time hacking away at them in the autumn. He wondered if the barren
fig-tree had a tap-root, but I could not enlighten him.
Everything was growing, we had had some good rain. I can feel for
the farmers now; I know what it is to _want_ rain. One of the Others
said she wished we would keep quiet, all we gardeners and farmers who
hankered after rain. She thought perhaps if we ceased the weather
might get a little settled and the sun shine week in week out. To her
mind that was far better than fields of corn or beds of even luxuriant
flowers. There were sure to be _some_ corn and _some_ flowers anyhow,
"so do let other people enjoy the sunshine in peace." Certainly if
the English climate is the result of conflicting desires, it would
be a good thing to have a national creed on the subject and make it
obligatory.
After the rain, however, in that particular month of April, came the
sun, and things grew apace.
Though not only my seeds and flowers. The enemy, who for many a long
year had sown, or allowed to be sown, weeds in my garden, had his crop
likewise.
"They're overmastering us agin," said Griggs, who had his friendly
moments; and sometimes, if we were working hard, quite enjoyed
standing near and pretending to help us.
"It's your fault that, you know," said Jim, who minced matters with
nobody. He was doubled up over the border surrounded with all kinds
of implements, for Jim liked everything handy. There was a big clasp
knife and a spade and rake, a trowel and little fork, and then he
generally used his hands. He was now "tracking home," as he said, that
evil-minded weed called, I believe, the ground-elder, and pointed out
with some heat, quite excusable under the circumstances, that Griggs,
who had just calmly and coolly cut off the head of the plant, had done
not a "blooming bit of good."
If you should ever want a really good back-aching job, take a trowel
or a little hand fork and begin a fight with those innocent-looking,
many-fingered leaves growing in and out in so friendly a fashion with
your flowers. You turn up the root, but its hold is still on the earth;
you pull a bit and find it belongs to that other cluster of leaves
some little distance off. You attack that, very careful not to lose
your underground connection, it also has sent long stringy branches in
all directions. Then you pull and tear and say "Oh, bother!" and "What
a brute of a weed!" Jim and I are careful not to say anything stronger,
though he has been known to indulge in "hang," but I feel sure Griggs
gives us the character of using "most horful languidge you never
heard." Still it goes on, and quite a heap of potato-like roots will be
out and yet its hold is not slackened. Finally it lands you in an iris
or lily root; it is not particular, but I find it prefers a solid root,
and there you get sadly mixed as to what is root and what is weed. But
if the job is to be done finally, these roots must be all taken up
and carefully disentangled, for all are twined together. This radical
measure is best, or rather least injurious to lilies and irises, when
their flowering time is over--July and August--and moving or dividing
does not disturb them.
Never in all old Griggs's reign of twenty years had he tracked a
ground-elder weed home; but I now know the look of those potato-like
roots better than any other in my garden.
I cannot say I like doing it. Boys are more invertebrate and do not
get so red in the face; and this I pointed out to Jim, suggesting a
division of labour.
"You do get jolly red," said Jim, "but really, you know, I expect it's
your stays."
"Jim!"
"Well, you needn't get up the steam. I only know when I was dressed up
for those theatricals as a beastly, I mean, as a girl, the fellows got
hold of some stays, I suppose they bagged their sister's, a precious
tight pair, too! and I just tell you, in confidence, they made me
absolutely sick. I had to retire looking like an unripe lemon. My!
never again!"
"You squeezed too much, Jim."
"That girl must have squeezed more; and you all do, that's my private
opinion."
In consideration, therefore, of the infirmities to which a rigorous
convention condemns my sex, Jim said he would do the thinning out for
me.
My promising annuals, designed for grand duty in the cutting line,
godetias and larkspurs and chrysanthemums and Shirley poppies, were all
most flourishing, but coming much too thick. They ought to have been
thinned out sooner, of course, but we had been too busy, so Jim devoted
his early morning hours to them, before the five minutes' rush on his
bicycle which took him to the station for Gatley, where he and some
other fellows were being crammed to pass the examination for the Royal
Navy.
Jim's days were always filled. He never neglected cricket, nor, in its
good time, football and hockey; but he was going to see me through with
my garden for the first year, he said, and his help and ideas were
never-failing.
