luxuries with only three pounds to spend and so many other things to
buy. Wallflowers, red and gold; but, alas! the Master has warned me
these are for next year, as also many other things. The polyanthuses,
that I long to see in masses like a fine Persian carpet, the pansies
and violas, the forget-me-nots, even the Canterbury bells and
campanulas and sweet-Williams must be thought of now, and will need
the year round before coming to flowering time. Still, down they go on
my list. And gaillardias, too, they look so handsome in the picture
and promise so much: "showy, beautiful, brilliant, useful for cutting"
(there were those Others to think of), and they were perennials.
Blessed perennials! Then larkspur or delphinium, I should say, for I
did not want the annual variety. I could not wait, however, to grow
those tall, beautiful spikes of bright blue, Oxford and Cambridge in
colour, from seed, I must indulge in plants. Hollyhocks must also be
bought ready-made, and phlox. Oh! the poverty-stricken little specimens
that grew in my garden, flowers capable of such beauty. I had seen them
growing in the Lake country and marvelled at their upstanding mass of
brilliant heads. They were a revelation as to what the phlox family
could do.
And there were all the magnificent possibility of lilies, of gladiolas
and montbresias, and ixias. These must be bought. I must have them,
but oh! the years before I could make a home for all. I turned to
the annuals; they sounded as easy to grow as Jack's bean-stalk. What
a list! Antirrhinum--that is, snapdragon, but one gets used even to
spelling the other name--red, white and yellow; the taller kind call
themselves half-hardy perennials, but I don't believe they would stand
my winter, and the dwarf variety do their duty nobly for one summer.
Mignonette, that was a necessity; marguerites, annual chrysanthemums
sounded inviting; "continuous blooming" would suit the Others.
Convolvulus and heaps of nasturtium, canariensis and other little
tropoeoleum. Balsam and asters; no, though I liked the sound of balsam,
still I could do without it, and I must do without something! But of
sweet-peas I could not have too many, even though most of the "dukes"
and "duchesses" cost a shilling a packet. I pictured hedges and hedges
of sweet-peas in the garden, and bowls and bowls of blossom in the
house. Sunflowers again--"golden-nigger," "æsthetic gem," "Prussian
giant"--how could one help sampling such seductive names? And tagetes,
the Master had said, "Get tagetes, it is a useful border." Marigolds,
too, they were not a favourite of mine, but they lasted well into the
autumn, and I had to think of the failing months. Zinnias I could
not resist because they are so "high art" in their colouring; and
salpiglosis, the Master had a lovely group of these daintily-pencilled
belles.
Then I made up my list, threepence, and sixpence, and one shilling,
and one shilling and sixpence. How they mounted up. Thirty shillings
in seeds! and I had to buy plants and bulbs too. But I could cut out
nothing, though it had been very easy to make additions.
But now to get all these thousands of seeds sown. They could not all
be sown in the open; I knew so much. Those for coming on quickly would
need little wooden boxes and a place in the one frame full of bothering
geraniums; and when they were bigger they would need pricking out
in more wooden boxes, and could only be planted out permanently the
beginning of June.
Well, what for the open? Sweet-peas--thank goodness for that!--and
the wallflowers, Canterbury bells--cup and saucer variety had taken
my fancy--sweet-Williams, sunflowers, nasturtium, mignonette and
forget-me-nots, they could all be trusted straight to Mother Earth;
and I had enough of the dear brown bosom, bare of all children, down in
that long desolate border. And for the boxes and pricking out and glass
frame I would begin with antirrhinum, stocks, violas, tagetes, zinnia,
salpiglosis, lobelias, polyanthus and columbine. That must suffice for
the first year. But oh! what a lot of flowers there were to be had,
and how lovely a garden might be if only--well, if only one had a real
gardener, money, the sunny border, good soil, and--if they all came up!
And what flowers had I omitted? Of simple things that even an Ignoramus
may have heard. There were all the poppy tribe, Iceland, Shirley, the
big Orientals, Californian, though these are not poppies proper at all;
verbena, the very name smelt sweet; gypsophila, a big word, but I knew
the dainty, grass-like flower from London shops; penstemons, carnation,
scabious, or lady's pincushions. The only way was to shut that book
resolutely and go and write to Veitch.
The book said, and so did each little neat packet of seeds, "sow
in pots or pans," or "sow in heat," and talked of a cool frame and
compost, so, armed with this amount of knowledge, I took my seeds out
to old Griggs.
