Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at Free
Literature (Images generously made available by the Internet
Archive.)
HOW THE GARDEN GREW
BY
MAUD MARYON
"Mary, Mary, quite contrairy,
How does your garden grow?"
_With Four Illustrations by Gordon Browne_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1900
To
HIS REVERENCE
CONTENTS
PAGE
SEASON I.--WINTER 3
SEASON II.--SPRING 71
SEASON III.--SUMMER 127
SEASON IV.--AUTUMN 191
INDEX 253
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
WINTER 2
SPRING 70
SUMMER 126
AUTUMN 190
[Illustration: WINTER]
HOW THE GARDEN GREW
SEASON I
Winter
"Now is the winter of my discontent."
I have not had charge of my garden very long; and I am not sure that I
should have undertaken such a charge had there been anyone else to do
it. But there was no one else, and it so obviously needed doing.
Of course there was the gardener--I shall have to allude to him
occasionally--but just now I will only mention the fact that his
greatest admirer could not have accused him of _taking care_ of the
garden.
Then there was his Reverence; he was by way of being in charge of
everything, me included, I suppose, and of course nominally it was so.
He had the parish and the church, and the rectory and his family, and
the men-servants and the maid-servants, a horse and a pony _and_ the
garden! He managed most things well, I will say, and the kitchen garden
gave some account of itself, but in the flower garden desolation cried
aloud.
I was moved one day to say I thought it disgraceful. "There are
no flowers anywhere; nothing but some semi-red geraniums and some
poverty-stricken calceolarias and scraggy lobelias. We have none of
those nice high blue things, what do you call them? or those yellow
round things with red fringes, like daisies, which are not daisies; we
have no sweet-Williams even, though they are the sort of flowers that
grow in every _cottage_ garden!"
There was a twinkle in his Reverence's eye.
"You seem to know a good deal about flowers, Mary; I can't even follow
your descriptions. I try my best with the carrots and onions. You must
acknowledge you have vegetables."
"Oh, vegetables!" I cried with a tone of contempt.
"Yes, vegetables! You don't seem to despise them at dinner."
"No, but vegetables! Anyone can buy vegetables."
"Anyone can buy flowers, I suppose, if they have the money to spend."
"They can't buy the look of flowers in the garden," I argued; "that is
what one wants; not a few cut things on the table."
"Well, I spend," began his Reverence, and then paused, and looked
through a little drawer of his table that contained account-books.
An idea struck me. I waited eagerly for his next words.
"Let me see," continued his Reverence, running his eye down long rows
of figures. "Ah! here is one of last year's bills for seeds, etc. Just
on ten pounds, you see, and half of that certainly was for the flower
garden. There were new rose trees."
"They are mostly dead. Griggs said it was the frost," I interpolated.
"And some azaleas, I remember."
"They don't flower."
"And bulbs."
"Oh! Griggs buried _them_ with a vengeance."
"Well, anyway, five pounds at least was--"
"Was wasted, sir; that is what happened to that five pounds. Now, look
here."
His Reverence looked.
"Give me that five pounds."
"That particular one?"
"Of course not. Five pounds, and I will see if I can't get some flowers
into the garden. Five pounds! Why, my goodness, what a lot of things
one ought to get with five pounds. Seeds are so cheap, sixpence a
packet I have heard; and then one takes one's own seeds after the first
year. Come, sir, five pounds down and every penny shall go on the
garden."
"Dear me! but according to you five pounds is a great deal too much.
I can't say that it has produced very fine results under Griggs's
management; but at sixpence a packet!"
"No, sir, it is not too much really," I said gravely. "I shall have to
buy a heap of things besides seeds, I expect. But you shall see what I
will do with it. I want that garden to be full of flowers."
His Reverence looked out of the study window. It was a bleak, windy day
towards the end of November. A few brown, unhappy-looking leaves still
hung on the trees; but most of them, released at last, danced riotously
across the small grass plot in front of the old red brick house, until
they found a damp resting-place beneath the shrubbery. The border in
front looked unutterably dreary with one or two clumps of frost-bitten
dahlias and some scrubby little chrysanthemums.
"Full of flowers!" The eye of faith was needed indeed.
"I don't mean before Christmas," I added, following his Reverence's
eye. "But there are things that come out in the spring, you know, and
perhaps they ought to be put in now. Is it a bargain?"
"Yes, Mary, it shall be a bargain. Here is the fiver. Don't waste it,
but make the best of that garden. You had better consult old Griggs
about bulbs and such-like. There ought to be some. I don't think the
few snowdrops I saw can represent all I bought."
"They never came up. I know they didn't. I believe he planted them
topsy-turvy. I suppose there is a right side up to bulbs, and if so,
Griggs would certainly choose the wrong. It's his nature. Can't we get
rid of him, sir? Isn't there any post besides that of gardener which he
might fill?"
His Reverence will not always take my words of wisdom seriously.
"What, more posts! Why, he is clerk and grave-digger and bell-ringer!
Would you like me to retire in his favour?"
"_I_ am speaking seriously, Father. If anything is to be made of this
garden it can't be done whilst that old idiot remains here."
"I fear he must remain here. I have inherited him. His position is as
firm as mine."
"Not as gardener!"
