June. There is so much to say, I can hardly tell how to begin. The
leafy month earns well its title, so grandly full-leafed are the
trees; in finer leaf, I think, than they have been for many a year.
The Elms stand out against the sky in rounded blocks of green, and in
the Lime avenue the broad leaves meeting overhead are round and pure
in outline, untouched as yet by destroying worms, untorn by tempests.
The young Horse Chestnuts along the little watercourse are nearly twice
the size they were last summer, when cruel winds had left them only a
few ragged discoloured leaves. The flower-spikes of a Chestnut within
the garden measure near a foot in length. The great red Horse Chestnut
(_Pavias rubra_) is red all over; it is a mass of blossom almost from
the ground upwards to the very top. The tree is a fine sight, and if it
were not so common one scarcely should tire of admiring it. The season
makes a great difference in the colouring of the blossoms. Sometimes
they come out almost yellow, from too little sun and too much rain;
but in the rich _floraison_ of to-day their colour is almost crimson.
Then the Thorns are in great perfection; the branches of double Pink
May can be compared to nothing else but bars of pink velvet. The double
scarlet varieties are finer than usual, and under the hot sun their
vivid colour is quite dazzling. We find this sort rather capricious;
some years there is more green than red, and when the trees were
younger the red was finer. A little single Thorn draped itself down
to the very grass in scarlet bloom; but it lasts so brief a time that
every petal now has fallen. It is a picturesque, delightful tendency
in all trees to bend and stretch out to meet each other; their branches
love to touch and interlace. So, at this time, across many of our green
garden walks the flowering May makes beautiful red-garlanded arches.
Pink May and Laburnum interweave their branches, and in another place
a Cherry and a Thorn have succeeded in meeting. A little further on,
an Apple reaches out long arms above the turf to touch a copper Beech.
Here, in this corner, there is also Laurel; and Brake Fern, springing
of itself, will soon be tall enough to reach almost the Apple branches.
The Beeches, on either side the _Allée Verte_, embower the walk, while
along the outmost line their slender drooping shoots stretch themselves
to meet and embrace more staid and slow young Elm branchlets, spreading
from the great old trees. The nightingale’s old White Thorn shone white
like a great snow mountain for about ten days, surpassing all the rest
in beauty; and not far from it, deep in a thorny thicket of Dewberry
mixed with Ivy and Nettles, we found the nightingale’s nest. I often
visited her, and she would lie close, with head laid back, and bright,
black, watchful eye fixed full upon me; but I never saw her strange,
smoked eggs, because she would never stir from the nest. Massive
gleams--if such an anomaly can be said--of yellow Spanish and English
Broom are shining between green trees, in contrast with paler gold
of overhanging Laburnum. I wonder if the Riviera Broom would live in
this climate. I mean the Broom that grows something like a Rush, with
the flowers set all round its polished stem.[5] In the orchard border
an immense luxuriantly rounded bush of Weigela replaces the Pyrus of
last month, the lovely pink of its blossom set off by the tender green
around it. These are all beautiful bits of colour, and yet they are
only samples, as it were, of what I wish and may partly hope for some
day; for a Laburnum colonnade is in contemplation, and lilac closes,
and golden cloisters of Genista, some day, there must be! Something
also should be made of the pale hanging clusters of Wistaria--a
_pergola_ ceiled in with its lilac pendants, or small bushes standing
alone, in some grassy place. Our Rhododendrons and Azaleas are in great
beauty, and since last year, are grown and filled out; the season
seems in some way to have pleased them well. We do not attempt fine
sorts, though there is just a sprinkling of crimson and white and a few
others, amongst the showy old pinkish-lilac sort. The broad border by
the side of the walk along the Holly hedge is filled with Rhododendrons
and Azaleas; as yet only the common--yet always beautiful--yellow and
creamy-white Azalea, filling all the air with its peculiar scent. The
success of this border is especially pleasant, for the young Americans
made one rather nervous at times during the early spring--on days when
the weather did not exactly suit them they would look so pitiable and
dejected, with their leaves hanging straight down. Into this border
were moved most of the aged drawn-up Rhododendrons, that used to crowd
the shrubberies. Here, with more room, they have begun to bush out
healthily. Yet there is at present no peat or made-up bed, and the
ground is flooded every winter. We think of giving them a few cartloads
of peat next autumn, just by way of encouragement. In another year this
walk will deserve to be called “the Rhododendron Walk.” At the back of
the border two double scarlet May trees are now radiant with blossom.
