Peas--in which no one can feel any particular interest; and oh! such
a sweet patch of seedling Mrs. Sinkins white Pink. I wish that Pink
did possess a more poetical name--Arethusa or Boule de Neige! but the
thing is done, and to the end of time Mrs. Sinkins will be herself.
Next comes a little square of Japanese Iris, the tall stems tipped with
swelling buds whose grand unfolding I long to see. Rows of young Sage
plants grow near, quite unlike sage-green, so-called, in colour; and a
nice little plantation of healthy-looking Fennel. That is for broiled
mackerel; but there is to me another interest connected with Fennel,
that lies in a lurking hope, always unfulfilled, of finding upon it
a caterpillar of the rare _Papilio regina_. Caterpillars of another
sort are only too multitudinous on the Currants growing up the walls.
The increase of them, and of the sawflies belonging to them, is not
short of miraculous. One may stamp out whole families and clear the
bushes, and next morning they will be beginning again. Yet invariably
in the act of destroying there creeps in a sort of questioning, whether
the caterpillars have not full as good a right to the Currants as we
have--except, indeed, that we, and not they, planted them. But the
sawflies would seem to have at least a right to live--a greater right,
perhaps, than we to have tarts; yet they are spared none the more for
such-like uncomfortable reflections. On the south wall the fruit trees
seem to be more or less flourishing. An old Nectarine is covered with
fruit. Then comes Apricot tree No. 1, on which I find no Apricots;
Nos. 2 and 3 the same, 4 dead, and 5 with “a good few” on it. Then we
come to Peaches, plenty of them; then a beautiful dark-leafed Fig tree;
and then the Cherries, well fruited and well netted. And so on round
the walls. Near the wren’s nest there is another large patch of Pinks,
commoner and better than any, with the neatest lacing of purple-madder
or lake. And here a powerful fragrance stops one short; it is the
strawberries, smelling deliciously. They are littered down with clean
straw, and netted close, for the discomfiture of blackbirds. The scent
takes me back a very long way--back to an inconceivable time, when this
old smell of Strawberries, borne across the hedge in the hot noontide
of some summer holiday, was reason enough to set us wild vagrants of
the garden scrambling through the thorns to seize the exquisite delight
of spoiling our neighbour’s Strawberries--a joy that was never marred,
for we were never found out. Sun and rain have both been kind, and this
is our second week of immense red Presidents, one of the oldest and
best of strawberries--the older Caroline being now quite forgotten.
The espaliers are showing plenty of Apples and Pears. Three Pear trees,
standing at the four cross-ways, are curiously in bloom; the blossoms
are all sickly-looking and undersized, but the trees are covered with
them up to the very top, while fruit is set at the same time. I dislike
this unnatural blooming, for the mind will persist in reverting to
foolish sayings and superstitions connected with trees bearing fruit
and flower at the same time.
Among the pleasant sights of this mid-summertide, perhaps the
pleasantest of all is the great thicket of wild Roses growing within
the wire network that bounds the tennis-lawn on the garden side. The
east, shining full upon it every morning, brings forth hundreds of
new-blown Roses. Very often, as you pass into their sweet presence from
under the Plane trees, the air is redolent of a subtle perfume--not
always, though, nor every day, for Roses are capricious of their
scent. The yellow-stamened centre of each flower glows like a tiny
lamp of gold, and the soft petals surrounding it are rose-pink of the
tenderest dye. Were these the canker-blooms of Shakespeare? If so, and
if in his day they could be said to “live unwooed, and unrespected
die,” surely now the tide has turned, for the wild Rose is beloved of
all; while we must confess that garden Roses now-a-days do not always
“die sweet deaths.”
* * * * *
_July_ 22.--
“It is not growing like a tree
In bulk that makes man better be.
The Lily of a day
Is fairer far in May:
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light.”
_Ben Jonson._
Once more our favourite old Ben! Roses are gone, and the memory of them
is as of something too beautiful for words. And Lilies, too, are over;
the fairest of them, the tall white Lily, with her shining head--_nil
candidius_--pure as the shining robe of saints in heaven--better than
Solomon in his glory. She, too, is past; nothing of her remains but
long dismal stems, with down-hanging shrivelled leaves and melancholy
pointals undrest of beauty--to tell of her former pride.