"No; but he can't live on his other earnings. No, Mary, put your best
foot foremost and make something of old Griggs and the garden and the
five pounds. And now take this bulb catalogue. I have not had time to
look it through, and perhaps it may not be too late to get some things
in for the spring. But don't spend all the five pounds on bulbs," he
shouted after me as I left the study.
And so I plunged into gardening, a very Ignoramus of the Ignorami,
and what is herein set down will be written for the edification,
instruction, warning and encouragement of others belonging to that
somewhat large species.
* * * * *
I opened the bright-coloured catalogue. Oh! what fascination lurks in
the pages of a bulb catalogue. The thick, highly-glazed leaves turn
with a rich revelation on both sides. It scarcely needs the brilliant
illustrations to lift the imagination into visions of gorgeous beauty.
Parterres of amazing tulips, sheets of golden daffodils, groups of
graceful, nodding narcissus, the heavy, sweet scent of hyacinths comes
from that glorious bloom "excellent for pot culture"; and here in more
quiet letters grow the early crocus--yellow, white, blue and mixed--and
snowdrops. Ah! snowdrops, coming so early, bringing the promise of all
the rich glory that is to follow. And scillas, aconites, chionodoxa or
"Glory of the Snow"!
What were all those lovely, to me half unheard-of names that could be
had for two shillings and sixpence, three shillings or four shillings
and sixpence a hundred? They bloomed in February and March, they were
hardy and throve in any soil. Oh! how they throve in the pages of that
catalogue.
And anemones! My mind rushed to the joys of the Riviera, revealed in
occasional wooden boxes, mostly smashed, sent by friends from that land
of sunshine, and whose contents, when revived, spoke of a wealth of
colour forever to be associated with the name of anemone. To grow them
myself, rapture! "Plant in October or November." It was still November;
they must be ordered at once, "double," "mixed," "single," "fulgens";
they were "dazzling," "effective," "brilliant," and began to flower in
March.
I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing
each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner
of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living.
So now to make my first list and secure all this treasure for the
coming beautiful flower-laden year.
I made a list; and then, mindful of the limited nature of even five
pounds and all that would be required of it, I made up a long row of
figures. This gave me an ugly jar.
Flowers should be given freely and graciously, not bought and sold, to
everyone by everyone for the promotion of beauty and happiness upon
earth. Any good Government should see to this. But present arrangements
being so defective, I had to remodel my list considerably. I cheered up
with the thought, however, that bulbs were not annuals, but on their
own account, so I had heard, grew and multiplied quietly in the earth.
What could have become of those planted by Griggs last year? Did worms
eat bulbs?
* * * * *
I wandered round the garden, seeing possibilities and refusing to be
depressed by the sadness of sodden grass, straggling rose branches bare
of beauty, heavy earth that closed in dejected plants, weeds or what
not; I saw them all with new eyes and scanned them closely. Did they
mean flowers? Down in their hearts could those poor draggled, tangled
specimens dream of radiant blooms turned to the sun? I had not studied
my garden before; there were prisoners in it. Care and attention, the
right food and freedom, should bring new beauties to light. I had
grumbled and growled for over two years at the hopelessness of it,
and at the dearth of flowers for house decoration. Now all was to be
changed; the garden was to be beautiful! I thought of that catalogue.
Griggs was digging in the kitchen garden; not hard, not deep, still,
no one could say he was unemployed. He was himself very muddy, and gave
one the idea of working with all parts of his person except his brains.
My former interviews with him had been short if not sweet; but there
was no open quarrel.
He paused as I stood near him, wiping his spade with his hands, kicking
at the clods of earth round him as though they were troublesome.
"Is that for potatoes?" I asked, wishing to show not only interest but
knowledge.
He tilted his cap to one side and viewed the bare expanse of upturned
earth.
"Oi 'ad taters in 'ere last; thought oi'd dig it a bit. Diggin' allays
comes in 'andy."
"Oh, yes;" and then I made a fresh start. "I wanted to know about those
bulbs you planted last autumn. Did they come up?"
This was evidently an awkward question.
"Bulbs! Oh, there wur a few wot the Rector give me some toime back lars
year. They didn't come to much. Never knows with bulbs, you don't!"
"Oh! but bulbs ought to come up."
"Some on 'em do, some times. Don't 'old myself with them furrin koinds."
"What, not with Dutch bulbs? Why, they grow the best kind in Holland."
"Maybe they do; over there. P'haps this soil didn't soute 'em. Wot I
found diggin' the beds I put in them two round beds on the lawn. They
wasn't no great quantity. Most on 'em perished loike, it 'pears to me."
"Perhaps you did not put them in right," I ventured. "How deep should
you plant them?"
Oh! how ignorant I was. I did not feel even sure that I knew the right
side up of a bulb.
Griggs gave a hoarse chuckle.
"They don't need to go fur in; 'bout so fur," and he made a movement
that might indicate an inch or a yard; "but there's lots o' contrairy
things that may 'appen to bulbs same as to most things. En'mies is wot
there is in gardins, all along o' the curse."
Griggs was clerk; he never forgot that post of vantage. He looked at
me as he said the word "curse." I wondered if his mind had made the
connection between Eve and her daughter. But to return to the bulbs.
Were worms the enemies in this particular case?
I knew they buried cities and raised rocks, and were our best diggers
and fertilisers, because I had once read Darwin on the subject; but
were they the enemies of bulbs?