About three years ago they were removed here out of the garden, where
for some reason they had become sickly and had ceased to bloom. Change
of air and scene has worked wonders: they have increased greatly in
size, and the move is apparently forgotten. Beyond these is the new
orchard, deep in growing grass, and then the Larch Walk; and--and
then--palings, if the truth must out! Beyond the Holly hedge, in the
shrubbery, wherein we stuff everything that has nowhere else to go,
there is at this moment a white glory of snow-balled Gueldres Rose.
In my ideal garden there shall be large single trees of Gueldres Rose
standing alone; not, as they generally are grown, “smored up” with
crowded shrubs.
[Footnote 5: _Spartium junceum._]
But we have wandered far away from the beloved garden. Over the south
porch is the Lady’s Bower--the chamber always so called in old English
houses--with Vine-wreathed windows. Swallows are building in the
garden porch. It is the chimney swallow, with the red throat. Their
confidence and tameness, the perpetual darting in and out of blue-black
wings (like tenderly domesticated trout! as Mr. Ruskin says), and
the conversational cheery twitter that goes on all day long, are a
continual feast. South, north, and east are the three porches of the
house, and swallows in all three. At the north they are more bold, but
somehow less familiar. Darting shoals of swallows dash in and out,
through the open doors into the house, and two nests are now nearly
built. The family motto, “God’s providence is my inheritance,” written
round the porch walls, suits well such a place of birds; while the
footless martin--sign of the seventh son--borne on the stone shield
over the door among the Roses and Ivy, our swallows may also feel to
be not wholly inappropriate. Under the east porch, which is now green
with Virginian Creeper and Vine--and which will be in its season
purple with Clematis, a pair of swallows are arranging a settlement.
Here also, though not quite so welcome, no one dreams of denying them.
After the sun has turned the corner of the house, this porch is cool
and shady. On the threshold is set the legend, “Nos et meditemur in
horto,” taken from a sun-dial in the nuns’ garden at Polesworth, near
Tamworth. The invitation, I think, is generally disregarded. Many cross
that threshold to walk in the garden and admire the flowers, or to play
tennis, or perhaps--to smoke. But I do not think people often meditate
much in the garden in these days. Dogs do sometimes, as they sit in the
sun. But I wonder how it is done!
From the south front a lot of Everlasting Pea has wound itself round
between the wall and the Yew buttress, taking up fully one half of
the porch. It is well named Everlasting! One has nothing to do but to
dig it up, and cut and hack it away, and the next year it will appear
strong and hearty and in double quantity. It takes no hint that there
may be too much of a good thing! And yet, when it looks so fresh and
handsome, with its large bright flowers, it would be cruel to wish it
away. So let it be, to teach its lesson and to smother as it will. The
white Irises are nearly over, and Wood Strawberries begin to redden
under the windows. An old Maiden’s Blush Rose, covered with buds, peeps
in at the dining-room window on one side, and on the other is the
lovely pink of a most perfect Moss Rose. The parterr in front of the
window is bedded out, of course. I know that it soon will be a blaze
of well-chosen colour; but excepting the golden mount of Stonecrop in
the centre, I do not take much personal interest in its summer phase.
It is fortunate for the garden’s character that this should be so; for
as the invention of new combinations of plants and colours would be to
me impossible, this is left always in our Gardener’s hands, with full
confidence that the result will be as perfect as such things can be.
From the dining-room window we can also see, between the Sumac and a
Box tree, near where a Pæony showers crimson on the daisies, a tiny
mound of turf. It has been there since the end of last month; and
under it lies the dear little favourite of nine summers--Clutie, the
little black Skye terrier. She always loved the dining-room!... We can
now almost walk all round the garden in deep cool shade, such growth
the trees have made! The Broad Walk must always be exposed to the sun;
but from the west of it, across the lawn where the old bowling-green
once was, the distance from shade to shade lessens year by year as the
trees grow on. There is a charming well-shaded welt along the grass, of
purple Pansies and white Pinks, in two thick lines; and on the sunny
side a very bright dash of Limnanthes Douglasii has made a self-sown
edging. As if it enjoyed the pleasant coolness of a north-west border,
one lovely double Narcissus still lingers on in her early freshness.
When hot sunbeams pierce the shade, every day I think must be her last.
