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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capitals have been converted to all capitals.
Handbooks of Practical Gardening--Iv
Edited by Harry Roberts
THE BOOK OF OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS
[Illustration: AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN]
THE BOOK OF OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS
And Other Plants Which Thrive in the Open-Air of England
by
HARRY ROBERTS
Author of "The Chronicle of a Cornish Garden"
With Numerous Illustrations Reproduced from Drawings by Ethel Roskruge
John Lane: The Bodley Head
London and New York. MCMI
Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh.
TO HOMELY UNAFFECTED PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE HOMELY UNASSUMING FLOWERS
"_The precious metals are not often found at the surface of the
earth._"--SIR ARTHUR HELPS
"_I speak with the lowliest of the meadow flowers as readily as with
the highest fir-trees._"--HEINE
CONTENTS
PAGE
THANKS xiii
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS 1
OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS 4
A GARDEN BY THE SEA 12
COTTAGE GARDENS 24
THE GARDEN IN WINTER 28
THE GARDEN IN SPRING 37
THE GARDEN IN JUNE 48
HOW TO GROW ROSES 52
THE GARDEN IN JULY 57
NIGHT IN THE GARDEN 62
THE GARDEN IN AUGUST 69
THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN 73
SHELTER AND SHADE 81
SOILS AND THEIR PREPARATION 86
MANURES 94
SEED-SOWING AND TRANSPLANTING 96
LAYERS AND CUTTINGS 101
WEEDS 103
INSECT AND OTHER PESTS 107
POINTS 111
ILLUSTRATIONS
AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN _Frontispiece_
PAGE
POPPY ANEMONES 13
FRITILLARIES 29
COLUMBINES 41
HONESTY 53
MACARTNEY ROSES 65
WHITE WOOD LILIES 75
FOXGLOVES 89
SHIRLEY POPPIES 99
THANKS
To that distinguished and generous gardener, Canon Ellacombe, I wish to
express my appreciation of his kindness in giving me the freedom of his
collection of old garden books, though few are so good, interesting,
or useful as his own "Plant Lore of Shakspere" and "A Gloucestershire
Garden."
To Mr Folkard I am obliged for the loan of his interesting book on
"Plant Lore and Legend."
To the Editors of the _Morning Leader_, _Gardeners' Chronicle_ and
_Gardeners' Magazine_ I am obliged for the right to republish such
parts of the following book as have appeared in their several papers as
essays from my pen.
To Messrs Kelway, of Langport, I am indebted for many presents of
beautiful Delphiniums, Pæonies and Pyrethrums, which they grow as few
others can.
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
Many years ago an ingenious writer compiled a book dealing with
a subject with which he had no practical acquaintance. The whole
of his alleged observations were second-hand, being derived from
previous writings on the subject. In order, however, to hoodwink the
public, this author laid great stress on the uselessness of mere book
knowledge, saying that an ounce of experience was worth a stone of
theory.
Like many other foolish sayings, this one has been regarded as
an inspired utterance, and has been copied by nine-tenths of all
subsequent writers of handbooks. As a matter of fact, whilst a certain
amount of practical experience is absolutely essential to the proper
understanding of nearly all subjects, an intelligent reader can
learn more in an hour from a sensible book than from many weeks of
intercourse with merely "practical" people, and many weeks of so-called
experience.
This little book, forming one of a series of handbooks with an aim
purely practical, has itself an entirely practical object. This object
is to teach those who are comparatively new to gardening the general
principles which they must observe if they wish to grow successfully
those flowering plants which are able to live their whole lives in the
open air of this country. By old-fashioned flowering plants are meant
those which we may class with the herbaceous, bulbous and other hardy
plants which one always expects to find in the old cottage gardens, old
vicarage gardens and old farmhouse gardens of romance, and occasionally
in those of reality. One is continually discovering fresh old-fashioned
people, and in like manner we are continually having additions made
to our list of old-fashioned flowers. Many newly discovered or newly
introduced plants, therefore, are treated of in this book, which is not
intended merely as a "Book of Old Flowers." Still, as a matter of fact,
most of the flowers named in these pages are old favourites, and have
long been grown and sentimentalised over by English gardeners and poets.
No attempt has been made to render this a complete handbook of hardy
flowers. In the first place, the pages at disposal would barely serve
even to enumerate them, and, in the second place, the compilation of
a reference encyclopædia of hardy flowers has been done, and done
admirably, by our greatest gardening writer, Mr William Robinson, whose
book, "The English Flower Garden," is in many ways the most important
work on gardening which has appeared since the time of Parkinson.
The flowers here named are but a few of those which are worth growing,
for to the present writer nearly every plant, when allowed to develop
freely and naturally, is full of interest and full of beauty. Everyone
should decide for himself what he will grow in the particular
environment he may have to offer, for, once the art of properly growing
the flowers here named has been mastered, little difficulty need be
anticipated in growing such other hardy plants as may be thought
desirable additions to the list.
