I will mention first one bit of work well worth doing. Sow a good long
row of sweet-peas. Make a shallow trench and prepare it as was done
in the spring, and before Nature stops all growth above ground you
will have a lusty row of little plants five to six inches high. These
I should stake before the winter, as a means of protection from frost
and snow; and next year, a month earlier than most of your friends, you
will have sweet-peas of a height, a size and profusion to make them all
envious. And that is, of course, a consummation most devoutly to be
wished.
Some people's autumn borders are things of great joy and beauty.
Looking on the Master's profusion, I felt like the Queen of Sheba, for
I expect she thought her own house and grounds a very poor show when
she got back to Sheba. But I did not, like that celebrated queen, turn
and bless him unreservedly. I felt more like--much more like--abusing
Griggs.
Let me tell you what an autumn border can be like; not in my own poor
words, but as a master-hand painted a Master's garden, and, though not
_my_ Master's garden, the description fits.
"Against the deep green of the laurels, the rhododendron and box are
sunflowers six feet high, lit up each of them with a score of blooms,
and hollyhocks, taller still, are rosetted with deep claret flowers and
mulberry and strange old pink. Between them bushes of cactus dahlias
literally ablaze with scarlet. In front are standard roses, only
crimson and damask, and now in October bright with their second bloom.
Hiding their barren stems, compact and solid, an exquisite combination
of green and purple, are perennial asters--a single spike of them, with
its hundreds of little stars, makes a noble decoration in a room--and
humbler, if more vivid, companies of tritonia. Here and again are old
clumps of phlox, of fervent carmine or white starred with pink, and, to
my mind, of singular beauty, the rudbeckias in brilliant clusters of
chrome yellow.
"Three times in the long border Japanese anemones, mixed white
and terra cotta, mark noble periods in the great curve of colour;
and at corresponding intervals, as you walk round, your eye
catches the beautiful response, set further forward, of clumps of
chrysanthemums, lemon yellow and Indian red, tiny flowers, no doubt,
'for chrysanthemums', but sweetly pretty in their profusion and
artless growth. Is that enough? Well, then, for more. There are the
snapdragons in every shade of snapdragon colour, and geums now making
second displays of flower, and penstemons; and salvias shaded in
butterfly-blue, and Iceland poppies, and the round lavender balls--like
the spiked horrors which genial Crusaders wore at the end of chains
for the thumping of Saracens and similar heathens--which the Blessed
Thistle bears.
"Can you see this October garden at all?"[2]
[2] _In Garden, Orchard and Spinney,_ by Phil Robinson.
Indeed, that must look something like a garden border; and after all,
friend Ignoramus, it is not totally out of your reach. Even with my
disadvantages some of those glories can be mine.
The sunflowers, of course, I had, and though rather roughly staked
by my old enemy, yet their golden heads were there, and by diligent
decapitation they continued until I "did up" the border. The dahlias
did fairly, and some of the poor little water-starved annuals picked
up a little and gave patches of colour, notably the marigolds. The
Michaelmas daisy--which is here called "perennial aster"--gave but
little bloom; all my bushy perennial plants will be better next
year. The golden rod, that old inhabitant, was fine and useful even
this first September. It kept the big jar in the drawing-room going
with dahlias and sunflowers, but the day came all too soon when even
these gave out, and then I fell back on Dame Nature and plundered her
hedgerows. Such leaves, such yellows and reds, and berries, black,
red and green, never was a bunch more beautiful than that provided
by the country lanes; and if only a garden would go wild in such a
fashion I should leave it to itself. But that is the trouble. When once
civilisation has laid her hand on flower or savage there is no going
back; one must progress, the primitive conditions are lost for ever.
Unless the new ideal be lived up to, the latter state is worse than the
first.
* * * * *
I had been collecting ideas as well as had experience during the summer
months, and some of the ideas were greatly augmented by a Visitor who
came into the garden during the month of October. He had had varied
experiences during the years, not so many either, of his pilgrimage,
and after having claimed America, Australia, India as his fields of
action, and ranching, mining, pearl-fishing, architecture and the stock
exchange as some of his employments, I was not surprised to find he
had also made a thorough study of the art of Gardening; in fact, had
thought of landscape gardening as a profession.
