DITCHES AND NARROW SHADY LANES, COPSES, HEDGEROWS, AND THICKETS.
[Illustration: Foliage of Dipsacus, on hedge–bank in spring.]
Men usually seek sunny positions for their gardens, so that even those
obliged to be contented with the north side of the hill would scarcely
appreciate some of the above–named positions. What, the gloomy and
weedy dyke as a garden! Yes, there are ditches, dry and wet, in every
district, that may readily be made more beautiful than many a “modern
flower–garden.” But what would grow in them? Many of the beautiful
wood and shade–loving plants of our own and similar latitudes—things
that love not the open sunny hill–sides or wide meadows, but take
shelter in the stillness of deep woods or in dark valleys, are happy
deep between riven rocks, and gaily occupy the little dark caves
beneath the great boulders on many a horror–stricken mountain gorge,
and which garland with inimitable grace the vast flanks of rock that
guard the dark courses of the rivers on their paths through the hills.
And as these dark walls, ruined by ceaseless pulse of the torrent, are
beautiful exceedingly, how much more may we make all the shady dykes
and narrow lanes that occur everywhere! For while the nymph–gardener of
the ravine may depend for her novelties on the stray grains of seeds
brought in the moss by the robin when building her nest, or on the
mercy of the hurrying wave, we may place side by side the snowy white
wood lily (Trillium grandiflorum), whose home is in the shades of the
American woods, with the twin flower of Scotland and northern Europe,
and find both thrive on the same spot in happy companionship. And so
in innumerable instances. And not only may we be assured of numbers of
the most beautiful plants of other countries thriving in deep ditches
and in like positions, but also that not a few of them, like the white
wood lily, will thrive much better in them than in any position in
garden borders. This plant, when in perfection, has a flower as fair
as any white lily, while it is seldom a foot high; but, in consequence
of being a shade–loving and wood plant, it usually perishes in the
ordinary garden bed or border, while in a shady dyke or any like
position it will be found to thrive as well as in its native woods; and
if in deep, free, sandy, or vegetable soil, to grow so as not to be
surpassed in loveliness by anything seen in our stoves or greenhouses.
Our wild flowers take possession of the stiff, formal, and shorn
hedges that seam the land, often draping them with such inimitable
grace that half the conservatories in the country, with their
collections of small red pots and small mean plants are stiff and poor
compared with a few yards’ length of their blossomy verdure. The Wild
Roses, Purple Vetch, Honeysuckle, and the Virgin’s Bower, clamber above
smaller, but not less pretty, wildlings, and throw a veil of graceful
life over the mutilated shrubs, reminding us of the plant–life in the
nest–like thickets of dwarf shrubs that one often meets on the high
Alpine meadows. In these islets of bushes in a sea of grass one may
gather flowers after they have been all browsed down on the turf. Next
to the most interesting aspects of Alpine vegetation, there is perhaps
nothing in the world of plant–life more lovely than the delicate
tracery of low–climbing things wedded to the bushes in all northern
and temperate regions of the earth. Perishing like the grass, they are
happy and safe in the earth’s bosom in winter; in spring they come
up as the buds swell, and soon after, finding the bushes once more
enjoyable, rush over them as joyously as children from school over
a meadow of cowslips. Over bush, over brake, on mountain or lowland
copse, holding on with delicate but unyielding grasp, they engrave
themselves on the mind as the central type of grace. In addition to
climbing Pea–flowers, Convolvuluses, etc., of which the stems perish
in winter, we have the great tribes of wild vines, noble in foliage
and often in fruit, the numerous Honeysuckles, from coral red to pale
yellow, all beautiful; and the Clematidæ, rich, varied, and lovely
beyond description, from those of which each petal reminds one of the
wing of some huge tropical butterfly, to those with small flowers
borne in showers like drops from a fountain jet, and often sweet as
Hawthorn blossoms.
[Illustration: The large white Bindweed, type of nobler climbing
plants, with annual stems. For copses, hedgerows, and shrubberies.]