In the matter of garden arrangement, I have neither given dogmatic
advice nor stated fixed rules which must be followed; for it is as
undesirable that gardens should be stereotyped copies of one another,
as it would be in the case of their owners. I have, instead of
dogmatising on the rights and wrongs of garden design, described one
or two gardens which have yielded me delight, though I fear that I
have not been able to conceal my own point of view. What that point of
view is I have stated in my "Chronicle of a Cornish Garden," but I am
sufficiently broad-minded to recognise that other styles of gardening
appeal to other gardeners who are quite as competent to form opinions
as myself.
A garden should, as I believe, be an emanation from the spirit of its
owner, and, just as some men are formal and some informal, some prim
and some Bohemian, some careful and some rash, so should their several
gardens vary in style and feeling.
I have laid down no laws as to the arrangement of flowers with a view
to producing "colour schemes," for I have never seen colour schemes
which surpass those chance effects of the hedgerow and the meadow, or
of those pleasant gardens where the gardeners' sole aim is to grow
plants from the plants' point of view, that is to say, with the sole
aim of growing them healthily and well. Of course, occasionally,
a bad colour shows itself, but the remedy is simple and obvious.
Occasionally, also, a colour discord will be perceived in bed or
border, but a spade will cure the trouble in five minutes. Indeed,
there is some small risk at the present moment that the individuality
of beautiful plants and flowers may be too frequently sacrificed to the
production of "effects." This was the deadly fault of the "bedding"
system, and should be guarded against. The bedding system has made such
beautiful flowers as geraniums, calceolarias and lobelias stink in the
nostrils of some of us; just as the disgusting invention of Dr. Gregory
has been successful in making raspberry jam a source of nausea to tens
of thousands of English boys and girls.
Let us as gardeners beware of being too clever and "artistic"; Nature
may be a hard mistress, but she is not a fool.
OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS
Strictly, of course, the term is indefinite, for old-fashioned
flowers and old-fashioned gardens mean to different people different
things. Probably to most people--at all events to the present
writer--old-fashioned gardening means that system which is in direct
opposition to prim geometric beds and to the imitation of carpet
patterns by arrangement of flowers. By an old-fashioned garden, the
present writer means an informal "garden of all sorts of pleasant
flowers which our English ayre will permit to be noursed up," as
Parkinson put it; and by old-fashioned flowers he means sweet williams
and gilly flowers, mignonette, sweet peas, roses and honeysuckle,
"daffodils, fritillaries, jacinthes, saffron-flowers, lilies,
flower-deluces, tulipas, anemones, French cowslips or bearseares,
and such other flowers, very beautifull, delightfull and pleasant."
After the severe, monotonous, formal arrangements which still too
often constitute the gardens around our finest houses, how interesting
and restful it is to stroll round a delightful garden such as Canon
Ellacombe's "Vicarage Garden" at Bitton, where the shape of the beds or
borders is not prearranged, where all the soil is occupied, where every
plant looks healthy and at home, where every yard brings one a surprise
and a fresh interest, where the old walls have growing from their
crevices such plants as the Cheddar Pink, Sedums and Sempervivums;
where, too, every plant in its glory hides the decay of its predecessor
in bloom and shelters the birth of its successor.
There is a class--and a very large class--of folks who are so
constituted that continual prize or applause hunting are essentials
to happiness. For such, the topiary-victimised trees, the glaring
carpet beds, and the flower show are useful and comparatively harmless
instruments for the indulgence of their little weaknesses. But it goes
sorely against the grain to give to such the honourable and historic
title of gardener, just as one hesitates to describe as a gardener the
issuer of that curious "catalogue of greens" which Pope satirically
described in No. 173 of _The Guardian_:--
"Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree
of knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the serpent very flourishing.
Noah's Ark in holly, the ribs a little damaged for want of water.
"The tower of Babel not yet finished.
"St George in Box; his arm scarce strong enough, but will be in a
condition to stick the dragon by next April.
"A green dragon of the same; with a tail of ground-ivy for the present.
"_N.B._--Those two are not to be sold separately.
"Edward the Black Prince in Cyprus....
"A Queen Elizabeth in Phyllirea, a little inclining to the green
sickness, but of full growth.
"An old maid of honour in wormwood.
"A topping Ben Jonson in Laurel.
"Divers eminent modern poets in bays."
As a matter of fact, what we understand as old-fashioned gardening has
never been a fashion at all. When Addison wrote in _The Spectator_
that he would "rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and
diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is cut and trimmed into
a mathematical figure," and that he fancied that "an orchard in flower
looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the
most finished parterre," he was declaiming against--not with--the
fashion of his day. In truth there is no escape from the fact that
in old times, as they are at present, real lovers of plants and of
flowers for their own sakes were few indeed. In the time of Elizabeth
and thenabouts, however, the gardening spirit seems to have been purer
and more wholesome than during the succeeding centuries. John Lyly,
for instance, was, in sentiment at least, a genuine "old-fashioned"
gardener:--"Heere be faire Roses, sweete Violets, fragrant Primroses,
heere wil be Jilly-floures, Carnations, sops in wine, sweet Johns, and
what may either please you for sight, or delight you with savour."