On the thinning-out mornings Jim got up early; very early it seemed to
me when he bounced into my room and sent a flood of light full on my
face, or placed a damp sponge there.
"Now I am going to thin, and I can't do it with any satisfaction if you
are asleep. What you have to do is to think out any blooming thoughts
for this blooming essay on courage. Why the blooming idiot gives us
such rotten subjects I can't think. But you must jot down some headings
and be ready with them when I come back."
"Jim, what a worn-out old subject. I shall go to sleep over it."
"This won't do," and Jim strode to the washing stand and plunged the
sponge in water.
"Oh, don't, Jim, I am awake! There was 'the boy who stood on the
burning deck,'" I shouted hurriedly.
Jim came back and stood over me.
"Open your eyes then wide, so. You see you are wasting precious time
with your sluggishness."
I thought of those thickly-sown seedlings growing up so leggy, and I
roused myself.
"Well, 'the boy' will do, then; he is a good old stager."
"Yes, so he mustn't be left out. All the other fellows will have him in
for sure, and if I don't, 'old Joe' will think I don't know about him.
They don't want any originality, these chaps; they want you just to
stick on and learn what they learnt, then you see you can't put them in
a corner. So just rout out good old standing dishes."
Jim turned to go.
"All right; but, Jim, remember to leave the strongest plant."
"'Survival of the fittest,' yes, I've heard that before."
"And don't forget about eight inches apart."
"I prefer six; you turn your thoughts to courage."
"Primitive instinct, difference between man and woman, one has more of
the physical variety and the other of the moral," I shouted after him.
"No twaddle," said Jim, striding back. "Think of what _I_ should be
likely to say. Of course we all may pick up ideas outside as we have
to write the blooming thing in form, but it must sound like me, not
you."
"It will, Jim, after it has been through your mill, never fear. And I
think eight inches produces strongest plants."
And then Jim slid down the bannisters and I heard him whistling in the
garden; but that soon ceased, for you can't whistle when you are bent
double.
I must say the row looked very nice when I reviewed it after breakfast.
Jim had selected with great care! but the heaps of rejected plantlets
lying on the gravel path caused my motherly heart a pang. What a
shocking waste! Every tiny seed had come up and ten were growing where
but one could find sufficient support for full development, so out must
come the nine. Nature is wasteful, and so is human nature, but we can't
weed out the overcrowded families; and do the fittest there always
survive? Truly it would need courage to tackle that problem.
* * * * *
A little later, in May, I found an employment in which I tried to
interest the Others, but it was no good. The only one I brought up to
the scratch, or rather the rose tree, fled with horror when I showed
her what was needed, and vowed she would rather never smell a rose
again than do such disgusting work. But his Reverence took quite kindly
to the job, I am glad to say, and it was a good sight in my eyes when
I saw his wideawake carefully bent over the standard roses, and then
a certain look of victory rose over his spectacles as he spotted the
enemy. This new enemy is a very vile-looking little green grub; one
variety is brown and fat, and then indeed I have felt inclined to flee
myself. I suppose his mamma lands him in an invisible stage on the
tender young rose leaves and he curls them round him for a cradle. Then
in some mysterious way, which I heartily wish Dame Nature had never
taught him, he rocks his cradle to the side of a juicy young bud, glues
himself to it and enjoys it. Not much bud is left. So his Reverence
unfolds the green cradle and carefully ejects the baby. I simply cannot
do that, I pick off the leaf; but in either case the end is rapid and
final.
And how prolific is that abominable butterfly! You may, in fact, you
_must_, visit your rose trees daily if you would hope to see a goodly
show.
At least, so it is in my garden. I can but speak from a limited
experience. I have often thought others may be more blessed than I am,
but you may not be one of them, friend Ignoramus.
Then there is the green fly, thickly swarming all over banksia or
cluster roses, at least, more especially favouring them. Jim would
have little to say to the green grub, though occasionally even he and
the Young Man had their steps gently led in that direction; and seeing
his Reverence's absorption, they too began and then somehow went on.
A kind of fatal fascination, I suppose, "Just one more!" The Others
would never give the spell a chance, but Jim grew to take the greatest
interest in green fly.