His Reverence had said, "Get him to give you some advice; he knows all
about it."
So I sought this fount of knowledge.
My garden looked indeed a poor thing seen through his eyes.
He stood taking in the general effect.
"Hump!--ha!--yes!--you ought to have all that cleared away," waving
a hand towards a shrubbery which indeed looked as though it needed
judicious pruning; "it is in the wrong place, and it would add
considerably to the size of the lawn if it were done away with. And
that path, you notice the fatal curve. Why in the name of Reason make a
curve when a straight line leads quicker between two places? Curves and
circles are an abomination in a garden. Don't you see it?"
"Oh, quite, but I didn't make that path."
"No, but why tolerate it? I can assure you I could not live with that
silly crooked line waving itself aside like a fanciful damsel. Pah!
Get that altered for one thing, and then, _don't_ have it gravelled.
Between grass, what can look so staring and hideous as that patch
of yellow? Not that yours is very yellow, been down some time, eh?
Buy some old slabs of slate, quite easy to get. Go round to the old
churches; you are sure to find some Philistine parson removing the
old slate leading through the churchyard and putting down hideous,
gritty gravel! You can benefit by his crass stupidity. And then--ah,
yes--don't have wire fencing between the garden and that field.
Prettily-laid-out field that is, too. I congratulate you on that clump
of trees. Very nice! yes, very nice But that aggressive railing paling
thing! Away with it! and have a sunk fence if you need anything."
"Sheep are sometimes put in that field," I said timidly, for I felt, in
spite of that clump of trees, that I was responsible for a great deal
of fearful ignorance.
"Oh, well, a sunk fence will keep them out. Now let us walk on a
bit. Dear, dear, how those two round beds hurt one! Remind one of
bulls'-eyes, don't they? You must not have round beds, have them in
squares; two oblongs would fit in better there. But let me see, ah,
yes, that would be better. Now look here. Take away that hedge"--he
pointed to the holly hedge dividing the lawn from the kitchen
garden--"right away; make there a good border, that will give you the
colour, and you can do away with those beds."
"But the kitchen garden!"
"Don't you like the look of a kitchen garden? Nothing more beautiful.
Border everything with flowers, and think what a vista you have from
your window."
"Oh, I know. I want an opening somewhere."
"An opening! You want it _open_, not boxed in like this. The intention
of hedges was to shut out the roads or one's prying neighbours. You
have neither. For goodness' sake give yourself room. What is there so
attractive in that prickly hedge? But if you want a division, if you
must keep the vulgar vegetables in their place, why, put up a pergola!"
"Oh!" I exclaimed. Pergola somehow suggested fairy-land, or Italian
lakes at the least.
"Yes, pergola. Now just see it. Beautiful green lawn. By the way, you
must have this re-turfed, it is quite hopeless; good grass leading
straight down to that hedge, no pathway between," and he shuddered. "Do
away with the prickly hedge, have a border of bright flowers taking its
place; behind that a pergola of roses, through which you get vistas
of all the good sprouting green things, and clumps of flowers, hedges
of sweet-peas, banks of poppies, and everything bright and beautiful,
with suggestions of gooseberry bushes and strawberry beds, and feathery
carrots and waving asparagus. Now, how does that sound?"
"Delightful," I replied, sinking on a garden seat with a most doleful
sigh, and looking from that picture to the one that lay before me.
"Ah, yes," following my eye, "and don't forget that path; straight,
mind you, and slates. There is something about a wet slate bordered
with grass that gives you sensations of coolness and repose that really
consoles you for the rain. You try it! Now, I daresay I could suggest a
good many more things that need doing, but I suppose you won't manage
more this autumn."
"It is very kind of you," I began.
"Oh, not at all, not at all. I assure you it is a great pleasure to
suggest improvements. Now here you have a little garden, nothing much
about it, you may say, but at once I see what can be made of it. My
mind is full of the higher vision, until really sometimes it is a shock
to me to come back to real earth, as it were, and find how far it is
from the ideal."
"Yes, I should think so," I murmured.
"Of course that is what is needed for landscape gardening, to which I
gave special attention at one time. Flowers I have not yet taken up;
but shrubs! ah, well, I think I won't begin on shrubs, for I have to
catch that train."
Then we walked back to the house, and I wished I too had a train to
catch that I might never, never look at my garden again.