At that time also was written what is perhaps the greatest or at
any rate one of the most important pronouncements on gardening ever
written--the essay "Of Gardens," by Lord Bacon. Here, indeed, is the
real touch, the genuine gardening spirit: "I do hold it in the Royal
Ordering of Gardens, there ought to be Gardens for all the Months
in the year, in which, severally, things of Beauty may be then in
season;" and again, "because the Breath of Flowers is far Sweeter in
the Air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of Musick), than
in the Hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that Delight, than to
know what be the Flowers and Plants that do best perfume the Air.
Roses, Damask and Red, are fast Flowers of their Smells, so that you
may walk by a whole Row of them and find nothing of their sweetness;
yea, though it be in a morning Dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as
they grow, Rosemary little, nor Sweet-Marjoram. That, which above all
others, yields the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet, especially
the white double Violet, which comes twice a year, about the middle
of April, and about Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the Musk Rose,
then the Strawberry Leaves dying with a most excellent Cordial Smell.
Then the Flower of the Vines; it is a little Dust, like the Dust of
a Bent, which grows upon the cluster at the first coming forth. Then
Sweet-Briar, then Wall-Flowers, which are very delightful to be set
under a Parlour, or lower Chamber Window. Then Pinks, especially the
Matted Pink, and Clove Gilly-Flower. Then the Flowers of the Lime-Tree.
Then the Honey-Suckles, so they be somewhat afar off.... But those
which perfume the Air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but
being Trodden upon and Crushed, are three: that is Burnet, Wild-Time,
and Water-Mints. Therefore you are to set whole Alleys of them, to have
the Pleasure when you walk or tread." The essence of "old-fashioned"
gardening is here expressed.
Our modern "florists" are wont to sneer at the lack of variety
possessed by the old gardeners, but they must be curiously unfamiliar
with the writings of such men as Gerard, Gilbert and Parkinson. To
give but one or two examples, the last named writer, in his "_Paradisi
in Sole Paradisus Terrestris_," gives a descriptive list of twelve
distinct varieties of Fritillaries, eight varieties of Grape-Hyacinths,
and no less than twenty-one varieties of Primroses and Cowslips, whilst
of Lilies and of Roses the kinds described are even more numerous.
The greatest joy which a garden can yield is a feeling of restfulness
and peace, a feeling which no garden of staring beds and ostentatious
splendour can afford, but which is yielded--as by nothing else in the
world--by a garden of happy, homely, old-fashioned flowers.
To most people, and more particularly to most women, one of the
chief uses or functions of a garden is to provide flowers to be cut
for the decoration of rooms. But I hold that a flower cut from its
plant and placed in a vase is as a scalp on the walls of a wigwam--a
trophy showing how one more beautiful plant has been defeated and
victimised by its powerful and tasteless owner. The cut flower is no
longer part of a manifestation of the will of nature; rather it is a
slave--beautiful, it may be, but branded and soul-destroyed.
Regarded as decoration, I consider cut flowers in a house much as
fashion now looks on shell ornaments, or picture-frames made of acorns,
as things inappropriate and childish. Of course, in a town there is
some excuse for them, for even cut flowers carry the mind to beautiful
associated conditions; but cut flowers in the country seem ludicrously
like lumber, just as bedsteads and toilet-services and cruet-stands
placed in a garden would be lumber too.
The love of cut flowers is really but another manifestation of the
spirit which hankers after "yews carved into dragons, pagodas,
marmosets," and the other tree-monsters scoffed at by Rousseau, who
added that he was convinced that "the time is at hand, when we shall
no longer have in gardens anything that is found in the country; we
shall tolerate neither plants nor shrubs; we shall only like porcelain
flowers, baboons, arbour-work, sand of all colours, and fine vases full
of nothing."
Indeed, there is in many quarters even now a growing desire for the
kind of "new garden," which old William Lawson advocated: "Your
Gardiner can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men armed in the
field, ready to give battell: or swift running Greyhounds: or of well
sented and true running Hounds, to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare.
This kinde of hunting shall not waste your corne, nor much your coyne.
Mazes well framed a man's height, may perhaps make your friend wander
in gathering of berries, till he cannot recover himselfe without your
helpe."
Of course, the cutting of flowers is a long way from this; still it
is difficult to see where a line can be drawn once the worship of
"gardeners' gardens" has begun.
Through the open windows of house or cottage the eyes should be able
to feast on the beauty of freely growing flowers quite as easily as if
they were cut and stuck in glass or porcelain vase like so many heads
of traitors on the city gates.
It has been said that all children are born scientists, but that only
a small number of them ever pass on to the condition of artists; and
it has always seemed to me that there is much truth in the statement.
Children are ever putting the eternal "why?" to the great confusion
of their parents, pastors, and masters; and it is the curious, the
gigantic, the rare, which always calls forth their attention and
admiration. Struwelpeter is more to a child than all the beauties of
a Charles Robinson, and to few men or women is it given to derive
as much pleasure from beauty as from that which is usually called
"interesting." Hence, the ordinary criticisms of gardens; hence, also,
the usual aims of gardeners. So many people desire the gaudy, or the
unique, or the curious, that we are apt to look upon gardens merely as
appliances for the production of quaint or monstrous flowers.