The Young Man suggested smoke for their destruction, but his cigarettes
did not seem to effect much, though he blew round a bush for quite a
long time while I picked the cradle leaves off another, and of course
my work was the most effectual. Jim was very keen on trying this remedy
too. I said the effect would be worse than his experience with the
stays, at which he asked me with dignity if I supposed he was as green
as all that! However, Griggs came out with an old syringe, and Jim said
that was the work for him. Soapy water and a good shove, and the Young
Man was simply deluged.
All Jim said was, "What a mercy it was only you. Think if it had been
his Reverence! Winkie! what a shine there would have been."
I thought the young man behaved beautifully, for a man, though he did
catch Jim and hold him upside down until he was gurgling.
But when the green fly got the douche very strongly given they too
objected, and vacated their position.
Afterwards I obtained a recipe for a douche which had even more
effectual results.
Take two ounces of quassia chips (you get them from a chemist for a
very small sum) and one ounce of soft soap, and pour on them about a
pint of boiling water. Leave it till cold and then add water to the
amount of two gallons. With this concoction syringe your green fly, and
its extreme bitterness will make them lose all fancy for your rosebuds.
* * * * *
The lilacs were out, and the white guelder rose and the ash tree;
may and syringa and laburnum were soon to follow. Truly even a poor
neglected little garden has its happy moments!
I would rest some days looking around and enjoying the green so new
and fresh everywhere, and trying to shut the reformer's eye. But it
was growing too strong for me; the only way to shut it was to reform.
The shrubberies were terrible. Laurel was rampant everywhere. A nasty
greedy thing, it cannot live and let live, for it takes the nourishment
needed by its better brethren. I would have no laurel in my garden,
none, but that is a dream for the future. The elder tree too has no
manners, it shares this failing with its namesake weed; it shoves and
pushes all more gentle growth to the wall. It must be cut back hard.
And the syringas also, they need the judicious knife to prune out the
old wood and so give strength to the young shoots. And so does the
yellow Japanese rose, more learnedly called Kerria Japonica, which
in late March and April had given but a poor little show of bloom. I
guessed that its treatment had been that of the yellow jasmine. It had
been clipped in the autumn on the hedging and ditching principle, and
the young shoots with the promise of buds had disappeared beneath
Griggs's shears. Better for the plant to have razed it to the ground
after flowering, said the Master, for the vigorous young shoots would
soon have appeared; so following his instruction I this spring cut the
old stems right away, leaving only the new green ones springing from
the ground. I am hoping here, too, for next year.
It seems a gardener must always be living in the future, "possessing
their souls in patience," and "hoping all things." Truly it is a
liberal education, and I hope may prove very valuable to Jim and the
Young Man--and other persons.
It has done no good to Griggs.
* * * * *
Spring slipped into summer. The sun shone longer and melted the iciness
in the wind's breath; the tender green of the trees gave place to
"leafy June" and the shade was grateful.
Jim found a waistcoat superfluous, and the head gardener donned a shady
hat and tried to wear gloves.
Yes, the spring was gone, and even with summer's glories to come one
turns a regretful glance back to the months when "Behold, He maketh all
things new."
[Illustration: SUMMER]
SEASON III
Summer
"Knee-deep in June."
And knee-deep in work, too, for June will not give you anything for
nothing if you are running a garden. I had my hands full, not only with
the legitimate work of June, which is great, but May is sure to have
left you in the lurch; this "getting forward" process so much preached
by the Master is not seconded by May with at all a whole heart.
"March ain't never nothin' new!
Apriles altogether too
Brash fer me, and May--I jes'
'Bominate its promises.
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land,
A few blossoms and a few
Chip birds, and a sprout or two--
Drap asleep, and it turns in
'Fore daylight and snows agen!"[1]
[1] James Whitcomb Riley.
My poet is an American, but the complaint may be raised also in the old
country; only I do not "'bominate" promises. I love them, and as I am
perforce a gardener it is a good thing, for I often get nothing else.
But be the garden forward or not, how lovely a garden can be, even a
neglected garden, these last weeks of May and first of June.
The chestnuts are scarcely over, the laburnum is raining gold, the may
trees are like snow, a delicious reminder when the sun is doing its
duty brilliantly; the roses are just breaking from the bud, and now we
can congratulate ourselves on the wholesale slaughter of green grub and
green fly, without, however, giving up the pursuit.
