and unspoiled, has a peculiar interest of its own. It is sure to be
haunted by associations, and nothing calls up associations so quickly
and certainly as a sudden scent of flowers coming and going upon the
summer air. Time and change may have been busy since some long-absent
member of the family has revisited his old home, but the flowers and
their fragrance, still the same as ever, will call up all the past.
There is the corner where the first violets were always found; there
is the rosebush from which a flower may once have been gathered of
which the poor faded petals still remain; there is the lavender, which
supplied the oaken presses where the house-linen was always kept.
And, apart from all such fond and foolish private memories, there are
all the associations with which literature has consecrated the old
garden-flowers. Pelargoniums, calceolarias, verbenas, and the rest
of the new-comers have but few friends, but not an old flower but is
“loaded with a thought,” as Emerson says of the asters on the slopes at
Concord. Roses, lilies, violets, primroses, and daffodils, have been
written about over and over again, and the words of great poets rise
unbidden to the memory at sight of them. And then certain flowers will
recall an entire scene, and Marguerite asks her fate from the large
white daisy whose name she bears, or Corisande, in her garden of every
perfume, gathers—but not for herself—her choicest rose.
While a garden owes so much to the poet’s pen, it is strange that it
should owe comparatively little to the artist’s brush. Who can recall
a single picture of gardens or of flowers that ever gave him any great
amount of pleasure! Is Watteau an exception? But it is the figures in
the foreground, not the garden, for which one really cares. And of
flower-painters, there are Van Huysum and the Dutchmen, with their
piles and masses of blossom, of large size, but generally of dull
colour, and without light or warmth about them. Then there are our
English flower-painters; with some the flowers are only subsidiary to
the picture, and they seem to have adopted Gilpin’s advice that
“By a nice representation of such trifles, he [the painter] would be
esteemed puerile and pedantic. Fern-leaves perhaps, or dock, if his
piece be large, he might condescend to imitate; but if he wanted a few
touches of red or blue or yellow, to enliven and enrich any particular
spot on his foreground, instead of aiming at the exact representation
of any natural plant, he will more judiciously give the tint he wants
in a few random general touches of something like nature, and leave
the spectator, if he please, to find out a resemblance. Botanical
precision may please us in the flowerpieces of Van Huysum, but it
would be paltry and affected in the landscapes of Claude or Salvator.”
But even when the flower or plant is something better than a “touch”
of colour, there is often some gross carelessness, or ignorance, which
gives a sense of annoyance rather than of pleasure. Each returning
year, the _Gardeners’ Chronicle_ reviews the Royal Academy from a
botanical point of view, and nothing can be droller than the blunders
it points out. Sometimes all sorts of flowers of various seasons are
growing together, or a wood, through which a knight is riding, is
adorned with agarics and fungi that belong to different periods of the
year. Sometimes places, no less than times, are set at nought, as in
an instance quoted by Mr. Rossetti from the Exhibition of 1868, where
a Greek maiden is gathering blossoms from a pot of (American) azaleas.
But, indeed, such instances are only too common. In how many modern
classical pictures, for example, has not the large sunflower of America
been introduced? But when the flower itself is one important part of
the picture, how curiously unsatisfactory is too often the result!