The analysis of beauty has ever a dissecting-room-feel about it; still,
as he who would become a skilful surgeon must be first a practical
anatomist, and as he who would be a painter must first study his
materials and the "dodges" of his craft, so must the would-be artist
in gardening dissect the beauty of perfect gardens, and study such
apparently dull materials as earth and manure, and practical garden
books.
I have said that the beauty of an old-fashioned garden is due largely
to the feeling of repose and settled-down-ness which it yields. Every
plant looks as though it "belongs" (as we say in Cornwall) to be
where it is, as though it always was there, and as though there is
no intention of shifting it in a week or two to some glass-house,
store-room, or other site. The plants in most gardens look as though
they have merely come to pay an afternoon call, dressed exactly _à la
mode_, speaking always "cumeelfo"--like the people of Troy Town, and
elsewhere--giving one the certain knowledge that they will only say
the right thing, look the right thing, and leave at the right time,
unregretted and unmissed. The "comfortably-at-home" effect is produced
mainly by three causes--firstly, the presence of abundant deciduous
trees and shrubs, giving infinitely varied effects of light and shade;
secondly, the arrangement of the plants in bold groups of single
species; and, thirdly, the provision of each separate plant with depth
of suitable soil, and space to develop its individual form. There is
plenty of background, and not too much episode.
Country people often think that the way to enjoy London is to spend day
and night in one continuous round of "sight" seeing. In like manner,
people often have an idea that the perfect garden is a continuous sheet
of wonderful flowers. How great is the fallacy contained in this idea
it should be needless to point out. Leaf and stem, light and shade and
fragrance, these are quite as essential parts of a garden as are the
"blooms" of the gardening showman.
An eye for beauty is largely a product of training and experience.
A soul and a brain there must be as a basis, but "taste" is to a
large extent cultivated. One must have read much before one is able
to appreciate the style of a Ruskin or a Pater, a Maeterlinck or a
Le Gallienne; one must have studied many pictures before being able
to realise the beauty of the works of the great artists; and in
like manner one must needs have loved and watched plants long and
steadfastly before the beauty of winter twig and summer leaf comes home
to him.
Many a man with a garden looks upon winter as a season to be got
through as soon as possible, as a season when nothing short of
necessity shall drag him into the garden. I am sure that even in the
very heart of December, one should find in the garden more of real
beauty than ninety-nine gardens out of a hundred contain in June. I
recall in particular one little heather path bordered by large bushes
of blue-grey Lavender and green-grey Rosemary, in the bays being great
Mullein plants and clumps of Pink and Alyssum. Ferns, Periwinkles,
Holly, Satinleaf, Hellebores, Winter Aconites and Barberries are but a
few of the plants which help to make this walk bright and pleasant even
in the depths of winter; but most important of all in the Christmas
display are the Furzes, single and double, than which, according to Mr
Alfred Russell Wallace, the tropics can produce nothing more brilliant
or more beautiful.
Continuous beauty all the year through, rather than a continuous
display of flowers, is a goal at which gardeners might wisely aim, for
not only is the result far more restful and suggestive of reserved
force and becoming modesty, but also the individual plants are far more
likely to have a fair chance of development at the hands of one who
appreciates beautiful leaves and healthy growth, than when cultivated
by one who looks at plants merely as flower-making machines.
A GARDEN BY THE SEA
It is fortunate that we are not all provided with equally favourable
sites and soils. How monotonous would gardening become if one knew that
he had but to act, deed for deed, as his neighbour in order to attain
exactly the same garden result. We should feel disposed to throw down
our spades and trowels if the end of our efforts might be foreseen
by looking over our neighbour's boundary. If the difficulties to be
overcome could be formally catalogued, the whole art of gardening
would be reduced to a wooden system in which there would be little
room for surprise or pleasure. But Fate has decreed that our gardens
shall differ in spite of the apish copying spirit which still fills
so many of our breasts. Our sites vary, our soils vary, and our
atmospheric conditions vary to such an extent that any gardener, if
he is to produce a result of any worth, must perforce use his native
intelligence in order to overcome the specific difficulties peculiar to
his plot of earth.
[Illustration: POPPY ANEMONES]
Gardening readers will remember Dean Hole's story of the enthusiastic
flower-loving navvy who, obtaining the post of gatekeeper on the
railway, was provided with nothing but a barren gravel pit as apology
for a garden. "Twelve months afterwards," says the Dean, "I came near
the place again--was it a mirage which I saw on the sandy desert? There
were vegetables, fruit-bushes and fruit-trees, all in vigorous health;
there were flowers, and the flower-queen in her beauty, 'Why, Will,'
I exclaimed, 'what have you done to the gravel-bed?' 'Lor' bless
yer,' he replied, grinning, 'I hadn't been here a fortnight afore I
swopped it for a pond!' He had, as a further explanation informed me,
and after an agreement with a neighbouring farmer, removed with pick
and barrow his sandy stratum to the depth of three feet, wheeled it to
the banks of an old pond, or rather to the margin of a cavity where a
pond once was, but which had been gradually filled up with leaves and
silt; and this rich productive mould he had brought home a distance of
two hundred yards, replacing it with the gravel, and levelling as per
contract."
