melted into a softly shaded cloud of thin withered stalks, hides one
pillar of the central iron gate, and half enwreathes a sculptured vase
above; sere leaves of grassy wild things break the straight line of
mossy, lichened coping. Timid thrushes with spotted breast, and little
hedge-sparrows in sober brown, appear upon the lawn, since labour
for the day is done and the garden is deserted. A tomtit, quaintly
liveried, has made the square-topped Yewen hedge his hunting-ground.
(Yewen was the pretty old word in Spenser’s time: may we not revive
it?) But now a bold gay blackbird leaps up upon the stone ball that
surmounts the ivied corner of the wall. His jet-black plumage and “the
golden dagger of his bill” give just that touch of strength wanted to
complete the consonance of lovely colour. By-and-by he will be down
again upon the grass to flirt his tail and flout the thrushes till he
remains alone, master of the field. This is a dull time for the cock
birds all over the place. Awhile ago they had such games of an evening
on the lawn! chasing each other in and out between the Yews and Box
tree, and every blackbird had two hens to play hide and seek with. But
now the lawful wives are sitting, and there’s an end of the fun.
The garden has been cold and joyless ever since March 4. It is true
that morning after morning, about sunrise, a treat for the eye has been
prepared by the Crocus beds with a succession of white frosts, but it
is one could well be spared. Meanwhile, it certainly is the prettiest
sight imaginable, these Crocuses thrown lightly, as it were, upon the
frosted turf in garlands of amethyst and amber. The rime, covering up
all varied greens and browns of earth and grass with a veil of pearly
grey, gives a most pure and charming result. If you look quite near--at
the purple wreath especially--the flowers seem all dipped in pounded
sugar, crystallized for a fairy’s feast. Except this pretty morning
show, there is as yet but little joy. Fewer flowers than in January
even, and such as are willing to bloom cast down on the ground.
Primroses and the earliest Daffodils are thus laid low, conquered by
overmastering cold. Violets, too, which before the frost began were
almost more perfumed and of finer bloom than ever I remember, are
pinched and shrunken. Snowdrops also failed, before the severe frost,
destroyed untimely by excessive rain. The Snowflake (_Leucojum vernum_)
appeared earlier than usual, and I look forward to the summer Snowflake
later on. These lovely flowers came from an eyot on the Thames, where
they grow wild. A fine double Snowdrop played an amusing little freak.
The southern face of a Yew hedge under which it grew had, I suppose,
gradually overgrown the plant, so its stalks had to preternaturally
lengthen themselves, growing up within the hedge till forth peeped the
flowers from various little interspaces, as if the Yew itself were
breaking out into Snowdrops! One of these long stems measured sixteen
inches, and the blossoms, larger than common, looked as if they enjoyed
the joke.
Few indeed are the flowers to be recorded in bloom. There is a pink
tuft or two of Dog’s-tooth Violet (long lines of these, if there were
space sufficient, would make great show). Grape Hyacinths (looking
very unripe) are an inch or so above-ground. The sweet little dwarf
Daffodil, with bent head, smiles to itself in the accustomed place. A
few Polyanthuses, small blue Periwinkles, mixed with yellow Primroses;
Pulmonaria, seared and pinched; blue Scilla, in niggard clumps, quite
unlike its usual bounteous, radiant beauty. These, with bushes of rosy
Ribes, checked but ready to break into bloom, are about all we can
boast. There are, indeed, the Crocuses, whose best days, however, will
soon be ended. The mixed border of these, in three colours--yellow,
white, and lilac--would have been perfect had our friends the
field-mice, instead of choosing the lilac alone for their own private
consumption, shown more impartiality. Their taste is certainly
remarkable, for the yellow were the fattest bulbs.
* * * * *
_Mar_. 19.--After a day of rain it is wonderful how quickly Daffodils
and Primroses have picked themselves up. The Grape Hyacinths have
grown two inches since morning, and begun to colour in proportion,
or so at least it seems; and tiny golden buds, unperceived before,
burgeon all over the Kerria. Although Daffodils as yet are few, there
is already a Polyanthus Narcissus unfolded, and a few Narcissus of
deep orange-yellow have arisen behind the lilac winter Irises. The
Apricot bloom is chiefly brown, but all will not be lost. On the Peach
trees there are buds, and some expanded blooms of heavenly pink. I
find a curious small deception has been practised upon me by a plant
in the east border. I had often observed two patches of greenish
worn-out-looking moss there, and at last inquired of the Gardener
the reason of their being permitted. He pointed out that it was not
moss, but the green bare roots of a Violet, which I am well acquainted
with when its disguise is thrown off. It is a pied Dog Violet, from
Villa Clara, Baveno. We have had it now for some years. The flower is
scentless, striped white and purple, of large size, on a long stalk.