[Illustration: _East Gate._]
The character and features of the Lily would seem to be well marked
enough; and yet, sometimes, the popular idea of it is certainly a mixed
one. In former days flower-hawkers in the streets of London may be
remembered crying, “Lilies, fine white Lilies!” with their barrow-loads
of white Thorn, or May blossom, from the country. Some botanical reason
there must have been for the Lilies in Ferrari’s “De Florum Cultura”
(1633) being named Narcissus! I have been studying an odd volume of
this curious old book, and the unmistakable Lilies represented in the
plates are all “Narcissus Indicus.” Even the Water-lily-like Blood
Flower is a Narcissus. Very likely these remarks may only show my
ignorance.
July must be all retrospect, for all is over--or so it seems to me.
After an absence of a few days, on returning to the garden, I find
there is a change--an almost autumnal feeling in the air, and withered
leaves are blown across the lawn. Faint perfumes linger still about
the Limes, and though no song birds are there, the sound of bees is
heard in the green depths above. But we no longer would breakfast under
the Limes, as we did so short a while since, in summer days departed.
Wind and rain have done their worst amongst the flowers, and yet there
is consolation in all that remains. The best are passed away, but
beautiful new things are coming on. The Evening Primrose (_Ænothera_)
already lights up the garden ways. Variegated Maples, with their
foliage white as ivory, look their best against the darkening Elms.[6]
The hedge of Sweet Peas is for the moment in beauty. Sweet Peas go off
too quickly in our light warm soil, so we try to prolong their blooming
to the latest limit by cutting off their pods as fast as they appear.
[Footnote 6: A small branchlet in one of these white Maples has
returned to the original green, and this is also the sole bit of the
tree that bears a _bunch of keys_.]
Purple draperies of Clematis (Virgin’s Bower), in many shades, from
the deepest violet softening into grey, make the old brick walls
beautiful; or the same Clematis droops from trellises, or clambers up
the trees in many parts of the garden. Almost always it so happens that
the tender green of Vines mingles with the purple. There is something
almost unpleasing in the arrangement of the four petals of Clematis
Jackmanni! but much must be forgiven for the sake of such grand
colouring. No climbing plant comes near the Vine, perhaps, in perfect
grace and beauty of line. The fruitful Vine gives delight to the eye
in far larger measure than Virginia Creeper, or any other of our green
hangings upon the walls of a house. The Vine is more obedient and yet
more free, and its intelligence is greater. Thinking of the Vine as
of a person, one would say that her foliage shows all the variety of
genius. Scarcely will you find two leaves alike, in shape, or size,
or colour. The youngest leaves are half-transparent and golden-green,
or reddened by the sun; on some the light lies cold and grey. If the
Vine is trained round the window, the leaves seen from within outspread
against the light glow like green fires. The very shadiest recesses of
the Vine are full of light. And then the tenderness and strength of
her slender beautiful tendrils! How they reach out like sentient hands!
and when they have found, how strong and firm their clasp! Then, who
does not know and love the curious aroma of her small green flowers,
bringing back to memory the smell of a Southern vineyard? Very soon,
now, autumn suns will swell the clustered fruit, and purple bloom will
begin to show between the leaves. A Vine is one of the only plants
whose every leaf, well nigh, may be painted with care in a picture, and
yet not seem too much made out. Yet rarely indeed can human hand give
the fine thinness and yielding texture of a Vine leaf!
We are never without Portulaca and Mesembryanthemum (how far more
simple is the old name--Fig Marigold) about this time, and the two
beds of them now flowering are especially brilliant. Cool colours
tell beside the scarlet and orange that mostly prevail, and in this
way nothing could be more refreshing than the dwarf Ageratum and blue
Lobelia, mixed with honey-scented Koniga Maritima Variegata, near the
Carnations and Portulaca. The deep blue, with bronze foliage, of the
Lobelia beds in the parterr is almost hot beside the cooler blues
beyond. The Sumac this year is not in beauty--not as if a sunset cloud
had settled down upon it. The multitude of new green shoots would seem
to overpower the crimsoned fluff.