"I am going to take the garden in hand a bit," I said after a pause. "I
think it needs it."
"Well, I could do wi' a bit o' elp," and he wiped more mud from his
spade to his hands, and from his hands to his trousers, and then back
again, until I wondered what his wife did with him when she got him
home. "But I reckon a boy 'ud be more 'andy loike. There's a lot o'
talk," he added, half to himself.
I remembered with a feeling of pain how our old cook and factotum had
received the news that I was taking cooking lessons in much the same
spirit; but my newly-found energy was not going to be suppressed by
Griggs.
"I am going to order some more bulbs," I began.
"Ah! you might do _that_. The gardin needs things puttin' into it,
that's what it needs."
I looked at him sternly. "And things taken out of it too. I never knew
such a place for weeds."
"No more didn't I. It's fearful bad soil for weeds; but maybe if there
warn't so much room for 'em they'd get sort of crowded out."
"You have been here a good many years," I said, not without an
afterthought.
"Yes; that's wot I 'ave been. I come first in ole Mr Wood's time; 'e
was a 'and at roses, 'e was; somethin' loike we 'ad the place then, me
an' 'im. Then Mr 'Erbert took it, that's when ole Woods, 'is father as
'twere, doied. But 'e didn't stay long; went fur a missunairy 'e did to
them furrin parts and never come back, 'e didn't neither. Then come Mr
Cooper, ten years, no, 'levin, he was 'ere and never did a bit to the
gardin; took no interes', no cuttin's, no seeds, no manure, no nothink.
That's 'ow the weeds overmastered us."
"But at least you might have dug up the weeds."
"Allays callin' me away for some'ot, they was. The Bath chair for 'is
sister as lived with 'im, allays some'ot. Talk o' gardinin'! The weeds
just come."
Then his tone brightened a bit; the Bath chair had been an unpleasing
retrospect.
"But if the Rector looks to spend a bit, we might get some good stuff
in." A pause, and a searching look at the setting sun. "I must be
going. Got a bit to see to up at my place. Can't never git round with
these short days."
Griggs collected his implements and with fine independence walked off,
giving me a backward nod and a "Good evenin', miss. We could do wi' a
few bulbs and such loike."
I was to divide Griggs's time with his Reverence, but Griggs seemed
quite able to dispose of it himself.
* * * * *
I opened a strong wooden box with much interest and examined the
result of my first venture in bulbs. Brown paper bags full of little
seeds in which were carefully packed the firm dry brown roots, big
and little, round and oblong. How wonderful that these "dead bones"
should be capable of springing up into the glories of sight and
smell foretold by my catalogue. This withered brown ball a hyacinth!
unfolding, unfolding, until green tips, broadening leaves, and at last
a massive crown of flowers appear. And the magician's wand to work this
transformation? Just the good old brown earth, the common rain, and the
wonderful work-a-day sun.
I was soon busy in the garden depositing my various bulbs in heaps
where I intended them to be buried.
I called Griggs and requested suitable tools for the work.
"I am going to plant daffodils under these trees," I said; "and I want
you to take that bag of crocuses and put them in all over the grass in
front. Put them anywhere and everywhere, like the daisies grow."
"What! front of the Rector's winder?"
"Yes; all over."
"'Ow many 'ave you got 'ere?"
"Three hundred; but they don't take long planting."
"'Ope not! I've got a good bit else to to do; can't fiddle faddle over
them."
"Put them in the right side up. I want them to grow," I called after
his retreating figure. Then I eyed my pile of bulbs.
Of course I did know the right side up of a bulb; of course everybody
did; and if anyone was likely to make a mistake it was surely Griggs,
so it was clearly no use asking him. Nice brown thing, why had you not
given just one little green sprout as the crocuses and snowdrops had
done, so that there _could_ be no mistake? And what would happen if
they were planted topsy-turvy? Could they send up shoots from anywhere
they chose? or would the perversity of such a position be too much
for their budding vitality? I did not wish to try the experiment; my
daffodils _must_ make their appearance next March. I ranged them out
in broad circles under one or two trees, in patches at the corner of
projecting borders, and walked away to see the effect from different
points; the effect, not of brown specks, but of sheets of gold that
were to be.
His Reverence found me with my head on one side taking in the future
from the drawing-room windows.
"You seem very busy, Mary."
"I am. You see, it is a great thing to place them where they can stay.
I like permanent things. It will be lovely, won't it, to see that
golden patch under the mulberry tree and another at the corner there;
and then under the chestnut just a sheet of white?"
"Oh, lovely! And what kind of sheet or wet blanket is old Griggs
preparing for my eyes in front?"
"Oh, the old owl! I must run and see he is doing as I told him. You
might be useful, sir, for a bit, mightn't you? and begin popping in
those daffodils under that tree exactly as I have arranged them. I will
be back directly."
His Reverence loved walking round with a tall spud prodding up weeds,
but it was a new idea to set him to work in other ways. I left him for
some time and came back with a heated face.
"Just imagine! Oh, really, sir, we can't go on with
that--that--unutterable idiot! He won't do as he is told. What do you
think he was doing? I told him to plant all that front piece of grass
with crocuses, you know--told him as plainly as I could speak--and
there he was burying my crocuses, by handfuls I think, in the border."