This climbing vegetation may be trained and tortured into forms in
gardens, but never will its beauty be seen until we entrust it to
the garlanding of shrub, and copse, or hedgerow, fringes of dwarf
plantation, or groups of shrubs and trees. All to be done is to put in
a few tufts of any desired kind, and leave them alone, adapting the
kind to the position. The large, flesh–coloured Bindweed, for example,
would be best in rough places, out of the pale of the pleasure–ground
or garden, so that its roots would not spread where they could do harm,
while a delicate Clematis might be placed beneath the choicest specimen
Conifer, and allowed to paint its rich green with fair flowers. In
nature we frequently see a Honeysuckle clambering up through an old
Hawthorn tree, and then struggling with it as to which should produce
the greatest profusion of blossoms—but in gardens not yet. Some may
say that this cannot be done in gardens; but it can be done infinitely
better in gardens than it has ever been done in nature; because,
for gardens we can select plants from many countries. We can effect
contrasts, in which nature is poor in any one place in consequence of
the comparatively few plants that naturally inhabit one spot of ground.
People seldom remember that “the art itself is nature;” and foolish old
laws laid down by landscape–gardeners are yet fertile in perpetuating
the notion that a garden is a “work of art, and therefore we must not
attempt in it to imitate nature.”
[Illustration: The Nootka Bramble; type of free–growing flowering
shrub. For copses and woods.]
Sometimes, where there are large and bare slopes, an excellent effect
may be obtained by planting the stouter climbers, such as the Vines,
Mountain Clematis, and Honeysuckles, in groups or masses on the grass,
away from shrubs or low trees; while, when the banks are precipitous or
the rocks crop forth, we may allow a curtain of climbers to fall over
them.
Endless charming combinations may be made in this way in many spots
near most country houses. The following genera are among the climbing
and clinging hardy plants most suitable for garlanding copses,
hedges, and thickets:—Everlasting Peas (many kinds), the hardy exotic
Honeysuckles, Clematis (wild species mainly), the common Jasmine,
the double Bramble, Vines (American and the common varieties), single
Roses, the Virginian creepers (Ampelopsis), the large Bindweed
(Calystegia dahurica), Aristolochia Sipho, and A. tomentosa, and
several of the perennial Tropæolums, T. pentaphyllum, speciosum, and
tuberosum. The hardy Smilax, too, are very handsome, and the Canadian
Moonseed, only suitable for this kind of gardening.
Among the families of plants that are suitable for the various
positions enumerated at the head of this chapter may be named—Acanthus,
any variety, Viola, both the sweet varieties and some of the large
scentless kinds, the Periwinkle, Speedwells, Globe Flowers, Trilliums,
Plume Ferns (Struthiopteris), and many other kinds, the Lily of the
Valley and its many varieties and allies, the Canadian Bloodwort, the
Winter Greens (Pyrola), Solomon’s Seal, and allied exotic species, the
May Apple, Orobus in variety, Narcissi, many, the Common Myrrh, the
perennial Lupin, hardy common Lilies, the Snowflakes, all kinds of
Everlasting Peas and allied plants, admirable for scrambling through
low hedges and over bushes, Windflowers, the taller and stronger kinds
in lanes and hedgerows, the various Christmas Roses which will repay
for shelter, the European kinds of Gladiolus, such as segetum and
Colvilli, the taller and more vigorous Cranes Bills (Geranium), the
Snake’s Head (Fritillaria) in variety, Strawberries of any variety
or species, the beautiful Plume–leaved Giant Fennel, Dog’s Tooth
Violets in bare spots or spots bare in spring, the Winter Aconite, the
Barren Worts, for peaty spots or leaf soil, the May Flower, for sandy
poor soil under trees, the Dentaria, the coloured and showier forms
of Primroses, Oxslips, Polyanthus, the hardy European Cyclamens in
carefully chosen spots, Crocuses in places under branches and trees not
bearing leaves in Spring, the yellow and pink Coronilla (C. montana
and C. varia), the larger forms of Bindweed, many of the taller and
finer Harebells, Starworts (Aster), for hedgerows, and among the
taller plants the Italian Cuckoo Pint (Arum), and also the Dragons,
for warm sandy soils, the Monkshoods which people fear in gardens and
which do admirably in many positions; the different species of Onion,
also unwelcome in gardens, some of which are very beautiful, as, for
example, the White Provence kind and the old yellow garden Allium
(Moly). With the above almost exclusively exotic things and our own
wild flowers and ferns beautiful colonies may be made.
[Illustration: The Yellow Allium (A. Moly) naturalised.]