That man's garden was a real living creation: it was indeed a "great
work." And it is in everything true that great natural possessions,
though they may render life more comfortable and possibly more
apparently successful, yet make the battle the tamer and less
interesting. Indeed the greater the odds to be overcome, the more
magnificent will every victory appear, and the gardener who creates a
flowery Eden out of a piece of bare and starving desert has scored a
greater success than his who but grows beautiful flowers and delicious
fruits where soil and site and surroundings have been entirely on his
side.
I am writing in a garden which is as remarkable an example of
difficulties overcome as was the garden of Dean Hole's navvy. Those who
are familiar with the sand-dunes or towans which form so pronounced a
feature of much of the northern coast-line of Cornwall, will realize
that these scarcely afford ideal spots for easily made gardens. A thin
coating of poor grass, reeds, wild thyme and occasional sea-hollies
form the only drapery for the blown sand which makes up the whole body
of soil.
Yet it was on such a spot that a friend of mine pitched his camp, or
rather built his cottage, and set to work to create a garden. His
aim in life being to kill care, he desired nothing more eagerly than
to be constantly occupied. For three years he spent fully one half of
his days in bringing into his territory leafmould and soil, clay and
manure. He soon had a good protective screen of pines, euonymus, privet
and hazel, and only then did he seriously begin to plant his garden. He
had, during those three years, raised crops of clover, trifolium and
the like, digging them again into the newly created soil from whence
they came.
He read all the gardening books on which he could lay hands, he saw
all the gardens within walking distance, and he studied the wants of
every flower before he sowed or planted it, just as though it were an
honoured guest whom he were inviting. He had no rule-and-compass scheme
before his eyes, and planted his shrubs and flowers in those situations
where they might most healthily yield their beauty and their fragrance.
Such paths as his garden has are merely gravelled developments of the
beaten tracks which usage indicated as necessary or convenient; and
I am afraid that they would meet with the disapproval of that great
authority, Mr Reginald Bloomfield, who has said that a garden "should
be laid out in an equal number of rectangular plots where everything is
straightforward and logical."
My friend is nearly twenty years older than when he began to create his
garden, and it has already acquired much of the character of an old
house to which successive additions have been made. The year through,
the earth is draped and decorated with beautiful plants, Aconites,
Snowdrops, Crocuses, Primroses, Violets, Fritillaries, Columbines,
Pinks, Roses, Lilies, Sunflowers and all the host of old-fashioned
flowers.
The great problems of "architectural" gardening, "landscape" gardening,
and the rest, did not interest him. So simple and unpretentious was his
little house that an attempt at terraces, clipped evergreens, and the
like, would have struck a jarring note at once. Therefore, it is quite
in keeping that beautiful flowers and beautiful shrubs border one's way
right up to the entrance door; nor does Nature end there, for over all
the outer walls are trained lovely and fragrant climbers--Clematis,
Rose, and Honeysuckle--which give the idea that the cottage does indeed
"nestle" in the garden.
Through the open windows also, at almost any time of the year, pours
the delicious scent of leaf and flower--of Winter Sweet, Violets, or
Sweet Peas; of Stocks, or Mignonette; of Wallflowers, or Roses. Just to
name a few of the plants whose scent fill the rooms, what glories are
thereby called up:--Honeysuckle and Jasmine, Lily of the Valley, Lilac
and Narcissus, Carnation, Syringa and Heliotrope, Thyme, Bergamot,
and Aloysia! These, and a hundred other fragrances mingled together
in infinitely varying combinations, give sensuous joys which even the
most jaded can but appreciate. For there is probably no pleasure so
democratic as that which is yielded by the fragrance of flowers and
leaves. The colour and form of plants require a little attention for
their appreciation, but their odour overwhelms our senses whether we
attend or no. The variety of perfumes yielded by plants is almost as
great as their forms, for blossom of Apple and of Jonquil, leaf of
Strawberry, Currant and Sweet Gale gives each an æsthetic pleasure
peculiar to itself.
In Elizabethan times, a royal visit seems to have been preceded by a
process of sweeting the house, which consisted in filling the rooms
with scent of crushed leaves and flowers, scattering also extracts and
essences of fragrant plants. This sweeting of the rooms is a continuous
process through the open windows of the cottage, and no queenly visit
would induce any augmentation of it.
Through the trees, which now have grown to moderate size, may always
be seen the most beautiful setting which a beautiful garden can
have--the ever restless sea. The contrast is good and effective, and is
calculated to prevent any undue development of horticultural vanity.