No one has tried more earnestly to set our painters right in these
matters than Mr. Ruskin, and how little even now have they profited by
his teaching! They catch hold of a suggestion, as when he once told
them (_showed_ them, we might say) that a spray of pink apple-blossom
against a blue sky was beautiful, and the next exhibition or two
abounded in blossoming apple-boughs: but they seem unable to grasp a
principle. It was in 1851, in his tract on “Pre-Raphaelitism,” that
he urged the painting of “the heather as it grows, and the foxglove
and the harebell as they nestle in the clefts of the rocks;” and this
last year, while speaking of the same artist, Mr. Hunt, he has had to
repeat the same lesson, that plants that grow are pleasanter objects
than flowers that are gathered. And, indeed, the reason is not far
to seek. A bunch of garden-roses thrown carelessly down upon a mossy
bank—and there is scarcely an exhibition without one—not only gives
one a feeling of incongruity (as though the fashionable flowers were
out at a picnic), but a stronger feeling still of coming death. We know
those roses must wither and die, almost, we fancy, as we look upon
them. No dew that falls can now keep them alive, as it will the humble
moss—so much better than they—on which they rest. And it is almost
worse when the poor gathered flowers are brought indoors and placed
in some blue jar or Salviati vase, and the artist shows how carefully
he can draw, not so much the petals of the flowers as the texture of
the porcelain or the iridescence of the glass. It is difficult enough
worthily to paint the light and glow of colour in any beautiful flower,
but, if it is to be painted, let it be when the plant is still growing,
and as it grows. Any garden will give subjects enough, if they are
only sought for. Here is a bank of daffodils; here the white narcissus
and the red anemone have formed a group; here a blue forget-me-not
looks up into the bell of the snake’s-head fritillary; here is a great
peony bowed down with its crimson globes; here a nasturtium trails its
bright yellow blossoms along a bit of grey old rock; here a cluster of
hollyhocks keep watch by a garden walk; here the purple clematis clings
to the orchard hedge. Pictures of flowers such as these, if only the
artist have some sense of colour and some refinement of taste, would
give a real and almost a new pleasure to us all.
But there must be no artistic grouping, or representing of things as
they should be rather than as they are. The work must be conscientious,
as in the case of a great living sculptor who, having to carve an ivy
plant upon a tablet, went himself to study the form of growing ivy, and
found how entirely different it is from the conventional wreaths of the
ordinary marble-mason.
There is one question in connection with English horticulture to which
at first sight it does not seem quite easy to give a satisfactory
answer. Are the flower-shows, the number of which is constantly
increasing, an advantage or not? They certainly stimulate the
production of magnificent fruit, of beautiful florist-flowers, and
of handsome stove and greenhouse plants. But how do they affect the
gardens in which these prize specimens are grown? It is mere matter of
fact that, when a gardener begins to think of exhibiting, he is very
apt to pay undue attention to the plants which will secure him prizes
and reputation. If his master is satisfied with the usual monotony of
garden-beds, why should the gardener give special attention to what can
be of no service to himself? So he throws his whole strength into some
bunches of grapes, some dozen roses, some trained chrysanthemums. And
this is not the worst of it. The “dressing” of particular blooms has
recently become an art, and little curling-irons are employed to get
petals into their proper shape, and other various devices are used for
various flowers. But there is after all a morality in these things. It
is allowable to cut away superfluous petals, but it is not allowable
to insert fragments of another blossom. This seems to be the limit.
Now we confess the whole system seems to us thoroughly bad, and we
recommend the managers of flower-shows to forbid “dressing” of every
kind. If not exactly dishonest in itself, it leads on, and very easily,
to the worst forms of dishonesty. But indeed, in almost every aspect,
nothing can be more spoiling to the gardener than these flower-shows so
constantly are. In the first place, the prize-ticket generally asserts
that the prize is adjudged to “Mr.——, gardener to——.” The owner
of the garden is nobody, and the gardener is everything. The prize
is in almost every case regarded as the unchallenged property of the
gardener, who has, nevertheless, won the prize by his master’s plant,
reared at his master’s expense, and at the cost of time which has made
him too frequently neglect much more important matters.
Is it any wonder if horticulture in its best sense—that is, the
culture of the garden as a whole—is not what it should be? No gardener
can get prizes for well-kept beds, for effects of harmonious colouring,
for arrangement of shrubberies, for the grouping of herbaceous plants.
He is tempted for the sake of a single specimen to sacrifice the beauty
of a whole plant, or the clusters of an entire fruit-tree. That it
is most important for nurserymen to be able to compare new species,
or new varieties of old species, is of course undeniable. That our
ordinary flower-show is for the ordinary spectator an extremely pretty
sight is no less certain. But we are satisfied that in the majority of
cases it is the wiser course for any one who really cares about his
garden, and would rather have a succession of well-cultured flowers
than some merely exceptional success, to discourage his gardener from
exhibiting.