The Others said I was very depressed for some days, but at last I
resolutely faced my garden.
"You are all wrong," I said, "made wrong from the beginning, and I
can't alter you, but as you are the only one we have I must just make
the best of you. One thing I can do, and that is to have down the old
holly hedge and make a pergola."
So I approached the Others.
They agreed at once that we wanted vistas, and jumped at the pergola,
but Jim shook his head.
"No go," said he, and said no more.
"But I am not sure about a vista of cabbages and onions," remarked a
cautious One. "I don't like them in any form."
"But I should have borders of flowers everywhere," and the Visitor's
picture rose in my mind. "You don't mind asparagus."
"No, if you can keep your vistas to that."
"But a pergola! Mary, that sounds a large order."
"Yes. But this is a thing that affects us all, so we must all make an
effort."
"Does your effort mean £ s. d.?"
"Something very like it."
And there was a chorus of "Oh's" and "That's all very fine! _but_--"
"Well, you are all _for_ it, anyhow?" I said.
"Oh, yes, we are all _for_ it."
"Then I am going to tackle his Reverence."
"There he is, then, at the bottom of the lawn, with a slaughtered bunny
in his hand, so the moment should be auspicious."
But it wasn't.
I approached my subject delicately, mindful of the overwhelming sense
of impossibility with which the Visitor's suggestions had filled my
soul; but when it dawned on his Reverence that I wanted not only to
erect a pergola but to cut down the holly hedge, it then transpired
that the holly hedge was the joy of his heart and the pride of his
eyes; when other things failed, and snails ate the onions, _that_ hedge
was always there, always green, always solid, and always a consolation.
I explained my views and he explained his, and then we both explained
them together; he said I was very obstinate, and I said he was not
allowing me a free hand. He said he did, and I said, "Then may I do
it?" He said, "Certainly not," and I said, "Very good, then, I resign
the garden." I heard his laugh--a hearty one--as I marched with
dignity back to the drawing-room.
"Well!" the Others cried, "you look as though you had had a lively
time."
"I could have told you exactly what his Reverence would say and saved
you the trouble of a row."
I tried to squash Jim with a look, but nothing under many
hundredweights could do that. So I said coldly,
"We had no row; and little boys don't always know what their elders
will say."
"Bet you I know what _he_ said to you. And on the whole I agree with
him. It's no use taking a bigger bite than you can chew."
"It isn't a bigger bite than--Jim, you are very vulgar! But I don't
care now, I have given up the garden."
"Resigned your stewardship!" said Jim, tragically. "Anything over of
the five pounds? I wouldn't retire yet, you can't have saved enough."
"Don't talk nonsense, Mary. At least, it doesn't matter _what_ you
talk, you can't do it," said one of the Others.
"Can't I? we shall see," hardening my heart.
"What did his Reverence say to your resignation?"
"He--he didn't say anything."
"He laughed! I heard him," said Jim, "and he is splitting his sides
telling the Young Man all about it."
"He isn't! Jim, go quick, interrupt them. I won't let them talk of
m--my garden."
Jim is really a nice boy; he swaggered off with his hands in his
pockets, whistling, and joined the two men. I knew he would give the
conversation the turn I wished.
I began to cool down. It was easy to say I would "resign" the garden,
but could I? Putting pride aside, was not my interest in all those
young promising plants for the spring too deep for me now to desert
them? Had I not rooted, amongst other things, too much of myself in my
garden for me now lightly to withdraw?
While I pondered I strolled down the garden, and coming up the other
side ran into the group of three viewing the holly hedge from the back.
"It is one of the best holly hedges I have ever seen," his Reverence
was saying. "Cut it down! Why, it would be sheer madness."
Then the Young Man, without noticing me, began,
"All the same, you do want an opening somewhere. It is quite true that
fine hedge shuts you in very much."
"I like being shut in," said his Reverence; "but I might consider your
idea of an opening here, an archway in the middle, particularly as the
hedge is already rather thin in one place, only 'Mary, Mary, quite
contrairy.'"
"You had better not abuse me, because I am listening," I put in.
"Oh, here you are. I was going to say you had resigned."
"If you had heard all _your_ Visitor suggested you would have thrown up
the living."