"Griggs, have you any wooden boxes or pans or things in which we can
sow these seeds?"
Griggs looked at me suspiciously; he did not like my energy, there was
no doubt of that, but since he was a gardener he recognised that flower
seeds, or such-like, ought to be in his line.
He took the packets.
"P'haps I can knock up a box or two. That frame's mostly full of
janiums, though. I've a nice quantity of them saved."
"But we can't fill the garden with nothing but geraniums, you know. I
want to have a great show this year; don't you? Wouldn't it be more
satisfactory to you to see the garden looking nice than like a howling
wilderness?"
Griggs laughed, positively.
"You've got to spend money if you wants flowers, and the old rector as
was 'e never put 'is 'and in 'is pocket for no sich thing as flowers.
I dunno 'bout a 'owling wilderness. My fancy is them janiums brightens
up a place wonderful."
I pushed open the lights of the long frame by which we were standing
and looked at the stalky, unpromising appearance of old Griggs's
favourites. There were other lean and hungry-looking plantlets there, a
bit yellow about the tips.
"What are those?" I asked, pointing.
"Oh, them's marguerites, white and yellow. I got Mr Wright up at the
'All to give me them cuttings. They wanted a bit of water this morning
so I give it em."
I pressed my finger on the sodden soil of the box that held the
drooping cuttings. "They have had too little, and now you have given
them too much," I said sternly. How could I trust my precious seeds to
this old murderer? "Griggs, if you would only _love_ the flowers a bit,
they would grow with you."
"Bless you! they'll grow, they 'aven't took no hurt. Let's look at your
seeds. Anti--rrh--well, what's this name?"
"Snapdragon."
"Oh, and violas and polyan--thus. Well, we can get 'em in. I've a box
or two."
But I grabbed all my packets quickly.
"All right, get the boxes ready and I will come and sow them myself."
The boxes were filled with a light soil, mixed with sand and leaf
mould. I turned it over myself to look for worms or other beasts,
and very, very thinly, as I thought, I scattered the tiny seeds over
the surface and gave them a good watering. Then out with some of the
scraggiest of Griggs's plants and in with my precious boxes.
I felt Griggs's hands must not touch them. He had something wrong about
him, for a gardener, that is to say. He always broke the trailing
branch he was supposed to be nailing up; he always trod on a plant in
stepping across a border; if he picked a flower he did it with about an
inch of stalk and broke some other stem; no blessing flowed from his
hand when he planted out the flowers.
I sowed the end of February, and in March little tiny green heads were
peeping up in most of the boxes. The violas still remained hidden. If
Griggs had sown I should have said he had done it very irregularly, for
the green heads came in thick patches and then again very sparingly;
but I knew, of course, it must have been the seeds' own fault, since I
had done it myself!
* * * * *
I was standing with his Reverence at the study window watching a
squirrel swing himself from bough to bough, and I think we were both
envying him, when my eye caught some specks of colour on the grass
plot in front, that grass plot which ought to have a sun-dial in the
centre and a stately bed of flowering shrubs as a background instead
of laurels! What was it growing in the grass? White, yellow, purple,
a touch here and there, all across, straight across, in one horrid
straight line! Could it be?
"Look, Mary, there he goes! See him spring up that tree?"
"Look," I said in a tragic voice, "look at them! Do you think--can it
be--are they my crocuses?"
"Where? Oh, there! Yes, I thought they looked like a rather straggly
regiment this morning, marching single file. Was that your idea?"
"My idea! a straight line! Oh, how can you! That old fiend of a
Griggs!" And then I rushed out to see the full extent of the horror.
It was too true. In spite of my careful scattering the old ruffian had
drawn my crocus bulbs into line. I can see how he did it, striding
across the grass, clutching bulbs to right and left, sticking them in
under his nose, and probably sweeping up those outside his reach with
the dead leaves. What a show! Many had not come up, and many had no
flower, so the regiment was ragged. I could have cried.
Jim had joined me.
"Don't think much of this idea anyhow Mary."
"Don't you know how I meant it to be? Haven't you seen the Park?"
"Can't say I've given it my undivided attention lately. Shall I go and
pitch into old Griggs?"
"It would be no good. I must do that."
"That isn't fair, Mary. If I'm to help you I must have some of the fun."
"Jim! It is no fun to me. You can't _murder_ him, and nothing else
would be any good. What shall I do with them?"