In conclusion, I can only repeat that “the English flower-garden” may
afford far greater pleasure than it does at present. We must learn
to look on plants, not as mere points of colour, but as old friends
on whose coming we can rely, and who, returning with the recurring
seasons, bring back with them pleasant memories of past years. And
if, as often happens, they are plants consecrated by song or legend,
the imagination is quickened as surely as the heart is stirred. We
must remember, too, that our personal delight in a garden is entirely
independent of its size or the perfection of its appliances. A child’s
garden, such as Mary Howitt once described, a few pots of musk or
mignonette on the window-ledge of a schoolboy’s study, will afford a
pleasure which acres of garden, left only to the gardener’s care, can
never give. “How _can_ I care for this garden? It is so much too large
to care about”—a lady, who owns one of the famous gardens in the north
of England, once said to me; and it was impossible not to appreciate
the difficulty.
Indeed, as with everything else, the garden will soon grow dull, and
the flowers lose their attraction, unless we take the management,
partly at least, into our own hands, and be masters not in name but
in reality. It is not necessary to understand every matter of detail,
though our interest will strengthen as our practical knowledge grows;
but at least we may make up our minds as to what we want to have done,
and then take care that the gardener carries out our orders. We are
too often the absolute slaves of our gardeners, and they in turn (of
course I am not speaking of exceptions) are too often the slaves of
an unintelligent routine. We have learnt, as Bacon said, “to _build
stately_ sooner than to _garden finely_, as if gardening were the
greater perfection.” It is really about time that we learnt the more
difficult lesson.
NOTES.
NOTE I.
THE GARDENER BOWER-BIRD.
THIS curious bird was first described by Schlegel, and a coloured
illustration of its garden and bower will be found in Gould’s _Birds of
New Guinea_. The fullest account, however, seems to be that of Signor
Beccari, which first appeared in a scientific periodical of Genoa. It
was translated for the _Gardeners’ Chronicle_ of March 11, 1878, and I
am permitted to make use of the very interesting narrative:
“The _Amblyornis inornata_—or, as I propose to name it, the
Bird-gardener—is a Bird of Paradise of the dimensions of a
turtle-dove. The specific name ‘inornata’ well suggests its very simple
dress. It has none of the ornaments common to the members of its
family, its feathers being of several shades of brown, and showing no
sexual differences.
“It was shot some years ago by the hunters of Mynheer von Rosenberg.
The first descriptions of its powers of building (the constructions
were called ‘nests’) were given by the hunters of Mynheer Bruijn.
They endeavoured to bring one of the nests to Ternate, but it was
found impossible to do this, both by reason of its great size and the
difficulty of transporting it.
“I have fortunately been able to examine these constructions at remote
places where they are erected. On June 20, 1875, I left Andai for
Hatam, on Mount Arfak. I had been forced to stay a day at Warmendi
to give rest to my porters. At this time only five men were with me;
some were suffering from fever, and the remaining porters declined to
proceed. We had been on our way since early morning, and at one o’clock
we intended to proceed to the village of Hatam, the end of our journey.
“We were on a projecting spur of Mount Arfak. The virgin forest was
very beautiful. Scarcely a ray of sunshine penetrated the branches. The
ground was almost destitute of vegetation. A little trackway proved
that the inhabitants were at no great distance. A limpid fountain had
evidently been frequented. I found here a new Balanophora, like a small
orange or a small fungus. I was distracted by the songs and the screams
of new birds, and every turn in the path showed me something new and
surprising. I had just killed a small new marsupial (_Phascelogale
dorsalis_, Pet, and Doria), that balanced itself on the stem of a great
tree like a squirrel, and turning round, I suddenly stood before the
most remarkable specimen of the industry of an animal. It was a hut or
bower close to a small meadow enamelled with flowers. The whole was on
a diminutive scale. I immediately recognised the famous nests described
by the hunters of Bruijn. I did not suspect, however, then, that they
had anything to do with the constructions of the Chlamydodeæ. After
well observing the whole, I gave strict orders to my hunters not to
destroy the little building. That, however, was an unnecessary caution,
since the Papuans take great care never to disturb these nests or
bowers, even if they are in their way. The birds had evidently enjoyed
the greatest quiet until we happened, unfortunately for them, to come
near them. We had reached the height of about 4,800 feet, and after
half an hour’s walk we were at our journey’s end.”
THE NEST.