"Bumptious fellow! I should not have listened to him."
"But you told me to."
"Because I had had enough of him."
"But what he said was true. It is absolutely immoral to have that
curveting path, that hideous paling, and this bisecting hedge."
"Well, Mary, I did give you credit for _some_ common sense."
"It's un-common sense I am blessed with, and I am trying to educate you
up to higher ideals for the garden."
But I had taken his arm.
"Then do it by degrees. The Young Man suggests a peep-hole through the
hedge. Will that satisfy you?"
"Well, may I have this gravel path up and make a border here?"
"What! more borders? However will you and Griggs manage those you have
already?"
"Perhaps if I have this I won't poach any more on the kitchen garden."
His Reverence looked at the gravel path critically. "I don't see that
we need this path very much, but it means a lot of work to take away
this gravel and bring in good mould. It is no use having a bad border
while you are about it. Who is to do it?"
"Griggs and--and help," I answered boldly, "and you shall direct."
"And you won't resign?"
"I will think better of my decision."
"And I may keep my holly hedge?"
"For the present, until I have educated you up to the pergola."
"Oh! thank you."
Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a
pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches,
fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and
clematis, and--cut down the holly hedge.
His Reverence's education will take a little time, I expect. In the
meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will
help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas.
But how the Visitor would despise my compromising soul!
It was judicious of me to give his Reverence the direction of the new
border. I heard nothing of expense, and, once started, he went ahead
in thorough fashion.
The gravel was carted away, and some feet of stony earth. Then we came
to a layer of good though light soil. The backs of shrubberies, a small
wood at the bottom of a field, a bank in the kitchen garden were all
taxed for their share of the best soil we could get, and this, finally
mixed in with some old turf and manure, made a border that looked
promising. There was no need to begin with a layer of broken china and
sardine tins, for the drainage in my soil was more than sufficient, and
this disappointed Jim, who said he was ready with a fine collection,
had that substratum been necessary.
And then, my new border ready, I launched out.
It was to be partly herbaceous, partly for bulbs and annuals.
The promised plants, which began to come in, supplied me with some
delphiniums and small perennial sunflowers. I moved there some of my
young plants of oriental poppies, planting them near together until
they should have expanded. Then I selected my lilies. The auratum and
other delightful varieties I had to leave out, but the white Madonna
lily would thrive, and croceum, an orange-coloured bloom, and the
soft apricot shade of an elegans promised to be hardy. These were
placed in front of the delphiniums and room left for big sunflowers
in the spring. Half forward the Canterbury bells, sweet-Williams and
tall campanulas were placed in clumps, and in front of them, well
buried, were groups of the Spanish and English irises, meant, as they
succeed each other, to keep bright patches of yellow, purple and white
flowering there for some time. They are not very dear--five shillings a
hundred--and I now began to reckon on a new five pounds. Montbresias,
too, I launched into, and left spaces for groups of gladiolas to join
them in the spring. Then for early flowering I introduced my thriving
young wallflowers, always in groups, not rows, and some of the dear
narcissi and gorgeous tulips would, I thought, be admired before other
things had a chance. To end up with, and be gay to the verge of gaudy,
I had forget-me-nots and pink silene.
Even the thought of the Visitor could not disturb my satisfaction over
my new border. He had not given me his views on flowers.
* * * * *
The archway where the holly hedge was sacrificed for my vista was
formed of two iron staves bent into arches and joined with wire netting
of eighteen inches wide. The village blacksmith supplied the staves;
they measured some fourteen feet when they arrived, but were cut and
buried until the archway was at its highest point seven feet; and the
wire netting was fastened on by my usual assistants. The Young Man was
very neat-handed. Then we consulted as to its covering, and, had all
suggestions been taken, it would have had to bear a vine on account of
its foliage; a virginian creeper for the red leaves in autumn; a Gloire
de Dijon since it seemed to prosper in my soil; clematis, both montana
and flamulata, and any number of the coloured varieties; a wisteria,
as we had none; a pink and a white banksia; a W. A. Richardson and a
crimson rambler. My arch having but two sides I was obliged to offend
a good many voters, and, despite jeers as to my former failures, I
decided on giving the crimson rambler another try. I chose also a white
banksia and a clematis montana, with free promises of introducing other
clematis and annual creepers later on, and carrying out all ideas when
once I had my pergola.