I thought of Ruskin's statement that "the path of a good woman is
indeed strewn with flowers, but they rise behind her steps, not before
them," when one day I sat on a quaint old seat under a pear tree in
this little flowerful garden; for it is literally behind his steps, not
before them, that all the beauty of my friend's garden has sprung up.
Each beautiful leaf and stem and flower are products of his labour and
care almost as much as of sun and rain. Yet to a stranger the garden
shows no sign of human fingers, human muscles, or human interference.
To many, possibly to most, there is attractiveness in a garden of
well-kept, straight-bordered paths, of tidy beds symmetrical beyond
reproach, of plants arranged like soldiers under review; but to me
such gardens--however pleasant to look at--seem unsuited to repose and
impossible to sit and dream in.
This garden is very different. It has no trees cut to the shape of
peacocks or wind-mills, no hideous collection of stakes and raffia,
which goes by the name of "the carnation bed" (after the manner of
Thackeray's "library where the boots are kept"). It is merely a bit
of enclosed and humanised natural beauty, a place where one may
quietly enjoy delightful flowers and delightful fragrance without
the jarring condition of viewing behind the scenes all the time that
the performance is being enacted. Every flower in the garden was
originally planted by my friend, and has been regularly watched over
and tended by him ever since, yet not one but looks as though it had
been planted at the creation of the world and had been subject only to
the forces of Nature all its life. There is a suggestion of woodland,
a suggestion of hedgerow, a suggestion of hillside, yet, of course,
the garden differs from them all. It is the absence of bare earth--for
scarcely one inch of soil lies undraped by plants--which partly gives
the garden that feeling of settled-down-ness. A half-dressed person, a
half-papered wall, a half-filled bookcase, a half-finished house--all
these things hinder the feeling of repose. So it is that nearly all
gardens, looking, as they do, to be in a state of preparation and
incompleteness, make restfulness out of the question. But in this
garden repose seems the natural emotion, and to sit there beneath a
tree and read or chat is always the appropriate thing.
It is not, however, that the earth is all draped which alone causes
the feeling of rest. This is due very largely to the fact that the
garden is not a "show-garden," was not created for show, but for the
satisfaction of its creator.
The "comfortable feel" of the garden is largely assisted also by the
nature of the flowers and plants which he has elected to cultivate:
Gilly-flowers, Pinks and Purple Columbines, Sweet Carnations, Daffodils
and lovèd Lilies. To quote Korumushi, a poet of the race which has the
spirit of flower-worship in its heart--
"No man so callous, but he heaves a sigh
When o'er his head the withered Cherry-flowers
Come fluttering down."
And no man is so devoid of feeling as to be unmoved by the sight of
the flowers associated with the ideals of the race--the flowers which
Chaucer loved, and Shakspere.
I have seen a beautiful garden, containing none but flowers mentioned
by Shakspere. This, however, was after all but a piece of pretty
pedantry, and necessitated the absence of Foxgloves, Forget-me-Nots,
Snowdrops, and other beautiful flowers. It is indeed strange that he,
the greatest poet of gardens as of other things, never mentions these
flowers, although they must have been well known to him. Speaking of
the Snowdrop, Gerard, who was a contemporary of Shakspere, said: "These
plants doe grow wilde in Italy, and the parts adjacent, notwithstanding
our London gardens have taken possession of most of them many years
past." This rather indicates that the Snowdrop then held a very
different place in the gardener's heart, from the place which it since
has won; and doubtless the same holds good of the other flowers which
Shakspere left unmentioned. If Shakspere were writing now, using the
names of flowers as he used them--"not to show his own knowledge,"
but because the particular flowers supplied the appropriate simile or
key to sentiment--he could scarcely fail to mention the Foxgloves or
Lady's Fingers, the sweet Forget-Me-Nots, and, more beautiful still,
the chaste, unflinching Snowdrops. A flower takes time--generations
even, it may be--really to eat its way into the heart of man; for it is
not enough that it be merely beautiful or merely fragrant--attractive
to our senses though these properties are--in order that we may really
become incorporate with a flower. But it must, in addition, be full of
association, and have been long watched and lovingly studied. There is
one book, difficult now to obtain, containing a record of the truest
appreciation and most careful study of flowers, and of the beauty of
flowers, which we have in the language. That book is called "Flowers
and Gardens," by Dr Forbes Watson, and the following passage from its
pages beautifully explains the sentiment of the gardener who grows
mainly old-fashioned flowers, or, at any rate, flowers with which he
has been long familiar--
"We make the acquaintance of any individual existence under an immense
number of different aspects, and it is the sum of all these aspects
which constitutes that existence to us. A Snowdrop, for instance, is
not to me merely such a figure as a painter might give me by copying
the flower when placed so that its loveliness shall be best apparent,
but a curious mental combination or selection from the figures which
the flower may present when placed in every possible position, and in
every aspect which it has worn from birth to grave, and coloured by all
the associations which have chanced to cling around it. To the bodily
eye which beholds it for the first time it might be of no consequence
what lay within the petals, though even then the imagination would be
whispering some solution of the secret; but to the eye of mind, when
the flower has been often seen, that hidden green and yellow which is
necessary to complete the harmony becomes distinctly visible--visible,
that is, in that strange, indefinite way in which all things, however
apparently incompatible, seem present and blended together when
the imaginative faculty is at work. The common Star of Bethlehem
(_Ornithogalum umbellatum_) is a good illustration of the working of
this principle. When I look at the beautiful silver-white of the inner
surface of the petals, my mind is always dwelling upon and rejoicing in
the fact that their outer side is green, though of that green outside I
cannot see a hair's breadth. Again, we find the same principle at work
in the feeling which compelled the old sculptors to finish the hidden
side of the statue. They said, 'For the gods are everywhere.'"