"Oh, well, he doesn't understand your ideas, you see, Mary; he has not
seen them carried out yet."
"Oh, but he did understand, only he said it would take longer to plant
them in the grass and they would come up better in the border. 'I want
that for tulips,' I said, and stood over him while he unburied all he
had done. Then he said, 'Can't stand cuttin' up the grass like this;
better put 'em straight 'long that shady border there, give a bit o'
colour to it.' 'I want them here, in the grass,' I said. 'And how
'bout my mowing? I shall cut 'em to pieces.' That was a bright idea,
he thought. 'You don't begin mowing until after the crocuses are well
over; that won't hurt.' And now I have spread them all over the lawn
myself and left him to put them in. He can't make any further mistake I
hope."
His Reverence was laughing. Old Griggs amused him much more than he did
me.
"How many have you done?" I asked, and I looked at the still unburied
bulbs. "Why, sir--"
"I have done two, Mary, really; but look at this pile of plantains! Oh,
these horrid things! you must clear the garden of them."
"I can't," I said sternly. "There is too much else to do. What we want
is colour, flowers everywhere. The plantains are green so they don't
disturb the harmony. But you may take them up if you like."
"Colour! harmony! If you talk to old Griggs like that he will think you
are mad. And, Mary, you bought _all_ these bulbs? Remember there is the
spring and summer to be reckoned with. How much has gone?"
"Two pounds. It ought to have been twenty. Seeds are cheaper, you
know. I must do a lot with seeds, I find. But bulbs go on, that is the
comfort of them. They will be there for always!"
"Well, I won't interfere. Don't bully my old Griggs." And his Reverence
walked off.
I proceeded, yes, I will confess it, carefully to open up one of the
bulbs he had planted. Yes, there it was, it had its point upward. Oh!
I hoped he really knew. And so all the others were placed snugly in
their narrow beds, and patted down with a kind of blessing. "Wake up
soon and be glorious, brilliant, effective."
* * * * *
There were hours of deep dejection after all my planting was done. It
was December, and so much ought to have been done in November, October,
and even September. In fact, I ought to have begun nine months ago. And
those nine months could not be caught up for another year, depressing
thought! Wallflowers, polyanthus, forget-me-nots, sweet-Williams, all
the dear, simple things of which I wanted masses, instead of the one or
two stalky bushes that grew down a long herbaceous border, all these
should have begun their career, it appeared, last February or March if
I wanted them to flower next spring. I must wait. I had not set out on
my gardening experience to learn patience, it is always being rubbed
into one; but I warn you, O brother or sister Ignoramus! that of all
stocks you will need patience the most.
My garden was now a white world. Snow buried everything: hopes and
depressions were equally hidden. A fine time for castle-building, for
hurrying through the seasons and imagining how many treasures ought to
be, might be, should be hidden beneath that cold, pure coverlid and
warmly, snugly nestling in Mother Earth's brown bosom. What energy must
be at work, what pushing, struggling, expanding of little points of
life downwards, upwards, until they burst into resurrection with little
green hands folded as in thanksgiving.
In the meantime I turned to books, on gardening, of course. My
new "fad," as the Others called it, having announced itself in
plenty of time for Christmas, my pile of gifts presented a most
learned appearance. This was my first taste of that fascinating
literature. His Reverence had handed over to me a brown-clad work
on gardening--somewhat ancient I must say--at the beginning of my
enterprise. I had scanned it critically and compared it to an ordinary
cookery-book in which recipes are given, and unless you are already
familiar with the art you are continually faced with difficulties. The
cookery-books tell one to "make a white sauce of flour, butter and
milk," but how? Wherein lies the mystery of that delicately-flavoured,
creamy substance or that lumpy kind of paste? Just so my regular
handbook to gardening. For example:--
"They vary very much in habit, but should be of easy cultivation. The
compost required is rich, deep and moist. Any sourness in the soil will
be fatal to flowering. When planting supply liberally with manure, and
occasionally mulch in dry weather."
But what did it all mean? How test the soil and the sourness which
would be fatal to flourishing? The proof of the pudding would be in the
eating, but how prevent any tragic consequences?
But these other books, this literature on gardening! They are generally
better than the garden itself. Practical they are not, but why ask it
of them? They are the seductive catalogue turned into finest art. One
wanders with some sweet, madonna-like lady of smooth fair hair, mild
eyes and broad-brimmed hat, or with a courtly parson of the old school,
in a garden where the sun always shines. Green stretches of lawn (no
plantains), trees grouped from their infancy to adorn and shade and
be the necessary background to masses of flowering shrubs. Through
rockeries, ferneries, nut-groves, copses we wander as in a fairy dream.