[Illustration]
_AUGUST._
The Garden is a mute Gospel.
The Garden is a perpetual Gala.
[Illustration]
XI.
AUGUST.
“My Sunflower”--Of a Garden Sunday--Of Ghosts in the
Twilight--Magnolia Grandiflora.
_August_ 6.--The Lime avenue is pleasanter than ever now, on these
bright afternoons when the low sun strikes amber shafts through the
branches, and light shadows lie on the parquet of brown and yellow
leaves beneath. With every breeze hundreds of the winged sea-vessels,
like queer little teetotums, come twirling down. The wrens are busy
with their second or third nests--without counting the cock-nests at
the beginning of the season; the porch swallows are thinking of a
second brood, and scatter straws of hay and patches of wet mud untidily
upon the stones underneath their nests; thrushes go about the lawn
followed by two or three great awkward young ones (their third family
this season), too foolish to pick up worms for themselves. As for the
sparrows, they are hard at work with probably the sixth or seventh nest
of their series. Roses are coming on in their second bloom; low bushes
and standards of La France show large buds and attar-scented blossoms;
while crimson Roses of many names glow in richest bloom here and there
all over the garden. Precious as are these late Roses, the chord of
colour has changed so much since Roses were in their prime, that fresh
pink or crimson seem almost misplaced among the fiery reds and scarlet.
White Roses are seldom so beautiful as one feels they ought to be; but
a small plant of the Japanese Rosa Rugosa, in its first season with
us, has been a great pet this summer, with its large white petals; the
Macartney also is welcome, flowering as it has for the first time in
its life here. The buds have hitherto always fallen off, without an
attempt at unclosing, and it has only kept its place on the wall for
the sake of the lovely evergreen leaves and yearly promise of abundant
bloom. But the only perfect white Rose, the White Moss, remains still
for me a dream and nothing more. There are tall old bluish-pink Roses
at the back of the Beechen close which have been blooming in almost
rank luxuriance. They, with a few Cabbage Roses and Maiden’s Blush, and
a yellow Banksia, were all of Roses the garden had when first we came
here, eleven years ago. At that time they were thought too ugly almost
to live, and were banished to the outskirts. But time has brought
them round to the front again; and now these relics of a bygone Rose
age are beloved for their redundant and perfumed bloom, and for their
most uncommon colour, the red in them being so largely mixed with cold
blue. The York and Lancaster Rose--long lost and long coveted--will,
I hope, ere next season be established with us. For the other day in
Somersetshire we found one growing near a ghostly house in a deserted
garden, and from this plant we have some healthy suckers. I cannot keep
pace with the new Roses; they are mostly too large and heavy. They
seem to run too far from the flatness of a really typical Rose type.
We have not made _pot pourri_ this summer; but the Lavender harvest
is gathered in, with spikes unusually fine. I am not sure that they
smell much the sweeter for their great size. It is a pleasant time
when the Lavender is laid out in trays, and the house is full of the
sweetness of it. On these bright windy mornings the Broad Walk looks
its best. Looking up from south to north, the end of the walk, framed
in with trees, is bounded by a low Quickset hedge, beyond which lies
meadow-land, with glimpses of yellow corn-fields. Beyond all is the
soft blue of distant wood. Along the Yew hedge, on one side, are long
borders in the turf of single Dahlias, in succession to Sweet-williams
(Bearded pink); and the other side under the wall is enriched with
scarlet, the scarlet of those tall Lychnis which the children call
“Summer Lightning” (_Lychnis chalcedonia_, flower of Bristow and
Constantinople). And there are sheaves of finely dyed rose-red Phloxes,
pyramids of blue and white Campanula, and clumps of dark blue Salvia;
grey and feathery Gypsophila Paniculata also--priceless for the setting
off of delicate Poppies and other refined and frail kinds when cut. Yet
the mass of colour would be far more brilliant but for the bulbs which
lie hidden under the earth. They must not be disturbed by planting
in amongst them, so all that is in the border has its place there
perennially.