“I had now full employment in the preparation of my treasure, and I
gave orders to my people not to shoot many of the birds. The nest I
had seen first was the nearest one to my halting-place. One morning I
took colours, brushes, pencils, and gun, and went to the spot. While I
was there neither host nor hostess were at home. I could not wait for
them. My hunters saw them entering and going out, when they watched
their movements to shoot them. I could not ascertain whether this bower
was occupied by one pair or by several pairs of birds, or whether the
sexes were in equal or unequal numbers—whether the male alone was the
builder, or whether the wife assisted in the construction. I believe,
however, that such a nest lasts for several seasons.
“The Amblyornis selects a flat even place around the trunk of a small
tree, that is as thick and as high as a walking-stick of middle size.
It begins by constructing at the base of the tree a kind of a cone,
chiefly of moss, of the size of a man’s hand. The trunk of the tree
becomes the central pillar, and the whole building is supported by it.
The height of the pillar is a little less than that of the whole of
the hut, not quite reaching two feet. On the top of the central pillar
twigs are then methodically placed in a radiating manner, resting on
the ground, leaving an aperture for the entrance. Thus is obtained a
conical and very regular hut. When the work is complete many other
branches are placed transversely in various ways, to make the whole
quite firm and impermeable. A circular gallery is left between the
walls and the central cone. The whole is nearly three feet in diameter.
All the stems used by the Amblyornis are the thin stems of an orchid
(Dendrobium), an epiphyte forming large tufts on the mossy branches of
great trees, easily bent like straw, and generally about twenty inches
long. The stalks had the leaves, which are small and straight, still
fresh and living on them; which leads me to conclude that this plant
was selected by the bird to prevent rotting and mould in the building,
since it keeps alive for a long time, as is so often the case with
epiphytical Orchids.
“The refined sense of the bird is not satisfied with building a hut.
It is wonderful to find that the bird has the same ideas as a man,
that is to say, what pleases the one gratifies the other. The passion
for flowers and gardens is a sign of good taste and refinement. I
discovered that the inhabitants of Arfak, however, did not follow the
example of the Amblyornis. Their houses are quite inaccessible from
dirt.”
THE GARDEN.
“Now let me describe the garden of the Amblyornis. Before the cottage
there is a meadow of moss. This is brought to the spot and kept free
from grass, stones, or anything which would offend the eye. On this
green turf, flowers and fruits of pretty colour are placed so as to
form an elegant little garden.
“The greater part of the decoration is collected round the entrance to
the nest, and it would appear that the husband offers there his daily
gifts to his wife. The objects are very various, but always of vivid
colour. There were some fruits of a Garcinia like a small-sized apple.
Others were the fruits of Gardenias of a deep yellow colour in the
interior. I saw also small rosy fruits, probably of a Scitaminaceous
plant, and beautiful rosy flowers of a splendid new Vaccinium
(_Agapetes Amblyorninis_). There were also fungi and mottled insects
placed on the turf. As soon as the objects are faded they are moved to
the back of the hut.
“The good taste of the Amblyornis is not only proved by the nice
home it builds. It is a clever bird, called by the inhabitants Buruk
Gurea—(master bird),—since it imitates the songs and screamings of
numerous birds so well that it brought my hunters to despair, who were
but too often misled by the bird. Another name of the bird is Tukan
Robon, which means a gardener.”
NOTE II.
ARS TOPIARIA.
THE Romans used the word _Topiarius_ for their ornamental gardener,
and one of his chief duties—the _Ars topiaria_ in fact—was to cut
the shrubs, and especially box-trees, into figures of ships, animals,
and names. There is a well-known passage in one of the letters of the
younger Pliny, in which, while speaking of his garden, he describes “a
sort of terrace, embellished with various figures, and bounded with a
box-hedge, from which you descend by an easy slope, adorned with the
representation of divers animals in box answering alternately to each
other, into a lawn overspread with the soft, I had almost said the
liquid, acanthus: this is surrounded by a walk, enclosed with tonsile
evergreens, shaped into a variety of forms. Beyond it is the _gestatio_
[a sort of avenue in which to take exercise] laid out in the form of a
circus, ornamented in the middle with box cut in numberless different
figures, together with a plantation of shrubs prevented by the shears
from running up too high; the whole is fenced in with a wall, covered
by box, rising by different ranges to the top.” Further on he says,
“Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a
straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, divided off
by box-hedges. In one place you have a little meadow; in another the
box is cut into a thousand different forms, sometimes into letters
expressing the name of the master, sometimes that of the artificer,
whilst here and there little obelisks rise intermixed alternately
with fruit-trees.”[9] Martial too gives a curious illustration of the
_Ars topiaria_. A grove of Plane trees was adorned with _topiarian_
wild beasts,—among them a bear; a young boy thrust his hand into
the bear’s wide mouth, and a viper hiding there stung him to death.