Borders laid out to catch the sun, sheltered by old red brick walls
where fruit ripens in luscious clusters. Rose gardens, sunk gardens,
water gardens lead on to copses where all wild things of beauty are met
together to entrance the eye. Broad walks between herbaceous borders,
containing every flower loved from the time of Eve; sheltered patches
where seedlings thrive, a nursery of carefully-reared young. And in
this heaven of gardening land gardeners galore flit to and fro, ever
doing their master's behest, and manure and water, and time and money
may be considerations but are not anxieties. I ought to have begun
years ago; seven, nine, fifteen, and even twenty-five years are talked
of but as yesterday. I felt out of it in every sense. My garden lay
out there in the cold, grey mist; it had been neglected, it held no
rippling stream, no nut-grove, it ran upward into no copse or land of
pine and bracken and heather. It had a hedge one side and a sloping
field the other. The straight kitchen garden was bounded by no red
brick wall, and the birds from the convenient hedges ate all the fruit,
unless gooseberries and currants were so plentiful that we also were
allowed a share. Griggs talked of an 'urbrageous' border. But what a
border! Evening primroses, the common yellow marigold, a few clusters
of golden-rod, and other weed-like flowers that persist in growing of
themselves, with Griggs, five pounds a year and an Ignoramus to work it!
Oh! why had I so cheerfully undertaken such an apparently hopeless task?
But my honour was now at stake. I had said I would have flowers on five
pounds a year, and I could not draw back. Let me clear away the mists
that had arisen. After all, that tree down there was a pink chestnut,
and beneath it lay my sheet of snowdrops and blue scillas. Before it
burst into beauty they would have done their share of rejoicing the
eye. At that corner, where the field sloped so prettily downwards,
daffodils were hidden, and under the clump just over the fence more and
more daffodils. A row of stately limes, dismally bare now, carried
the eye down to the next field. There, where it was always shady, I
pictured future ferns and early wild-flowers, and maybe groups of
foxgloves.
I turned again to my gardening books. I too would have a garden "to
love," to "work in"; if not a "Gloucestershire garden," or a "German
garden," or a "Surrey" one, still a garden. Months with me, also,
should be a successive revelation of flowers; though I knew not a Latin
name I would become learned in the sweet, simple, old-fashioned flowers
that cottagers loved, and though I could not fit poetry on to every
plant, I would have a posy for the study table right through the year.
That was my dream!
* * * * *
The first, the very first produce of the opening year in my garden was
a winter aconite.
The little dead-looking roots had been planted in a sunny shrubbery
border and had quickly thrust up their golden crowns, circled with the
tender green collar. Have you ever noticed how a winter aconite springs
from its bed? Its ways are most original. The sturdy little stem comes
up like a hoop; at one end is the root, at the other the blossom, with
its green collar drooped carefully over the yellow centre. Gradually it
raises itself, shakes off the loosened mould--you may help it here if
you like--lays back its collar and opens its golden eye.
I picked every one I could find. It seemed sinful, but occasionally
pride overcomes the most modest of us.
"There," I cried, "my garden is beginning already. Just look at them!
Are they not lovely?"
"What, buttercups?" asked one of the Others.
"No, oh, ignorant one! they are not buttercups. They are winter
aconite; note the difference."
"Let's look!" and the brown little fist of one of the youngest of the
Others was thrust forth.
"All that fuss about those! You wait a minute!"
He ran off, returning shortly with quite a big bunch of my yellow
treasures in his hand.
"Where did you get them? Jim, you bad boy! you must not pick my
flowers," I exclaimed.
"_Your_ flowers! and you hadn't an idea that they grew there. These are
from _my_ garden, and no one has given _me_ a fiver to raise them with.
Come, Mary, I shall cry halves. You had better square me!"
"Oh, Jim, where did you find them?" was all I could gasp.
I did square Jim, but it was in "kind," and then he showed me much
winter aconite hidden away in an unfrequented shrubbery, where his
quick little eyes had spied it. I thought of moving it to where it
would show. Everything with me was for show in those early days; but
these surprises hold their own delight, and I learnt to encourage them.
I suffered many things at the hands of the Others for spending five
pounds on winter aconite when already the garden held "such heaps
"--that was their way of putting it.
I began to hope that more surprises of such sort might be in store
for me. It is wonderful how one may avoid seeing what is really just
under one's nose. The Others might laugh, but I doubt if they even
knew winter aconite as the yellow buttercup-looking thing before that
morning.
Another yellow flower tried to relieve the monotony of that dead
season of the year. Struggling up the front of the house, through the
virginian creeper and old Gloire de Dijon rose, were the bare branches
of a yellow jasmine. From the end of December on through January and
February it did its poor best to strike a note of colour in the gloom.
But why was it not more successful? Judging from its performance, I had
formed the meanest opinion of its capabilities, until one bright day
in January my eye had been caught by a mass of yellow--I say advisedly
a mass--thrown over the rickety porch of old Master Lovell's abode.
Yellow jasmine! yes, there was no mistake about it, but the bare
greenish stems were covered with the brilliant little star-flowers,
shining and rejoicing as in the full tide of summer. I thought of my
bare straggling specimen and stopped to ask for the recipe for such
blossoming. Old Lovell and old Griggs had both lived in Fairleigh all
their lives, and there was an old-timed and well-ripened feud between
the pair.
"A purty sight I calls that," said old Lovell, surveying his porch,
"an' yourn ain't loike it, ain't it? Ah! and that's not much of a
surprise to me. Ever see that old Griggs up at th' Rectory working away
wi' his shears? Lor' bless you, he's a 'edging and ditching variety
of gardener, that's wot I calls 'im. Clip it all, that's 'is motive,
autumn and spring, one with another, an' all alike, and then you
'spects winter blooming things to pay your trouble! But they don't see
it, they don't."
"Oh! it's the clipping, is it? Well, then, how do you manage yours? It
is quite beautiful." I always dealt out my praise largely in return for
information.