But what was the matter with those newly-planted rose trees? The
crimson rambler, for one, that was to ramp up the verandah, had not
ramped an inch; it had only put forth some miserable, half-starved
leaves and not one bud. The Others derided it freely. William Allen
Richardson looked unhappy too; the new standards seemed more contented,
and the Reine Marie Hortense, who also was destined to cover the
verandah as rapidly as might be with pink Gloire de Dijon roses, had
really begun her work with a will. Why then had my much-vaunted crimson
rambler failed me? I had been told they disliked a wall, but not a
verandah. "A worm i' the root," suggested One; but I held to certain
laws of the Medes and Persians, and one was to leave the roots alone
until the right time; so if my rambler wished to flourish elsewhere it
must bide until the autumn; though in the front, over an old stump, and
down in the kitchen garden it was the same tale, the ramblers refused
to ramble.
* * * * *
But the business of the month must not be kept waiting a day, in fact,
we began the last week in May, and that was promoting the nurslings
from their shelter to the open borders.
The two large round beds that were generally devoted to Griggs's
semi-red geraniums and scraggy calceolarias, and which were the only
regular planting-out beds the garden possessed, were now a subject of
much disquieting thought to me.
They were so terribly important. By them I felt my reputation must
stand or fall. They were plainly visible from everywhere. They needed
to be a brilliant mass of colour from June to October; no easy problem
for one lot of flowers to solve. I had set my face against Griggs's
geraniums bordered with calceolarias and lobelias, the refuge of the
destitute; any other refuge was to be mine, I resolved. And since it
had been no silent resolve, it had perforce to be kept.
At present those beds were an eyesore, but one for which I did not feel
responsible. Before I took in hand the reins of garden government,
Griggs had buried there a mixture of tulips and edged them with
alternate polyanthuses--the poorest of specimens--and forget-me--nots
that had weathered the winter in what Griggs termed a "spotty" way. It
was certainly a suggestive phrase for those particular plants. But I
had been able to join the Others in their chorus of condemnation. Now
the time had arrived for a change, and the responsibility appalled me.
I had had visions of those two beds with many various inhabitants.
At first the dream had been of violas, pale mauve deepening into the
dark purple, but to complete that idea some tall things with a strong
colour--red salvias or good red geraniums--were needed; these, planted
some eighteen inches apart, would bring out the delicate background.
But the dream vanished perforce. Apart from the lack of good red
anything, my violas had failed me, and some few dozen little plants
were all I could reckon upon. Why, I do not know; it was just this, the
seeds had not come up.
So then I dreamed of all my straight little antirrhinums; they would
surely make a fine glaring effect. I had red, yellow, white and a good
quantity. Jim liked the idea; red was to be the centre, and yellow and
white alternate, a broad border.
Griggs took his arrangement away. The dilapidated tulips were saved, of
course, and kept in a dry place stored for the autumn planting out.
On the polyanthus roots too I laid rescuing hands. They were not very
good colours, but needing so much I dared not waste. The best of the
lot I had noted, and now placed them down the shaded lime walk. They
could grow where the primroses grew, and in spring I should welcome
even their uncertain shades down amongst the bright green of the wild
things. The beds were turned over well, and a little fresh soil and
manure dug in; then, when neat, smooth and ready, I brought up the
first detachment of small antirrhinums from the nursery for their
adornment. These had grown to the height of from five to six inches,
but had still a slender air. I think it would have helped their more
rapid development had they been moved sooner from their first box. With
seedlings, friend Ignoramus, you cannot be _too_ particular. Never let
them have the slightest check; keep them watered, cared for, and as
they need it give them room. They will then reward you.
All one cool afternoon Jim and I planted out. We began in the centre
and made rings round with an impromptu compass formed by a stick and
string. In the rounds thus made the plantlets were steadily and firmly
placed, eight inches apart, though eight inches seemed a great deal of
spare room.
"They will grow," I persisted; "they are small for their age, but will
soon need elbow room."
"I feel I am playing with little tin soldiers, don't you?" suggested
Jim; "but they are strong little beggars and will grow bigger, won't
they?"
"Oh, rather! over a foot, though they are the dwarf kind, you know; but
they branch out like the wicked bay tree."
"Well, there's room for it," said Jim, and then we worked on steadily
until tea-time.