But flower and leaf are yet a long way off.
The pruning and trimming of all the Ivy walls and festoons have been
done. The result for the time is as ugly as it is desirable. Ivy grows
so lavishly here that it has to be kept well in hand, and many whom
it favours less have said they envied us our Ivy. More than once we
have had to choose between some tree or a canopy of Ivy. It is like
a beautiful carpet underneath a long row of Elms, where nothing else
would grow; indeed, wherever there happen to be bits too overshadowed
for grass or otherwise unsatisfactory, we put in Ivy; it is sure to
understand, and to do what is required. My favourite sort is the
wild English Ivy, and no other has a right to grow on the house. Its
growth is slow and sure; it always grows to beauty, and never to
over-richness. The loveliness of its younger shoots and of the deeply
cut leaves might inspire either poet or painter! To either I would say,
Wherever on your tree, or fence, or house-wall you find it beginning to
spring, cherish it; for years it will do no harm, and if you are true
to your art, and therefore know that small things are not too small
for you, it will repay your love a hundredfold. Wild Ivy is best where
it comes up of itself; it clings then so close and flat. A thrush sat
on her nest, built on quite the outside of a Holly, two feet from the
ground, while the men were at work pruning an Ivy wall--large swathes
of Ivy falling close to her. She had faith in us, and never feared.
Our grove of white Arums in the greenhouse is still a fine
sight--plants from four to five feet high, with enormous leaves. The
spathes, however, though fine, are less so than at first, when many of
them measured over eight inches across. The Maréchal Niel Rose will not
give us this season anything like the six hundred great yellow roses
we have had from him these last three years. He seems to be failing
a little, somehow. But every morning I have a foretaste of summer in
the glowing heap of beautiful roses of several kinds, brought in to
me before breakfast. And with them there are Gloxinias, marvellous
in their size and splendour of deep colouring. They are succeeding a
lot of most curious-looking Tydæas--orange and dusky pink, profusely
spotted. Both these flowers surprise one by the length of time they
remain fresh when cut.
[Illustration]
_APRIL._
“To the Wise a Fact is True Poetry, and the most Beautiful of
Fables.”--EMERSON.
[Illustration]
VII.
APRIL.
Of Daffodils--Coltsfoot--An Archangel--Gold Wrens and the little
Vedova.
_April_ 9.--The garden is full of Daffodils. Yellow flowers and green
leaves form a most beautiful combination of colours when laid on by
Nature’s hand. Every part of the garden now has its show of single or
double Daffodils, and yet there is not one too many. Lovely always,
they are loveliest, perhaps, when growing in the grass. There, “the
green world they live in” shows them off better than when surrounded
by garden mould. Excepting one large single flowering plant under the
east wall, our finest Daffodils grow in the cool north border. One
thinks of “Enid” in her faded silk, like a blossom “that lightly breaks
a faded flower-sheath” when the Daffodils appear. Indeed, one can
scarcely look on them, in their beauty, without recalling the lines of
some familiar quotation; mine shall only be from the children’s nursery
song-book--
“Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.”
(Poor Daffodilla! for yellow is jealousy, and green is forsaken.)
The old jingle paints well enough the Daffodil’s outside. Whatever
else may lie within the golden depth of her cup and about her silken
petals, all the poetry of the Daffodil has been said and sung from
old, old days, up to our own time, by those happy few whose thoughts
shape themselves in verse. Soon there will be a blooming of many
varieties in the garden, but at this moment only three abound, and of
these I hardly know which most to praise. There is the single variety,
with rather narrow, almost pointed petals, and trumpet tube of a
deeper shade of yellow; I cannot distinguish this one from Narcissus
Incomparabilis of the Riviera. Then there is the semi-double (old
Parkinson’s Narcissus Major, “confined to the gardens of the curious”),
which I sometimes think a still more handsome flower, from its rich
folded depths of colour. Its prime, however, lasts but a few days;
the full tube seems then to overspread and split, and a confusion of
doubleness ensues which mars its perfect form. Then there is the old
real Daffodil--quite apart from the so-called Lent Lily--with very
pale, broad-leaved corolla, and true Narcissus-shaped cup. When this
doubles itself there is again a loss of grace. I call it the real
Daffodil, because years ago, when that was a flower not thought so much
of, this, as I remember, was the usual kind seen in gardens. I believe
in those days the Daffodil--whose very name is music in our ears--was
considered almost a vulgar (!) flower; “it was so very common.” Now
it is so common in another way, one could half wish that it--with the
Sunflower--had remained undiscovered, or only bloomed to grace old
cottage garden plots, or as the Lent Lily, in wild woodland ways, for
the delight of simple village children. Is it fault or failing in
human nature that inclines us to turn from things that all the world
admires? I only know that, somehow, one loves one’s own love to be
for one’s self alone! and I do not care to see cartfuls of Daffodils
sent up to London.... There is a part of the garden on the north side
which just now gives me strange pleasure. There we leave the borders
to grow pretty much how they will. In summer on one side there is a
green forest of Male-Fern, Bramble, wild Ivy, and low-grown Berberis;
but at this time the scene is different. Great double Daffodils rest
their golden heads upon interlacing red-brown Fern and branching glossy
Berberis. A few shafts of narrow blue-green leaves pierce through and
amongst the brown and burnt-sienna colour; Pulmonaria--taking heart
after all the withering frosts--breaks into clouds of flower, all blue
and pink, with dusks of mottled leaf between. And among the Pulmonaria
crops up by chance, in the humblest way, a healthy beautiful Archangel,
or Dead Nettle, set with blossoms downy white.