The Spurge Laurel has relapsed into the plain dulness of its summer
state, but the Iris bank upon which it grows is as lovely as heart
can desire. Cedar and Copper Beech and one or two Firs cast light
shadows upon the company of Irises, and help them not to wither up
too quickly. The prevailing hue is lilac, with stronger tones, and
yellows intermixed. Each one in turn seems loveliest, but one chief
beauty (_Iris pallida_) has broad petals of soft grey, most delicately
flushed with pink. Then there are lilacs marked with deeper lines and
white with lilac edges (_Iris aphylla_), finely pencilled; Enchantress,
and several other yellow Variegatas, with lines of red or brown; pale
yellow, with the three outer petals intense velvety-purple; and one
pale bluish, with deep blue-purple velvet outside, and bright yellow
brush, well marked. These two are much better than gay Darius, or the
handsome sullen Versailles. The sober old Marquise (_Iris lurida_),
too--who is, however, more like Mrs. Delany in dove-coloured mode silk
hood!--after long delay, is there amongst the best. Does any plant
exist that loves not a corner or an edge? I think not one; so a little
corner here, where a narrow grass path crosses the Iris bank into the
Beechen close, is made especially lovely by the undesigned grouping
of three Irises, enriched by a background of green Ferns and Beech.
The centre of the group is a deep red-purple Iris (from Vesuvius),
a finely coloured yellow and purple, and between them a pure white.
These grow tall and stately from out their straight stiff leaves,
while a little Welsh Poppy, established there by chance, brings in its
crumpled lemon-gold with the happiest effect. Colour effects, wherever
they appear in our garden, are seldom planned. Somehow it does not
come naturally to think, “Here there shall be blue Larkspur and white
Lilies,” or there red Poppies and something else. But it is quite an
exquisite delight to find the most beautiful accidents of colour in
unexpected places all about the garden. Then these chances may give
hints, which we can take or not. At a corner behind the dovecote there
is a grand crimson Pæony, mixed up with brilliant orange Marigolds,
some of them black-eyed; red and yellow are splendid, if well used.
Against the dark brown of a Cryptomeria Elegans stands a tall Tulip,
like white china painted and streaked blood-red; at least it is over
now, but I see it all the same. Then there is a patch of Welsh Poppy,
growing just as one finds a patch of Gentian or white Crocus on the
Alps--and with it London Pride, a mass of feathery red, growing in the
same way. Under the trees, one meets a pallid Columbine, looking like a
ghost, and just by chance in the lilac Iris bed occurs one rich carmine
Rose. I do not even think the delicately refined colour combination of
dwarf-growing Gloire de Dijon Roses and bronze Heartsease was quite
intentional; they mix, however, strangely well. And the bed of pink
Roses--Prevost and Jules Margottin--with the white Pink “Mrs. Sinkins,”
promises to be an equal success.
One would fain stay for awhile the steps of the summer flowers in the
garden; but these bright daughters of the year, in long procession,
flit by more swiftly as each new day arises. They are in such a hurry
now to come and to be gone, alas! Even at this very moment there are
signs of the quick approach of some of our latest loves. For in the
east border, among crimson Pæonies and lingering purple Iris, appears
already a single Dahlia! In such a multitude one hardly knows which
flowers to note, they are all so fair. But in the Fantaisie, I think I
could almost let the Roses go which are bursting into bloom as bushes
and as pillar Roses, just to keep it a little longer as it is now,
with the hosts of White Foxgloves, with double white Rockets, yellow
Day Lilies, and puce-purple Columbines; Irises and white stars of
Nicotiana rising over an edging of pink and white Phlox Nelsoni--all
these and many more, set off by Cupressus and Fir, interspersed among
the flowers beyond; and flaring across the grass walk, a great fiery
scarlet Oriental Poppy. With the morning shining through it, this
flower seems made up of fire from the sun itself--the very purest
possible essence of scarlet. Several magnificent Poppies light up the
garden at different points. Their scarlet is a fast colour; neither
wind nor sun will scorch or change it in the least, and in this quality
it is superior to so many flowers whose colours fly directly--some
more easily than others. The brown Heartsease cannot stand the sun,
while the large purple is unmoved. The crimson of the Pæony flies;
and the rose-red double Pyrethrum scorches quickly. Lilac (excepting
in Wistaria) seems one of the fastest colours in the garden!--though
rain-drops standing all night in a half-faded lilac Iris become a
most beautiful colour! Although it seems that scarlet, yellows, and
colours in which blue is mixed stand best. Besides the great scarlet
Poppies, the annual Poppies are coming on, in all their varied pinks,
and reds, and whites; their large crumpled petals have the shape and
all the transparent delicacy of rare sea shells. There is also a
charming uncertainty as to the colours or amount of doubleness to be
expected. Amongst the best are bright reds with a clear white eye, and
pink-hemmed whites. But whenever anything approaching a common field
Poppy makes its appearance amongst them--as often happens, they have
such a strong tendency to run back--it has to be pulled up immediately.