* * * * *
Even after this supreme effort my autumn's work was only just
beginning. There was the verandah with its failures to tackle. The
beginning of November I unearthed the ramblers that even still refused
to ramble, and soon the cause of their stunted condition was laid bare.
"Pot bound! Whoi," said Griggs, "so they are! Curious! I don't moind
'avin' see'd 'em look like that. Maybe I was drefful 'urried at the
toime and never paid no 'eed."
As he spoke he tore at the poor roots, confined with a web-like
substance just the shape of the pot they had come in.
Anyone, absolutely _any_ Ignoramus, must have seen the hopelessness
of planting a rose-tree with its roots cramped like that. It was
impossible for the poor plant to strike out, make itself at home, and
get enough nourishment to grow on. How it had managed to live was the
marvel. And they were all the same, W. A. Richardson and the other
ramblers yellow and red; the standards had not come in pots, so their
fate had been better.
It was soon done, and I felt that prisoners had been released. We gave
them turf mould and manure mixture to strengthen them.
But it was not only the roses; all the creepers, excepting one
clematis, had made but poor growth. At last the mystery was solved.
A spreading beech threw its grateful shade over half the house and grew
within three yards of one end of the verandah. How far-reaching were
its roots I now discovered, and their greedy feelers taking every bit
of nourishment, both deep and near the surface, my creepers fought an
unequal fight for their daily bread. The condition of the roots of a
poor honeysuckle reminded one of prisoners of the Bastille.
But how to circumvent the tree? how to teach it manners? For there it
must stay, and so must the creepers and plants. We could cut the roots,
but they would come again.
Griggs scratched his head. "It's Natur', that's wot it is, an' that ere
tree 'ave been 'ere longer than any of us. So you can't do nothink."
"We must do something. Young Man, are you thinking?"
"Hard," was the answer.
"Let's build an underground wall," suggested Jim. But we all shook our
heads and thought again.
"Let's sink something," said the Young Man.
"Oh! a tub, an oil tub!" I almost shouted.
"Why, yes," said the Young Man. "I was thinking of zinc, but that
sounds so airtight and stuffy."
"Wouldn't a wooden tub rot away, though? A coffin goes to pieces pretty
quick," said Jim.
"Well, it will give them a better chance, and perhaps the roots will
get accustomed to going round. Anyway they can be renewed," said the
Young Man, cheerfully. "If no other idea is forthcoming, let us go and
find some tubs."
Now, how long wooden tubs will last under ground I cannot say, but we
did then and there sink four tubs beneath the gravel, and filled them
with good mixture, making holes and placing stones at the bottom for
drainage, and there the roots of the poor starvelings had, at least
for a time, a good meal, and when growing time comes I expect the
honeysuckle, the roses and the clematis to do justice to their fare.
The further end of the verandah was almost out of reach of the greedy
roots, as the long white streamers of the flamulata proved.
It is a satisfaction when things grow and flower and flourish as books
and catalogues have led you to expect.
* * * * *
Two of my green tubs were now emptied of the still rampant leaves of
the nasturtium and the strong-growing geraniums. It seemed a pity to
cut short any vigorous life at the dying season of the year, but Jack
Frost would feel no compunction, and I might as well try and live up
to the Master's maxim of "getting forward"; so after refilling my tubs
with as wholesome a mixture as I could, I planted in each four good
roots of my old friend hellebore, and had them placed just under the
verandah.
The Others at first looked askance. "Will they flower?" I bade them
examine the already formed buds. For I bought my hellebore in promising
condition at one shilling and sixpence each, and by moving them with
a good solid lump of earth round the roots I hoped not to check their
development. I bought the common kind of white Christmas rose,
niger, and also a pinky-purple kind, with tall graceful heads called
atrorubens.
And when the robins, the snow, the sunshine and my Christmas roses
all came together, my verandah realised a very pretty Christmas-card
effect, and the Others said, "That is not at all bad." Then the jasmine
growing under the verandah burst also into golden stars, its growth
of one year having been carefully left alone, and I received as much
praise as though I had done something wonderful, which is often the way
of the world.
"Luck was with glory wed."
This, however, is very previous, and I must go back to the end of
October.
* * * * *