There are people of whom we say (indeed, it is possibly true of
everyone)--_à bas_ the cynics--that the more intimately we know them,
and the longer we know them, the more we see to love and admire. So it
is with a really beautiful plant, and for this reason they who would
obtain all the possible pleasure and beauty from their gardens should
become, not gardeners only, but also botanists and students of poetry
and of beautiful form.
In spite of Shakspere's omission, then, I advise everyone to grow
many species of Snowdrops; indeed, for a week or two in February, my
friend's sea-side garden seems to be all draped with their green leaves
and serene green-white "drops," yet not one podgy, graceless double
flower is there among them all. For he agrees with Forbes Watson that
the "doubling" of beautiful flowers generally results in deformity and
the destruction of all beauty and meaning. Double Roses, Pinks, and
Carnations, he grows of course; for their fragrance, their history,
and, in the case of Roses, their continuous bloom compensate to some
extent for the loss of character in the petals, and for the "pen-wiper"
appearance which has only too often been given to the individual
flowers.
To return to the Shakspere garden, one finds that Shakspere's floral
year practically began with the Daffodil.
"When Daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy o'er the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year."
The yellow Crocus seems to have been introduced into English gardens
whilst Shakspere was writing his plays, and there was then, alas, no
_Gardeners' Chronicle_ to bring him the news. Gerard describes it as
having "flowers of a most perfect shining yellow colour, seeming afar
off to be a hot glowing coal of fire. That pleasant plant was sent unto
me from Robinus, of Paris, that painful and most curious searcher of
simples." What pictures are summoned before our minds' eyes even by the
few words just quoted: "pleasant plant;" "sent unto me from Robinus
of Paris;" "that painful and most curious searcher of simples." Each
phrase shows a type of mind or a view of life.
The garden of my friend is a "pleasant" garden, and he, too, is a
"curious searcher" of beautiful and pleasant plants. That is why his
garden seems to be an old-fashioned garden, and not because it is at
all like Shakspere's garden, or Mary Arden's garden, or the hideous
Elizabethan gardens pictured in the "Hortus Floridus," published in
1614. His, though not by any means a Tottenham Court Road product, is
no Wardour Street garden, but is old-fashioned in the sense that some
of Heal's bedsteads are old-fashioned, or that beautiful English prose
is old-fashioned as contrasted with the English of the yellow press.
He would not be without his Snowdrops, and quite as emphatically
would he not be without his Crocuses. Great clumps everywhere, among
the shrubs, at roots of trees and by the path-sides, radiate light
and beauty like so many fairyland flashes. First come the violet
cups of Crocus imperati, often before January has passed; then the
brilliant array of yellow Crocus luteus (overwhelming the Snowdrops,
by then well past their chief beauty and chief interest), followed by
Crocuses of every shade of purple, lavender, and white. These, like
the Snowdrops, are left quite undisturbed year after year, and if
there be some little falling off in the size of the flowers, which is
doubtful, there is more than compensation in the added beauty which
the resulting gradation of colour and natural grouping yield. When
I think of these glories, I can but reflect on how much beauty that
academic "Shakspere-garden" goes lacking. Indeed, we shall all do well
to steer clear of formulas and rigidity, as well in our lives as in our
garden-beds.
COTTAGE GARDENS
The term "cottage garden" is an elastic one, and may be made to include
all that big class of gardens where, in the words of the flower-show
schedule, "no regular gardener is employed." But I think that most
people, when they think of cottage gardens, picture to themselves those
little wayside plots attached to the homes of working folks which cheer
the passer-by nearly as much as they cheer their owners. One thinks
of Rose and Clematis climbing over the doorway, of Sweet-Williams,
Pæonies, Hollyhocks, Sunflowers and Pansies flowering in bed or border.
Old-fashioned herbaceous plants are those which one associates with
these cottage gardens, and nearly the year through one expects to find
something of interest and of beauty.
Such is the ideal; sometimes such is the reality.
In some of our rural districts, where the local squire is of the
resident benevolent feudal school, the cottages are surrounded by
little paradises of flowery beauty. Those who have travelled through
the Porlock Estate of the Acland family will know what I mean. In many
places, however, little pride or interest is taken in gardening, and
the yards fronting the cottages are dull and dismal from January to
Christmas. Indeed, there are few districts where pretty cottage gardens
are the rule.