Our Columbines are not so fine as they were last summer; their flowers
are smaller and not so free in form. The Californian scarlet and yellow
is so small as to be a miniature of itself. There is, however, one
fine plant with flowers pale violet and primrose, and the various
tints of “crushed strawberry” are very lovely, especially in the double
Columbines.
* * * * *
_June_ 15.--Here is the middle of the month, and the garden is more
bewildering than ever! Rosebuds in countless multitudes are blooming
everywhere, in every part. And as the fashion is to call her so, we
must allow the Rose to be queen of flowers; and since it is most true
that Roses are--
“Not royal in their smells alone, but in their hue,”
so, though my beloved Iris has not yet faded from the garden, the Rose
now must be worshipped. One by one we have already greeted many of
our old best favourites. Amongst them Boursault came first, climbing
the south gables of the house; then Souvenir d’un Ami, large and full
flushed, at the very top of the long bare old stem of a climber, any
age; then Gloire de Dijon, which, though even more profuse in its bloom
than usual, has a something not quite right about it this year--a
sort of old expression. After that, Maiden’s Blush and Moss Rose. A
great wild blush of Boursault Rose grows at the north end of the
garden--the flowers are lovely, recalling a little in their colour and
irregular shape what I remember as “the Musk Rose,” in the gardens of
former days. Coupe d’Hébé, on the wall of the gardener’s cottage, is
perfect in scent and shape and in true rose-colour. The yellow Briar
is finer than usual, and Damask Roses are opening fast. La France,
too--the Rose whose scent is made of the finest attar--has delighted
us with half-a-dozen beautiful blooms; Blairii No. 2 begins to crest
the wire arches (one never hears of No. 1!). But among the Rose joys
which abound already, or that we still expect in endless succession,
none are so dear to me as one little ragged bush, covered now with
small white Scotch Roses of exquisite perfume. This little Rose bush is
forty-eight years old, to my certain knowledge. It was planted by my
father, and it has been mine for the last twenty years. Last year it
showed some signs of feebleness, so we moved it from the over-crowded
place where it had been for eleven years, into a newly made bed with a
south aspect. There, with a companion of the same kind, it promises to
take a new lease of life. Strange that such a little Rose should thus
live on for well-nigh half a century, calmly putting forth its leaf and
bloom summer after summer, whilst so many of the men and women who knew
it once have passed away! It somehow makes one think of the old monk
pointing to the frescoes on his convent walls, and saying, “These are
the realities; we are the shadows.”
A word of praise must be said for the blue and green of Anchusa Italica
at the southern end of the Broad Walk, and the beds of white Pinks
(these are the old-fashioned “maiden pinks of odour faint”), mixing
their perfume deliciously with Musk. The beds and large patches of
beautiful “Mrs. Sinkins” are very good this season. They are, as
Bacon would say, “fast flowers of their smell,” in flavour like Clove
Carnations.
[Illustration]
_JULY._
“As the last taste of sweet is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.”--SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration]
X.
MIDSUMMER AND JULY.
Of Pæonies--Iris Sibirica--Green
Peas--Fennel--Strawberries--Lilies--The Vine.
_June_ 24.--“Ere the parting hour go by, quick, thy tablets, Memory.”
In less than a week July will be here, and June will fade away into the
past and be forgotten, while more than half its loveliness is still
unnoted and untold. So here on Midsummer night, when the spirits of
earth and air have power, let me call back for a moment the dear-worth
vision of flowers that were my delight in the gone sweet days of
early June. I would try also to fix the remembrance of a few, out of
the thousand glories of the day, doomed to die before ever the story
of next month begins. And first the Pæonies, which I have as yet
scarcely named. Earliest of all came the crimson-pink single Pæony
(_Pæonia peregrina_), with yellow stamens and bluish leaves, like
a giant Rose of Sharon (the single red Scotch Rose); then the pale
pink double; then the heavy crimson, that pales so quick in sun or
rain; then, most beautiful of all, the pure, cold, white Pæony, with
a faint tinge of colour on its outer petals. Last of all the large
rose-red--rose-coloured, with an evanescent perfume like a dream of the
smell of a wild Rose, yet in substance so staunch a flower that I have
known rose Pæonies retain their beauty for two full weeks in a glass of
water. All these, excepting one or two who here and there outstay the
rest, are gone by.