What a misfortune, adds Martial, that the bear had not been a real
one. This _Ars topiaria_ had been for some time in fashion in England
when Addison first attacked it in the _Spectator_ of June 25th, 1712:
“Our British gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring nature,
love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones,
globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors upon every plant
and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but, for
my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and
diffusion of boughs and branches than when it is thus cut and trimmed
into a mathematical figure.”
But this is nothing to the denunciation by Pope, which may be found in
the _Guardian_ of September 29th, 1713. It is extremely humorous. He
declares that
“A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but he
entertains the thought of erecting them into giants, like those of
Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country-seat with
a coronation dinner in greens, where you see the champion flourishing
on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual
youth at the other. For the benefit of all my loving countrymen of
this curious taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of greens to be
disposed of by an eminent town gardener, who has lately applied to me
on this head. He represents, that for the advancement of a politer sort
of ornament in the villas and gardens adjacent to this great city, and
in order to distinguish those places from the more barbarous countries
of gross nature, the world stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener,
who has a turn for sculpture, and is thereby capable of improving upon
the ancients in his imagery of evergreens. I proceed to his catalogue:
“Adam and Eve in Yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the Tree
of Knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the Serpent very flourishing.
“Noah’s Ark in Holly, the ribs a little damaged for want of water.
“The Tower of Babel, not yet finished.
“St. George in Box, his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a
condition to stick the Dragon by next April.
“A green Dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present.
N.B. These two not to be sold separately.
“Edward the Black Prince in Cypress.
“A Laurustine Bear in blossom, with a Juniper Hunter in berrie.
“A pair of Giants stunted; to be sold cheap.”
And there are various other lots equally remarkable and interesting.
But the _topiarian_ art has never been either scolded or laughed
entirely out of existence, and we all remember how many years later
when Lovel first visits “The Antiquary” he found the house of Monkbarns
“surrounded by tall clipped hedges of yew and holly, some of which
still exhibited the skill of the _topiarian_ artist, and presented
curious arm-chairs, towers, and the figures of St. George and the
Dragon. The taste of Mr. Oldbuck did not disturb these monuments of
an art now unknown, and he was the less tempted so to do, as it must
necessarily have broken the heart of his old gardener.”
NOTE III.
A POET’S FLOWER-BED.
THE quaintest of all devices in flower-beds was the one which Mrs.
Browning—then Elizabeth Barrett—made for herself when a child. In
after years she told the story of it in a poem, and I venture to
extract some stanzas, as they may not be known to all my readers, and
as they illustrate my subject rather curiously. Hope End, where Miss
Barrett lived, and where this “Hector” flowered, was once well known to
me. Crossing the Malvern Hills on the Herefordshire side, and passing
the Colwall valley, you find the ground sloping up again into a little
ridge. Here, hidden away in a side valley, was the strange-looking
house, with Moorish pinnacles. Here was the pond where “little Ellie”
found the “swan’s nest among the reeds.” And here the young girl of
nine years old, who had already drunken so deeply of “the wine of
Cyprus” formed her garden-bed in the shape of her hero Hector, while
a laurel stood on a mound close by, and the birds sung in an old
pear-tree which cast soft shadows on the ground:
“In the garden, lay supinely
A huge giant, wrought of spade!
Arms and legs were stretched at length,
In a passive giant strength,—
And the meadow turf, cut finely,
Round them laid and interlaid.
“Call him Hector, son of Priam!
Such his title and degree.
With my rake I smoothed his brow;
Both his cheeks I weeded through:
But a rhymer such as I am
Scarce can sing his dignity.