Yet it were as easy to create a lovely picture within an area of twenty
square yards as in the space of a palace garden, though possibly not
so imposing or valuable an one. The size of the canvas is a detail;
the other limitations are, however, more important. In a little plot
we must often do without those lovely backgrounds of tree and shrub
and those lovely foregrounds of grass or other dwarf herbage which are
such helps in creating great garden pictures. It is at a sonnet that we
small gardeners must aim and not at an epic or great narrative poem.
Yet I often feel that brevity is of the very essence of fine poetry,
and it is possible that limitation of space may be contributory to the
finest expression of gardening. At all events, it affords a greater
test of one's skill and taste as a gardening craftsman, for, whereas,
in a big place, trees, shrubs and lawn almost create a beautiful garden
of themselves, in a little garden we have to practise more selection
and more rejection, and to exercise greater judgment and care in
arrangement, since here every detail counts and every fault jars.
The cottage gardener has usually to employ the simplest flowers
wherewith to express himself, but it is probable that this limitation
is helpful rather than a source of increased difficulty. He may say, in
the spirit of Lewis Carroll:--
"I never loved a dear gazelle,
Nor anything that cost me much:
High prices profit those that sell,
But why should I be fond of such?"
And these old common plants thrive as well and flower as beautifully
in the garden of the shepherd as in the grounds of Windsor Castle. The
wind blows from the same quarter, the rain falls equally, and the frost
is as severe in the one as in the other.
I like each garden to contain some one feature of special and unique
interest--some well-grown plant which is not much cultivated in the
neighbourhood, or some brilliant floral pageant peculiar to the
particular garden. Thus, one garden which I know is always associated
in my mind with a little thicket, about ten feet in height, of the
White-stemmed Bramble (_Rubus biflorus_), which, on a moon-lit
evening, is a most impressive sight, and even in winter is very
beautiful. In another little garden I always look for its show of
beautiful Pansies, of which its owner--a fisherman--is very naturally
and rightly proud. Of course, a special feature of this kind need not
interfere with the perennial interest which every garden, even the
smallest, should possess. For instance, in the garden with the Nepal
Bramble (which, by the way, is surprisingly little known when one
recalls the fact that it was introduced many a hundred years ago) are
Poppies and Roses, White Musk-Mallows and Columbines, Canterbury Bells
and Michaelmas Daisies; and my friend of the Pansies has the earliest
Crocuses and Snowdrops in his village, and relies on a hedge of
Chrysanthemums and Rosemary to brighten his plot when the Pansies are
over.
If our suburban villas were fronted by unpretentious plots cultivated
frankly as cottage gardens and bordered by simple palings, how very
different would be their aspect, and how much more pleasant would a
suburban walk become. For there are numerous plants of great beauty
which would thrive even in the suburbs of London, given care and a
little knowledge as to the correct preparation of the soil.
In the country, very much may be done by those who care to do so.
Country squires, doctors, parsons and others who have money, or time,
or influence can very materially alter the appearance of their district
by encouraging the gardening spirit among working folks, by helping
with advice if they are themselves gardeners, by helping with surplus
plants, seeds and cuttings, and by organising competitions and offering
prizes for the best kept cottage gardens.
Small gardens are the largest which are at the disposal of most of
us, but we need not bemoan our fate on that account. Fully as great
pleasure may be extracted from a tiny plot as from broad acres,
and a few plants well grown are as productive of satisfaction as
is the largest collection. "It was a singular experience that long
acquaintance which I cultivated with beans," said Thoreau, "but I was
determined to know beans." That is the true gardening spirit, and with
that as a possession one may pluck as much joy from the cultivation
and study of Thistles or Brambles, or even Docks (as Canon Ellacombe
reports a friend as growing--his acquaintances, of course, laughing
at him for making a Dock-yard), as from the rarest Orchids of the
millionaire.
One of the greatest gifts of a perfect garden is the gift of solitude,
and that is generally beyond the power of the little cottage plot to
offer; but, as a source of infinite pleasure to its owner, as a source
of pleasure to all those who pass by, as a cheering feature of English
landscape, and as a great force tending towards contentment and peace,
the cottage garden is beyond price.
THE GARDEN IN WINTER
When the last of the Michaelmas daisies and of the out-door
chrysanthemums have cast their blooms, many gardeners are apt to think
that the interest and beauty of the garden are over, and that for three
months there is nothing to be done but to dig and enrich the soil, and
to wait patiently for the onset of spring. This is a narrow and an
ill-informed view, for, though through the months of winter we cannot
hope to see many or gaudy flowers, we may yet have our gardens bright
and interesting with evergrey and evergreen shrubs and herbs, with the
delightfully-coloured barks of willows, dog-woods and other trees,
and, not less interesting, with the often beautiful stems of the last
season's growth of herbaceous plants, usually sacrificed to the tidying
spirit of those who would tidy the floor of heaven itself. Moreover,
even in winter, flowers of no mean rank may be had in the open borders
of English gardens.
[Illustration: FRITILLARIES]