Spaces in the wall behind--where the ancient Pear trees may have
perished from old age--are sometimes dressed in spreading Vines. Last
month a tall blue Larkspur, near one of these Vines, was caught by the
wandering tendrils, and so they grew together, the Larkspur upheld by
her friend the Vine with a strong and tender grasp. Green streamers
of this Vine also wreathe the head of an iron gate empurpled with
intermingling Clematis. Here also, close to the old wall, at regular
intervals, are our Sunflowers; some of them grow to nearly ten feet in
height. After many trials of other spots, we think they seem to do best
planted thus. The shelter saves them all conflict with wind and rain,
and they are tall, and straight, and full, having no cares of weather
to divert their gradual growth to beauty. There was a time when I did
not love Sunflowers. Their constant repetition as a kind of æsthetic
badge can scarcely fail to tire. In those days they had no place in the
garden, or only in some out-of-the-way obscure corner. But once I found
a little song of William Blake’s, and ever since, for the music of it,
the Sunflower has been beloved, with the feeling that to know her is to
give her your heart.
“Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden prime
Where the traveller’s journey is done,
Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin, shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go.”
Perhaps there is not much of common sense in the words! but they surely
are most musical. How grand these Sunflowers are! and there is a sweet
and gracious look in the Sunflower’s open face. With all her grand
mien and stately stature, she never stares up direct at her god; the
golden head half bends down; downward also point the symmetrically set
broad leaves, delicately shaped _en cœur_. The whole aspect is one of
contemplation, or at least one fancies it to be so. There is also a
sort of majesty in the one strong single stem, from which proceeds so
fine a show of buds, and flowers, and leaves. Yet I have never been
happy enough to see her act the part of the poet’s Sunflower--the real
Sunflower of our earthly gardens could never turn her head so fast;
all that I know she does is to bloom on whichever side of her the sun
rises. Poets, nevertheless, are the true seers, and without doubt they
know what they say. The French name, “Tournesol,” would seem to imply a
popular belief that the flower follows the sun.
The silly Dahlia would turn her face to the wall or any way. Brilliant
as are these single Dahlias, they are rather trying in their ways; so
much rank leaf and stalk, and so little flower; the plants sometimes
too large and bushy, sometimes too thin; and then it is so irritating
when their backs are turned as one passes along the walk! The so-called
Cactus Dahlia is not at all tiresome; it is beautiful both in form and
colour.
* * * * *
_Aug_. 26. _Sunday Morning._--After a hundred years, if the Seven
Sleepers awoke on an English Sunday morning, they would certainly
at once know what day it was. There is nothing else like it for the
feeling of intense repose. No other stillness can compare with the
deep calm of a Sunday morning such as this. No leaf stirs; there is
no cloud moving about in the hot hazy blue; the clatter of the iron
road has ceased; the very birds are still. Swallows alone are ever on
the wing, and the silence is so profound that the beat of their wings
can be heard as they dart by in rapid course. The busy corn-fields lie
empty in a golden rest. Only here and there, where the harvest is not
yet gathered in, the sheaves, like praying hands, stand together on
the field. In the green pastures the grazing cattle seem to tread with
hushed and silent step. And there is a sound of church bells on the
air, coming clear yet faint across the level country. There will be
no church for the tired harvestmen whom we saw yesterday lying on the
dusty grass by the roadside. They are too tired, and too ragged and
dirty; but we may hope for them also some restful influences from the
quiet of the day, under such a blue sky.
The early morning is always the time of all others for the garden,
while the flowers are refreshed with the dew and darkness and cool
of night, and are rejoicing yet in the light of a new sun. Soon they
will begin to flag in the dry weary round of burning hours. To one who
only knows the garden after 8 o’clock a.m., a walk round it between 7
or 8, or earlier, would be a revelation. On this special morning the
flowers in the east border seem penetrated through and through with
the rapture of existence. Each Sunflower stands with half-transparent
shadow sharp out upon the wall behind it, its petals fresh gilt, its
centre sparkling with dew; rose-red Phlox and flaming Sword Lilies
(Corn-flag), blue Salvia intermixed with many-coloured stars of
Dahlias, and an indescribable mob of smaller, more insignificant
things. Round the corner a great mass of common white Clematis fills
the air with fragrance. It is all whiteness and sweetness; it is a
summer cloud, a white cumulus of surpassing beauty. One of the stone
vases of the gate pillars is completely hidden under the white foam.