"Leaves it to Natur', I do. You wants a show? 'Ave it then and leave
interfering with Natur'. She knows 'er biz'ness."
I did not feel quite convinced of this axiom; gardening seemed to be a
continual assistance or interference with Nature in her most natural
moods. So I said dubiously,
"Yellow jasmine should never be cut at all, then?"
"Look you 'ere, miss, at them buds all up the stem. If I cuts the stem
wot becomes of them buds, eh?"
Unanswerable old Lovell! But as I looked at the thick matted trailings
that covered his porch, it dawned on me that perhaps a judicious
pruning out of old wood at the right season would help and not hinder
the yellow show.
"Does it bloom on the new wood?" I asked with a thought most laudable
in an Ignoramus.
"Blooms! why, it blooms all over. Look at it!" And having sounded the
depth of old Lovell's knowledge, I left him with more words of praise.
So that was it! And my yellow jasmine might be blooming like that
if left alone, or better, if rightly handled; and doubtless the
poverty-stricken appearance of the white jasmine, the small and
occasional flowers of the clematis, were due to the same cause. Here
was a new and important department of my work suddenly opened up. I
determined Nature should have a free hand until I could assist her
properly. Until I knew the how, when and why of the clipping process,
the edict should go forth to old Griggs, "Don't _touch_ the shears."
On examining my own decapitated climbers I found that Griggs had indeed
been hedging and ditching in the brutal way in which the keepers of our
country lanes perform their task. It had often grieved my spirit to
see the beautiful tangle late autumn produces in the hedges ruthlessly
snipped and snapped by the old men, told off by some of the mysterious
workings of the many councils under which we now groan, to do their
deed of evil. That it ever recovers, that spring again clothes the
hedges brilliantly, that the wild rose riots, the wild clematis
flings itself, the honeysuckle twines, all again within the space of
six or eight months, is an ever-recurring miracle. But my creepers
and climbers did not so recover; their hardy brethren in the hedges
outstripped them. Griggs impartially clipped the face of the house in
the autumn when ivy is trimmed, and, now that I noticed it, the results
overpowered me with wrath. How extraordinary that people should let
such things go on, should live apathetically one side of the wall when
flowers were being massacred on the other; should have streamers of
yellow glory within their reach in December and January, and should
sit placidly by the fire when the iron jaws were at work and never
shout to the destroyer, "Hold!" Well, it was no use carrying every tale
of woe to his Reverence or the Others. Jim was fully informed, and
being, as I have often noticed, a person of immense resource, he very
shortly afterwards whispered to me that the "old guffoon" would have
great difficulty in finding his shears again. If I would obtain proper
advice on the point it was a department, he thought, peculiarly suited
to his abilities. I might grow giddy on a ladder, but as the navy was
to be his profession he thought the opportunity one to be taken.
There was nothing to cut of the yellow jasmine; it must grow first, and
then the older stems might be judiciously trimmed after its flowering
time is over. A year to wait for that, to Jim's disgust, but toward
the end of February we cautiously trimmed the Japanese variety of "old
man's beard," called by the learned "clematis flamulata." It grew
on the verandah, and one of the Others had driven Griggs off when
he approached with his shears. She said he looked like murder, and
whether it was right or not it should not be done. I had to give her
chapter and verse for it that this variety of clematis ought to have
a very mild treatment, a sort of disentanglement, and thus help it to
long streamers before she would allow Jim and me and a modest pair of
scissors to do ever so little work. Jim sighed for the shears, and I
had to warn him against the first evidence of the murderous spirit of
old Griggs.
* * * * *
In one garden book of the most precious description I read of
"hellebore." Now I am writing for Ignoramuses. Do you know what
"hellebore" is? No! of course not, nor did I, but it was spoken of as
forming "a complete garden full of flowers in the months of February
and March," so of course I wanted it. Out-door flowers are scarce in
February, but I learned as time went on that most flowers announced for
an early appearance generally arrive a month late, at least it is so
with me.
None of the Others, not even his Reverence, had heard of hellebore. It
continued to haunt me for some time. February was near and I sighed for
that "complete garden."
* * * * *
I was encouraging my snowdrops with welcoming smiles as they pierced
through the damp grass, and dreaming of hellebore, for the name
attracted me strongly, when his Reverence's Young Man joined me. He has
not much to do with the garden, though he often strayed into it--very
often, in fact--so he ought to be mentioned. As my book is about
my garden, only the people who either help or hinder there need be
introduced. His Reverence's Young Man was really his curate. Our parish
was not a large one, but very scattered, and a little distant hamlet
with a tiny chapel necessitated a Young Man. He was a great favourite
with his Reverence, who would often walk about with him, leaning on his
arm, and this had caused old Master Lovell, the village wit, to call
him his Young Man. Of course he had to see his Reverence occasionally,
and if he did not find him in the study he generally looked for him in
the garden.
"What is growing here?" he asked.
"Look!" I answered.
"Grass? It is grass, isn't it?"
"It is a comfort to find some people, and clever people withal, even
more ignorant than I am. Snowdrops and scillas."
"Oh! I see, you are making progress, at least, I beg pardon, _they_
are. I positively see some white."
"Now can _you_ tell me what are hellebores?"