And then the Elder! The hedgerows have been white with it; and there
were days when all the air was scented with it, and the country smelt
of Elder! The path under our one tree is now a milky way, covered with
a myriad little fallen stars. They remind one of the far-away Olives’
starry blossoms, when they fall softly among Lady Tulips and Gladioli
in May. Syringa (_Philadelphus_, or Mock Orange) has come and almost
gone; three varieties--the old small one, the large-flowered, and the
half-double sort. I like most the first, and this has also the most
powerful scent. A large old bush of it grows in the grass, just without
the glass door in the wall opening into the greenhouse. Dear Syringa!
best hated and best loved of flowers. The lovers of it hail its
blooming with enthusiasm, and break off sprigs to wear as they pass the
bush, whilst others will go the other way round to avoid passing near.
And now it suffers still further insult by being denied its own old
name, Syringa! Even in 1597, in Gerarde’s time, there began to arise
some confusion between it and the Lilac, or “Blew Pipe Tree.”
And now, at this very time, has come a new burst of Irises--the
narrow-leaved kinds. Not the real Spanish Irises; their time is
not yet. We have a few old plants whose flowers are deep bronze,
flame-centred, in yellow gold, and a stronger, commoner kind, of full
lilac colour. One little plant, growing in a pet corner by the iron
gate in the south wall, has a delicate primrose and lilac-tipped bloom.
And there is the great white Flag Iris, whose grand leaves stand four
feet high. The right place has not yet been found for this fine plant.
For three years past he has just borne with us, and no more; I fear he
dislikes us--and he shows it. By the watercourse the yellow Flags are
as yellow as possible, in rich contrast with their dark green leaves;
and in the Fantaisie, where the China Tulip stood last month, showing
bright against the dusky Cryptomeria Elegans, is now a fine root of
Iris (_Sibirica alba_). The blue Sibirica is good, but this white
variety is most lovely. One could not pass it by without remarking
the peculiar whiteness of its small shapely flowers, set on such long
slender stalks. How wonderful are the contrasts of white in flowers! Of
those now in bloom together, one hardly knows which to call the whitest
of them all. This little Iris retains through its whiteness a dim
remembrance, as it were, of blue.
There is the kitchen garden, too! The fresh and brilliant beauty that
just now it holds within its walls will soon be past, giving place
to richer, more sober colours. Looking through the old ironwork of
the gate, up the straight middle walk, there is such a splendour of
brightly blended colour in the flowers on either side! As yet, they
are in their prime; the key-note of colour is white--double Rockets,
double white Pyrethrums, and white Pinks. Then, bending down over the
walk, mixing in with the whiteness, glowing through leaf and branch
in brilliant intervals of colour, are Roses--pink, crimson, blush;
Annual Poppies, tender or dazzling in their hue; clouds of pale blue
Delphinium, with spires of deepening blue over-topping all the rest.
Just midway between the pink and crimson Roses, a Briar, wreathed about
with small yellow blooms, hangs over the cross walks at the corner.
Masses of low blue Campanula fill in below or between the larger
flowers. Right at the end, another iron gate lets in the glimmering of
cool shades beyond. A little wren’s nest is there, ensconced snugly in
a bowery Clematis, half-way up the pillar; the nest cannot be seen so
far off, but I know well how the small entrance hole is quite filled up
with greedy little yellow beaks and gaping mouths! The little mother is
hard at work for them, somewhere near--hunting the bark of an Elm, most
likely. The golden wrens have brought out their families--two nestfuls.
We found the nests hanging in the Yews, and now the garden seems to be
full of little elfin scissors’ grinders, busy all day long.
[Illustration: _The Parterr._]
I have a fancy to open the gate and go all round the kitchen garden
quite prosaically. The other garden will seem still sweeter, after.
Here, on the left, is a breadth of wonderful Lettuces, round and
close like small round Cabbages, with milk-white middles; and beyond,
some taller and tied-up--more like Salad. Near the Lettuces are tall
ranks of Peas, hung all over with well-filled pods. I think I like
these beautiful green Peas, growing here, as much as when served up
in a dish for dinner. There seems always to be something attractive
to Art of all kinds in pea pods; from the pods sculptured on the
great bronze gates of the cathedral at Pisa, or the raised needlework
of the sixteenth century, to the ornaments in the jewellers’ shops
of Paris or the portraits of Marrowfats or Telegraph Peas in the
advertisement-sheets of gardening papers--these last being really
pictures, though not meant so. I remember once being shown a white
satin spencer of Queen Elizabeth’s, embroidered in butterflies and
Green Pea pods half-open, to show the rows of peas within.