But this matters not; nothing matters but that we should have the
Clematis there, in its loveliness! The Tigridias in the entrance court
are wide open, and none would guess how brief their hours were to be.
There are a few perfect Roses--morning glories (_Convolvulus major_),
and orange Tropœolums (“Lark-heels trim”) with bluish leaves. The dew
lies upon all, and one may say in the garden the Psalmist’s words about
the valleys thick with corn, for the flowers all seem to laugh and sing
with joy. Ten glorious days of almost uninterrupted sunshine have made
us very dry. Daily waterings help to keep things alive, but the grass
is a little brown in some parts of the lawns, and there are yellow
leaves on the Elms and the older Laburnums. The dead dry leaves rustle
so thick under foot in the Lime Avenue, that one looks up to see if any
green is left.
Most of the German seed Grasses are already gathered, though a few
have still to ripen. We always sow a good variety; they look so fresh
while growing, and afterwards are dried for the winter. There is the
pretty Tussock Grass, with soft downy tufts, and the long feathery
kind, like waving hair; and one, most delicate and spray-like, is a
sort of miniature Bulrush, with a green curved head; and then there is
a little forest of our English Bashaw Grass (_Bromus aspen_). This is
very handsome and gigantic in size, and came up of itself in one of
the wild bits of the garden. The handsomest of all our Grasses this
year is a fine blue Grass (Lyme Grass, _Elymus arenarius_), from the
dunes of Holland. The colour amongst other greens is absolutely blue.
It grows so strong, and the leaves so long, that it might almost be
mistaken for an Iris. It is strange that this Grass should thrive
apparently as well, or better, in a Buckinghamshire garden, than in
its native sands! Near the old Syringa (_Philadelphus_), on the turf
at the greenhouse door, two large pots of white Campanula are stood
out for change of air. They are so tall that as one passes by in the
gloaming, one is startled by these tall white people suddenly appearing
out of the dusk. Others of the same pyramidal Campanulas remain in the
house. They are pale pinkish blue and white. Hundreds of blossoms cover
up and hide the whole plant, and nothing is seen but the mass of wide
open flowerets. So cleverly are the flowers arranged, there is no sign
of over-crowding--and one asks how this is, for they seem to be set
quite close and even. “To questions such as these Nature answers, ‘I
grow.’” The Auratum Lilies had vainly promised to open for so long that
I almost lost patience. The dry weather may have caused them to delay.
Constant watering seems now to have begun to take effect, and there
are two or three superb blooms. The bulbs are not taken up for the
autumn; they are only covered over with fine ashes or cocoanut fibre.
If a plant will consent to live in its own place winter and summer, it
seems so much more real, somehow. I wished to try the plan with our
Spanish Irises, but in their case it proved a complete failure. Our
large roots of Salvia Patens are seven years old; they are yearly cut
down and covered with ashes.
The parterr is at this time in its full perfection. In other gardens
I observe the blue Lobelia has done flowering, but our seedling that
we raised, with bronze foliage, is as fine as it was two months ago.
I cannot say the blue is so cool as the others, but the staying power
of this special kind is of real importance, and the beds are most
luminous. I am greatly enjoying a beautiful large blue Agapanthus in a
green tub, placed on the grass near a trimmed Box tree, with a black
Irish Yew for background. The scarlet Pelargoniums (must that long name
be always said?) glow so hotly, they seem to want as much blue and
green as we can give them. Never has our Magnolia Grandiflora flowered
so well; I have counted nine great blossoms on the two trees at the
same time. The texture of no other flower comes near to the beauty of
the Magnolia. I remember long ago a white-chested beautiful boy, whose
mother called him in play her Magnolia boy. That little child was the
only flower I ever saw that could compare with the Magnolia!
[Illustration]
_SEPTEMBER._
“Time will not run back to fetch the age of gold.”--MILTON.
“_In graceful succession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the
dance of the hours goes forward still._”--EMERSON.
[Illustration]
XII.
SEPTEMBER.
Of Psyche--Of an Old Garden--_Nil Desperandum_--Of Branches bearing
Beauteous Fruit.