I looked at my poor little first-fruits. They did look so forlorn and
battered. A crocus all alone, separated from its kind by a foot or so,
has a most orphaned and cheerless appearance.
"Let's have 'em up," said Jim, the man of action.
"No, they mustn't be moved in flower, not even till their leaves die,
and by that time the grass will be mowed and I shan't know where they
are, and then it will look like this next year too."
"Oh rot!" said Jim, "something has got to be done. Can't have these
stragglers roaming across the lawn and never getting home. I know,"
and off he was and returned with a lot of little sticks which he
proceeded to plant by the side of each crocus. "Now we will locate the
gentlemen and have 'em up when their poverty-stricken show is over."
Afterwards, when Jim saw in my account that crocuses were two shillings
a hundred, he said I did not value his time very highly. He thought by
my face we were dealing with things of value. But anyway we moved that
ragged regiment on and stationed them in clumps at the foot of trees,
where they will look more comfortable.
* * * * *
March should be a very busy month, and old Griggs found employment in
the kitchen garden. I should have moved plants now, and arranged the
neglected herbaceous border of the autumn, but, alas! all the new green
things coming up were strangers to me, and I saw quickly that in their
present state Griggs was as likely to make mistakes as I. He hazarded
names with a scratch of the head and a pull at the tender green shoots
that made me angry.
"Them's a phlox, and them's--oi can't quite mind, it's purple like;
and them's flags, but they ain't never much to look at; too old, I
reckon. That's a kind of purple flower, grows it do, and that 'ere's a
wallflower." This was said with decision, and I too could recognise the
poor specimen of a spring joy.
So I left well, or ill, alone until the nature of the plant should be
declared, and then, if useless, out it could come later.
We prepared a long narrow bed alongside a row of cabbages, made a neat
little trench some three inches deep, put in a layer of manure and
mould on top, and there my first sowing of sweet-peas was placed, and
carefully covered and watered and patted down. I felt like a mother who
tucks her child in bed. Surely the pat did good! February, March and
April were all to have their sowing, and then the summer months should
have a succession of these many-coloured fragrant joys.
In March also the other annuals found resting-places; some in square
patches down the long border, some in rows that looked inviting down
the side and cross paths of the kitchen domain. It was encroaching, of
course, but no one used the spare edges, and it seemed kind to brighten
up the cabbages and onions, all now coming up in long thread-like lines
of green. I had added a few more seeds to my list, so a long row of
tiny seeds that were to be blue cornflowers, with another row in front
of godetia, would provide, I hoped, a very bright sight and be so
useful for cutting.
On Shirley poppies, too, I ventured. It seemed so easy just to sow a
few seeds and trust to Nature to do the rest. I did not then appreciate
the backache caused by the process "thinning out."
People may talk of sowing in February, but one cannot sow in either
frozen ground or deep snow. Some Februarys may be possible, but it was
the beginning of March that year before I committed my seeds to Mother
Earth, and even then it seemed a very unsafe proceeding. However, a lot
of tiny green pin points soon appeared, and the only havoc wrought by
birds, mice and rabbits--Griggs suggested every imaginable animal--was
amongst the sweet-peas. These had to be protected with a network of
cotton.
* * * * *
So the winter slipped away very gradually, for even after the first
breath of spring, which comes to us from afar and thrills us as no
other fragrance of air, frost, snow, rain and biting winds triumph
again, and bud and sprouting green seem to shrink up and cower away.
Yet we know the winter is surely passing and the first trumpet-blast of
spring's procession has blown.
[Illustration: SPRING]
SEASON II
Spring
"And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."
Daffodils always make me glad. From the moment their strong, blue-green
blades pierce the grass, they give one a feeling of strength,
vigour, activity and determination to be up and doing, unmindful of
wind or weather; in fact, using all for their own purpose, bending
circumstances to their own development.
And when the big golden bell bursts its sheath of pale green it does it
with fine independence, and then swings on its strong stem, ringing out
lustily that the spring is here, the sun is shining, for the sun always
seems to shine on the daffodils, they reflect his glory under all
clouds, and depression flies before their sturdy assumption of "All's
well with the world."
And so I felt very hopeful as I saw my circles, my clusters, my rows
of daffodils, one by one, flashing up from the delicious blue-green
blades. They none of them failed me, none, bless them! So plant
daffodils, O friend Ignoramus! the single, the double, and any other of
that dear family, the narcissus.