“More springs in the garden than the gardener ever sowed,” is an old
saying. Just the other side the walk there chances--who knows how?--a
charming little plant which curiously attracts me. Unlike “the small
Celandine,” it never had a poet, so far as I know, to sing its praise,
although the Painter-poet of England--William Blake--disdained not to
immortalize it. In his illustrations to the Book of Job it occurs, the
character of the flowers unmistakably given by a few master-touches.
Yet this little Coltsfoot is full of interest, and the little satiny
sunflower that crowns each pinkish fleshy flower-stalk is, in its
way, quaintly unique. The _specimen_ (_vide_ Dryasdust) in our north
border has rooted partly under and amongst the lowest leaves of an
Aucuba, partly in the Box edging. I think it has been in a vague
way not unknown to me for many past seasons, but I have passed it
unobservantly, only perhaps remarking to myself, “Ah, there you are
again!” One day, however, it drew down my attention to look more
closely, and since, it has had sometimes half-a-dozen visits in the
day. I wished to see if there were any set hours for its unfolding and
closing; it seemed so odd to find the little flowers fast shut at near
8 a.m., with the sunshine bright upon them. Then I found they did not
open till between 11 and 12 mid-day. One placed in water, at a south
window, opened itself wide before nine in the morning, and at noon the
small yellow disc was spread so broad that its rays turned over the
other way at the edges. You could scarcely find on any flower’s face an
expression of more serene content. Then both the growing flowers and
the one in the window began to close at precisely the same time--about
ten minutes to 4 p.m.; and the closing process with both only came to
an end at near 6. This slowness may have been, perhaps, because the
flowers were then all rather past their first youth. In grey cloudy
weather they hardly unclosed at all. The spot where this Coltsfoot has
chosen to grow must be unsympathetic, for after the early morning a
light chequered shade of Holly, from over the way, veils in some degree
its coveted sun supply. When its time comes the little flower dies very
prettily; it only changes to a dull saffron hue, and then shuts up for
ever.
The all too brief delight of hearing the birds sing in the evening is
not at its best; about seven they begin. The other day, at 6.30, scarce
a note was heard through all the garden. The rooks were cawing in a
whisper their hoarse good-nights; two wood-pigeons answered each other
from trees far apart in the fields, with an interrupted chant--“slow
to begin and never ending.” Suddenly, a little before seven--about
three minutes before--one after another the thrushes awoke into song.
The whole air echoed and resounded with their music. It was the same
time, precisely, as on the day before. How do they tell the hour thus
to a minute? Not certainly by the clock; for seven struck from the
village church tower just three minutes after the concert began. Can
it be the first star appearing that sets for them the moment to begin?
Looking up, the pole star shone from heaven right overhead. Does some
“wise thrush,” sitting on a topmost branch, with full bright orbs
turned heavenwards, mark this sudden diamond in the sky, and then at
once pour forth his flood of liquid melody, the signal for his fellows
waiting round to take up the song? We watched near the Douglas Fir, I
and the satin-coated colley dog; he listened too, lying on the grass,
rather bored but patient, with ears alert; and twilight deepened, and
star after star stole out upon the dusk, while the orange west grew
dim and changed, and louder still re-echoed the ecstatic numbers from
every bush and tree, and from many a hedgerow in the fields beyond. In
all this multitude of bird voices not a discord intervenes; it is an
orchestra turned to one key, and the fuller the tones of the unnumbered
instruments, the deeper and more entire is the concord. How is it done?
There is no conductor with his baton!... But the dinner-bell rings, and
we must leave the concert and all its sweet-throated minstrels in full
song, and the garden, with its refined and lovely influences of perfect
harmony, its budding trees and tuneful thickets of Fir and Laurel, to
the Daffodils and the stars. The contrast is somewhat gross, of roast
mutton and lighted lamps!... But to those who prefer their Currant
bushes to the songs of “God’s poet hid in foliage green,” what can be
said? I do not believe such persons exist.