"Ask another!"
"That is worthy of Jim. You don't know?"
"But wait a bit, I have heard of them, I really have. Isn't it deadly
nightshade, or something like that?"
I shook my head.
"It is worse to know wrong than not at all."
"But if you don't know, how do you know I am wrong?"
"Because they form a complete garden in February and March--there!"
"A complete garden! How wonderful. Doesn't anyone know? Doesn't Griggs?"
"I haven't asked him, of course he wouldn't know. Here he is, we will
see what he says. Griggs, do you know what flower is called hellebore?"
Griggs had no spade and no mud handy; he was very much nonplussed.
"El-bore!--did you say? Whoi, el-bore? Don't seem to have 'eeurd of 'em
before; not by that name leastways. You never can tell in these days;
lot o' noo-fangled words they call 'em. Oi might know it right 'nuff if
you could show me. Dessay it's a furriner. I must be goin'."
He wandered down the garden. There was not much I could give him to do,
but I knew from my gardening books that he should be trimming trees, or
marking those to come down, or cutting stakes, and lots of other useful
things. I possessed no woods, or groves, or copses, however, so I gave
Griggs over unreservedly to his Reverence, and he dug and banked up
celery.
"Shall I write and ask my mother?" said the Young Man. "She is quite a
gardener, you know; and when they divide up roots--as they do, don't
they?--she would send you some, I am sure. Geraniums and fuchsias
and--and lilies. They always divide them up, don't they? and throw away
half."
"I don't think they throw away half, not always. But would she really?
It would be awfully kind; and I might send her things when I had
anything to send. Only I don't want geraniums; I can't bear them, and
old Griggs has filled our one and only frame with nothing else. They
seem to me a most unnecessary flower."
I spoke in my ignorance, and I learnt the use of geraniums later on.
His Reverence's Young Man never smiled when I spoke of sending things
back to his mother; perhaps he did inside him, for she had a lovely
garden and half a dozen gardeners, but still was chief there. I was
overcome when I paid her a visit and remembered my offer; but again
I spoke in my ignorance and thought it showed the right gardener's
spirit, and perhaps it did.
His Reverence's Young Man grew to take the greatest interest in
gardening. He was one of my first converts; but I learnt about
hellebore from someone else.
* * * * *
And now the Master must be introduced. I cannot tell what particular
month he came into my garden, but I remember when I first went into his.
He had a genius for flowers. I do not know if he looked at children
and animals with that light of fatherly love in his eyes, but I think
it must have been there for all things that needed his care and
protection. Flowers, however, were his "dream children."
His was no ideal garden, and he had never written about it. It was
scarcely larger or more blessed by fate than mine, but was as perfect
as could be. He knew each flower intimately; he had planted each shrub,
and I never met a weed or a stone on his borders. He had but little
glass, and no groves and copses and woods, or heather, or pine, or any
unfair advantages in that way; but when I looked at his herbaceous
border in the autumn I could not help thinking of harvest decorations.
Such a wealth of colour was piled up, it hardly seemed possible it
could all be growing on the spot. From early spring to late autumn
a succession of brilliant blooms reigned one after another in that
border; to look upon it was indeed "seeing of the labour of one's hands
and being satisfied."
And he had said, "There is no reason why you should not have it too."
I think that border sowed the first seeds of gardening love in my heart.
"But when you came here was it like this?" I asked.
"It was a pretty bad wilderness," he said with a look round.
"Oh! things take _such_ a time," I groaned.
"I have been here twenty-five years. I have planted nearly everything
you see, except the big trees."
"Twenty-five years! But I!--I can't begin planting things for
twenty-five years hence. It is too bad of one's predecessors to leave
one nothing but weeds and stones and Griggs!"
"Yes. Well, you have got to make things better for your successors. Not
but what you can get results of some sort under twenty-five years. All
this"--and he waved his hand to that wonderful border--"comes, at least
comes in part, with but eighteen months' careful tending."
Even eighteen months seemed to my impatient spirit too long; I wished
for a fairy wand. But fairy effects have a way of vanishing like the
frost pictures on the window pane.
"Well, if ever I try to make our wilderness blossom like the rose I
will just grow perennial things and pop them in and have done with it."
At which the Master laughed.
"Oh, will you? I don't think I shall come to admire your garden then.
Why are you so afraid of time? You are young. But I suppose that is the
reason."
After I had made the plunge we talked again on this matter.
"Most of these people who write of their gardens own them. They have
lived there and will live there always. But in a Rectory garden one is
but a stranger and a pilgrim. Don't you feel this?"
"No. We are growing old together, and perhaps it will be given me to
stay here; anyway, my garden is better than I found it. Is not that
something?"
"Oh, yes," I said discontentedly.
He laughed. "Ah! the spirit will grow; you are cultivating it just as
surely as you are the seeds."
"There are plenty of weeds and stones to choke all the seeds
everywhere," I answered. "Old Griggs's way of weeding is to chop off
the heads, dig everything in again, and for a fortnight smile blandly
over his work. Then he says that it is no use weeding, 'Just look at
'em again.'"
"Old Griggs seems to afford you plenty of parables from Nature, anyhow.
He is instructive in his way. But can't he be retired?"
"Alas, no! he is a fixture."
"And you the pilgrim! Well, go ahead. And now come and see what the
nurseries contain; there is always to spare in the nurseries."