"What are you sprinkling that bed with those tiny green twigs for?"
asked one of the Others. "We want something a trifle cheering there,
you must remember, Mary. We have to look at it all the summer."
"We don't _want_ to have to regret Griggs's semi-red 'janiums," said
another of the Others.
"They will be a blazing mass of colour," I answered confidently as I
hurried over my tea. "Come, Jim, they must be got in."
"Remember it is for _this_ summer," shouted the Other.
"And not to adorn our graves, my dear," came after us.
What had happened in my short absence? I saw with new eyes, the eyes
not of the fond mother but of the critic.
"Jim!" and my whisper was awful.
"What's up? Have we done anything wrong?"
"Look at them!"
They looked absurd. They looked impossible. The bed so big and they
so small, so like tiny tin soldiers, that my faith failed me. The
Others would be confronted by little green twigs all the summer and
regret Griggs's _régime_. It was hopeless! they could never rise to the
occasion.
"They must come up, Jim."
"Oh, rot! Let's put 'em a bit thicker; they will flower all right, you
said so half-an-hour ago."
"I don't know what I said half-an-hour ago; I feel sure now that they
will take months to do anything! And what shall I do meanwhile? It's
the pricking out; we were behind with that, you see. They must come
up and go somewhere, where it won't matter so awfully. These beds
_must_ be a success, even if I spend every farthing I possess on buying
ready-made plants."
We took them up. Jim was impressed with my sorrow. We planted those we
had disturbed in the border in front as an edging.
"It won't matter so much here, they don't strike the eye, because other
things are coming here in clumps, but for those two beds!"
I had nightmares of tiny tin soldiers dressed in green who marched
round and round and disappeared, and then two bare brown beds loomed
up like giant's eyes, and the Others all shouted,
"Isn't it hideous? What did you do it for? Oh, Mary, what a mess you
have made of it!"
* * * * *
Next afternoon Jim and I, his Reverence and the Young Man--who also
joined the Council--calculated exactly how many plants would be
required to really fill those beds with a desirable effect. I could
hardly believe it, the calculation ended in two hundred for each bed.
I sat down on the grass and looked and looked as though looking would
make the necessary quantity appear.
"It can't be done," I moaned in the bluest despair. "I don't possess
four hundred of anything; so there!"
"You might make a kind of pattern," began the Young Man.
"I hate a kaleidoscopic effect," I growled.
"You've jolly well got to have one," said Jim.
"There might be a border," suggested his Reverence.
"Really, you _may_ mix some flowers," ventured the Young Man, rather
fearful of having his head snapped off again.
"I have seen uncommonly pretty beds done that way. Why, in the Park
this year I noticed a background of small close blue flowers, and out
of them rose tall pink geraniums. The effect was excellent," said his
Reverence.
"'You may see as good sights many times in tarts,'" I remarked, and
they none of them knew, not even Jim, that I was quoting the learned
Bacon, but thought my temper was affecting my reason.
"Get up off the damp grass," said Jim, offering violent assistance,
"and come and contemplate the nursery. Great Scott! after all your
bragging to collapse like this. Aren't the babies there still?"
"I have hundreds of nothing, and they are all such tiny things it would
take _thousands_ of them to fill these _hideous_ big beds."
So rather a downcast procession wended their way round the shrubbery
to the little yard with its frame and manure heap and enclosures of
plantlets.
His Reverence drew out pencil and paper, and after making several very
shaky rounds to represent the two beds, he began to fill in with names
as suggested to him by Jim and the Young Man.
"Let us start with the biggest geraniums in the centre, a group of
six we will say, as they are not very big any of them. Now then, a
row next of those yellow daisies, that will fill up a good bit and
look bright, too. Then we might have those stocks, all colours are
they? Do famously. And then the little snapdragons, what do you call
them?--anti--anti--what? snapdragon will do for me. You say they are
too small! Oh, but they will grow. Red, then yellow, then white.
Why, see, Mary, the round is nearly full. Then a row of the smallest
geraniums, don't you think, and end up with an edging of blue lobelia.
That would be fine, eh?"
Jim saw my face and burst into laughter. I was in no laughing mood.
"Good heavens, sir! Imagine such a higgledy-piggledy assembly as
that--all sizes--all colours--all blooming anyhow!"