The birds were singing, and oh, so busy making late love, building and
even nesting! The trees were bursting, the lilacs had a shimmer of
green. The larches had colour almost too dim to be called green, they
streaked the woods that still looked brown without looking bare; little
catkins hung and danced, the blackthorn looked like forgotten snow, the
grass was greener, and here and there a sweet primrose bud peeped up,
whispering, "We are coming."
Down under the row of limes bordering the sloping field I found many
pretty crumpled primrose leaves, and they gave me the idea to plant
more and more, and to have my wild garden here, with snowdrops and
cowslips, unseen things in our woods and fields. Ferns, too, of the
common kind must be collected, and foxgloves, the seeds of which
must be bought and sown. For the present there were the little wild
things that grow on their own account, and are so sparklingly green and
spring-like that one hardly likes to rebuke them with the name of weed.
Hope was in the air. Everything is young again once a year.
* * * * *
I felt obliged to begin the second division of my year in a hopeful
voice, so I opened with my daffodils; but if March be taken as the
first month of spring, then indeed I should not have written of that
chime of golden bells. March holds February very tightly by the hand,
and cannot make up her mind to hurry on with her work of opening the
buds and encouraging the flowers. She blows cold winds in their faces,
nips them with frosty nights, occasionally wraps them up in snow, then
suddenly, repenting her of the evil, she opens up a blue sky and pours
a hot sun down on them. A most untrustworthy month.
There is plenty of work to do, particularly if February has not been an
open month, and for gardening purposes I really think it ought never
to be so considered, and still more particularly if much has been
neglected in the foregoing November. If you are an Ignoramus, and have
a Griggs as gardener, the chances are much will have been neglected.
My attention was called to the subject of roses by the arrival of a
rose-grower's catalogue.
Roses! I could only touch the very outer fringe of this magnificent
garment, but I felt I must, positively must, have one or two of the
cheaper sort of these dazzling beauties; and though they are better
moved in the autumn, in early spring it is not impossible. A crimson
rambler, the modest price one shilling and sixpence, tempted me to
indulge in three. The deep yellow William Allen Richardson, delightful
for buttonholes, which Jim assured me no garden should be without;
the thought of a red Gloire de Dijon or Reine Marie Hortense was also
quite overcoming. Our old yellow Gloire de Dijon was the only rose in
my neglected garden that did herself proud, and she flourished up the
front of the house and festooned one of the Others' windows, from which
Griggs and his shears had been summarily banished. "Cut where you like,
but never dare to come here," had been uttered in a voice that made
even Griggs "heed." If her red sister only equalled this "glory" that
half-crown would be well expended. Then two standards needed replacing,
for one could not have dead sticks down so conspicuous a row; though
standards were not my idea of roses, still there they were and I must
make the best of them. So off went my modest order. I had indicated the
whereabouts of each rose to Griggs, but was unfortunately not present
on their arrival. I think even an Ignoramus might have helped Griggs on
that occasion--but more of that anon.
The Others could see but little improvement in the garden, this they
let me know; they were full of ideas, and I found them as trying as
some Greek heroine must have found an unsympathetic chorus. "The
verandah was so bare! Was it really any use putting in that silly
little twig? Would it ever come to anything?" This of my new and very
bare-looking crimson rambler. And then, "Why had we no violets? Surely
_violets_ were not an impossibility? They grew of themselves. Just look
at the baskets full in the London streets. Such a bunch for a penny!
But it would be nice not to have to go to London for one's bunch of
violets!"
I took up the cudgels. They should see how that crimson rambler ramped,
yes, I prophesied, positively ramped up the archway. They should
be buried in a fragrant bower of ruby-coloured clusters, and they
might cut and come again. As to violets, I was giving them my best
consideration; the bed down the garden produced but a few--certainly
not a pennyworth--of inferior quality, because neither violets nor
anything else, save weeds, grew and flourished by the light of Nature
alone. The violet roots were choked with weeds, and I must have new
suckers and begin all over again; and that was not possible until the
violet season was over; then I intended to beg, borrow or steal some
good suckers, and buy others if I had any money.
"Mary, you speak like a book with pictures; but I hope there will be
_some_ result, and that the violets will be ready before they are
needed for our funeral wreaths."