Many of his spare children found their way to my garden, and it grew
quite a matter of course to turn to him in any dilemma. But Ignoramuses
must learn, in gardens as in everything else, to work out their own
salvation. So in fear and trembling, and a good deal of hope, too, I
made my own experiments; for hill and dale divided the Master's garden
from mine, and I doubt if even he could grasp the utter ignorance of
the absolutely ignorant.
* * * * *
Ice and snow and thaw, and again thaw and ice and snow had held
their sway through January and early February, and my garden slept.
Another year I would have violets growing in the narrow border under
the verandah, and tubs--big green tubs--of Christmas roses under its
shelter. Were they expensive, I wondered? And thus I found out, by
the simple process of asking at a florist, that for one shilling and
sixpence or two shillings a root I could buy--why, hellebores! But for
me they will always be "Christmas roses." At present the verandah was
bare, oh, so bare! It needed more roses to climb up the trellis and the
newness of its two years' existence to be hidden. It held attraction
for the birds, however, this cold winter time; crumbs and scraps were
expected by them as regularly as breakfast and dinner by us. The pert
sparrow came by dozens, of course, but out of our four robins one knew
himself to be master of the ceremony. He came first, at a whistle,
the signal for crumbs, and he allowed the sparrows to follow, really
because he could not help himself. But should another robin come--his
wife or their thin-legged son--he made for them and spent the precious
moments pecking them away while the sparrows gobbled. His is not a
beautiful disposition, I fear, but oh! how gladly one forgives him for
the sake of his bold black eye, cheering red breast and persistent
joyfulness of song. The colder weather brought other pensioners,
chaffinch, bullfinch, even hawfinch, and, of course, the thrush
and blackbird; a magpie eyed the feast from afar, but the starlings
waddled boldly up, not hopping as birds, but right-left, right-left
like wobbling geese; and the tom-tits and blue and black-tits, came and
continued to come as long as they found a cocoa-nut swinging for their
benefit. None of the other birds would touch it. Next winter they shall
have hellebore for their table decoration.
* * * * *
Oh! how lucky men are, they have so many things we women seem forever
to miss.
Very thick, sensible boots that won't get wet through; no skirts to
get muddy when gardening; the morning paper first, of course, because
they are men and politics are for them; voting powers, too, which on
occasions give them a certain very much appreciated weight; and money,
even if poor, always more money than their wives and daughters.
These reflections, and I notice you may reflect on most irrelevant
matter in a garden, were called forth by a boy-man who kindly took me
in to dinner one evening. I soon discovered he had a little "diggings"
and was going in for gardening "like anything." Yet was my soul not
drawn to him. "Bulbs, oh, rather! Had a box over from Holland the
other day, just a small quantity, you know. Mine isn't a large place,
but five thousand or so ought to fill it up a bit; make a mass of
colour, that's what I go in for. Told my man to plant 'em in all over,
thick as bees. Then I had great luck. Dropped in at an auction in the
City just in the nick of time, got a box-load of splendid bulbs for
half-a-crown--worth a guinea at the very least--shoved them all in too.
I shall have a perfect blaze, I tell you. Like you to come and look me
up in April if you go in for that kind of thing."
But I hated the boy-man. Five thousand bulbs! without a second thought.
And then--according to the rule that works so invariably among material
goods, "to him that hath shall be given"--this aggressive youth also
buys a guinea's worth of bulbs for half-a-crown. Think what I would
have given to be at that auction. But women can't "drop in" in the City.
* * * * *
Towards the end of February my snowdrops made their appearance. The
scillas followed a little later and with less regularity. They were
not quite the perfect sheet I had dreamt of, but each little bulb did
its duty manfully and raised one slender stem with its bell-like head.
One at every few inches over a space of some yards was not wealth; and
I almost wept when some of them were sacrificed for the drawing-room.
The Others said, "A garden should grow flowers for the house. Who
wanted them out there in the cold, where no one would see them!" But
I did, for out there in the cold they lived for weeks and in the warm
room a few days faded them. I must have more and more so that we may
all be satisfied. In the Master's garden I found sixteen varieties of
snowdrops, not very many of each, but he has no Others. What I longed
for was quantity; and as for quality, each snowdrop holds its own, I
think.
Up through the softened grass came the strong, pointed leaves of the
daffodils. My mass of gold promised to be very regular, but the small
crocus leaves were harder to find, and they had no sign of yellow
points as yet. And the anemones! What had happened to them? I nearly
dug them up to see.
Were the buds on the trees swelling? The birds were twittering busily
on the branches, as though they knew their covering would not be
long delayed, but the little brown knobs, so shiny and sticky on the
chestnuts, appeared hardly to have gained in size since they pushed
off the old leaf in the autumn. For in the time of scattering wind and
falling leaf it is well to remember that it is the coming bud which
loosens the hold of the old leaf. Life, and not death, which makes the
seasons and the world go round.
* * * * *
I was busy again with catalogues. "Begin things in time," preached
the Master; but ah! I seem to have been born a month too late, for I
never catch up time in my garden, except when there is nothing to do,
and then you _can_ do nothing. Nature has cried a "halt," and all the
fidgeting in the world will not start the race before "time" is said.
So I studied my catalogue and made my list in February.