I entreated them to find the patience I had thoroughly lost, and
hurried out to rage over the thickly weed-wedged violet plants, with
here and there a feeble bloom, and to imagine myself in years to
come bending over this same bed, picking one long strong stalk after
another, and scarcely lessening the store by the big bunch I should
carry away. Oh! a lifetime was not enough for all I should or could do
in a garden.
* * * * *
There is a row of standard roses skirting the lawn on one side, and
also a round bed of rose bushes. I had not much idea if they were any
good, for roses had been to a great extent spoilt the last two years
by very wet weather, still I had noticed the shoots they were sending
forth with great pleasure. Anyhow _they_ were growing right enough.
One day, the middle of March, I found Griggs busy down the row with a
large knife. What was he doing? Horror! All the long shoots were being
ruthlessly sacrificed.
"Griggs, what _are_ you doing?" I gasped, and afterwards I felt very
glad I said nothing stronger.
Griggs paid no attention to my tone; he took the words as showing a
desire for enlightenment.
"You 'as to cut 'em a bit in spring-time, you know; or p'haps you don't
know, missy."
This mode of address was one of Griggs's most unpardonable sins, but I
never had the strength of character to tell him not to do it.
"But do you cut off _all_ the new growth?" I said, with an inner
conviction that if Griggs were doing it it needs must be wrong.
"Well, you trims 'em round a bit, starts 'em growin' more ways than
one, d'ye see."
"But those aren't suckers?" I said, still feebly fighting with my
ignorance and incredulity.
Then Griggs laughed. He did not like me, and I suppose I ought not to
wonder, but he enjoyed laughing at me when he got the chance.
"No-a, they ain't suckers; suckers come from the root, leastways, they
start down there, and, bless yer! they be the ol' stock trying to have
a look in as you may say. I cuts them off soon as I sees 'em, as they
wastes the tree; but you _can_ see suckers as 'as got the upper 'and.
That rose front of the 'ouse is all sucker now. 'Twas a beautiful pink
rose I mind in old Rector Wood's time."
"That is very instructive," I remarked, feeling no gratitude to Griggs
for his information, as he felt no shame for the metamorphosis of the
once beautiful pink rose, which was now a wild one. We had wondered how
it came to be growing up with the clematis.
"And can't one cut back the suckers and let the pink rose grow again?"
I added.
"'Tain't likely," was all I could get out of Griggs.
I bicycled over that very day to the Master's garden, a hot and tiring
way of getting information, but a sure one, I knew, and one to which
I often had recourse in desperate moments. The Master was out, but his
garden was there, and all his rose trees were clipped. So I breathed
again.
I had a little good luck with violets a few weeks later.
A friend who had heard of my gardening efforts sent me several dozen
runners of the "Czar," and the Master spared me some others from his
frame. I was full of joy, and choosing a shady spot, saw it dug, raked,
helped out with a mixture of manure and leaf-mould, planted the violets
at six inches apart and liberally watered them. Shade, of course, for
the modest violet, I thought, carefully selecting for their home the
shelter of an overhanging chestnut. Well, well! one lives to learn, or
for some such purpose, I suppose.
The thick branches of that shadowing tree kept out sun as well as rain;
and, doubt it not, brother Ignoramus, violets, be they ever so modest,
like the sunshine and will only pine without it. So in the autumn
another move took place, and again I waited, whilst the Others bought
penny bunches and talked of funeral wreaths in the far future.
* * * * *
The long herbaceous border grew more and more interesting. A
broad-leafed plant had been sending up tall stems, now it opened out
and a big daisy-like blossom of yellow shone in the sun. "Leopard's
bane," said old Griggs with decision, and "doronicum," said the
Master, both being right, but I know not why it was considered a bane
or healing, for the banes among the flowers are surely blessings. But
there it was, and very grateful and comforting at this early time of
year. As though conscious that a friendly eye had begun to watch over
them, the scattered old plants of polyanthus, wallflower, a group or so
of tulips and some clumps of London pride brushed up this spring and
cheered the eye.
I was studying the shooting green clumps, lilies here and there, golden
rod, autumn daisy, maybe a stray phlox, many, very much too many,
evening primroses, seedlings of self-sown foxgloves, and wondering
how to rearrange them and make room for the better company I intended
introducing, when his Reverence's Young Man came down the path laden
with a big brown hamper. He looked quite excited.
"Oh, Mistress Mary, do come and examine the contents. I hope you may
find welcome strangers here. I told my mother you needed anything and
everything except geraniums. Was that right? So she has sent this
hamper with instructions to get them in at once."