BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER
When the Spring flowers are done, and before the full June days come
with the great Flag Irises and the perennial Lupines, there is a kind
of mid-season. If it can be given a space of ground it will be well
bestowed. I have a place that I call the Hidden Garden, because it is
in a corner that might so easily be overlooked if one did not know
where to find it. No important path leads into it, though two pass
within ten yards of it on either side. It is in a sort of clearing
among Ilex and Holly, and the three small ways into it are devious and
scarcely noticeable from the outside. The most important of these,
marked 1 on the plan, passes between some clumps of overarching Bamboo
and through a short curved tunnel of Yew and Ilex. Another, marked 2,
is only just traceable among Berberis under a large Birch, and comes
sharply round a tall Monterey Cypress. The third turns out of one of
the shady woodland glades and comes into the little garden by some
rough stone steps.
The plan shows the simple arrangement; the paths following the most
natural lines that the place suggests. The main path goes down some
shallow, rough stone steps with a sunny bank to the left and a rocky
mound to the right. The mound is crowned with small shrubs, Alpine
Rhododendrons and Andromeda. Both this and the left-hand bank have a
few courses of rough dry-walling next the path on its lowest level. A
little cross-path curves into the main one from the right.
[Illustration: _STEPS TO THE HIDDEN GARDEN AT_ =3= _ON PLAN._]
[Illustration: _PHLOX DIVARICATA AND ARENARIA MONTANA._]
The path leaves the garden again by a repetition of the rough stone
steps. The mossy growth of _Arenaria balearica_ clings closely to the
stones on their cooler faces, and the frond-like growths of Solomon's
Seal hang out on either side as a fitting prelude to the dim mysteries
of the wide green wood-path beyond.
It is a garden for the last days of May and the first fortnight of June.
Passing through the Yew tunnel, the little place bursts on the sight
with good effect. What is most striking is the beauty of the blue-lilac
_Phlox divaricata_ and that of two clumps of Tree Peony--the rosy
Baronne d'Alès and the pale salmon-pink Comtesse de Tuder. The little
garden, with its quiet environment of dark foliage, forbids the use
of strong colouring, or perhaps one should say that it suggested a
restriction of the scheme of colouring to the tenderer tones. There
seemed to be no place here for the gorgeous Oriental Poppies, although
they too are finest in partial shade, or for any strong yellows, their
character needing wider spaces and clearer sunlight.
The Tree Peonies are in two groups of the two kinds only; it seemed
enough for the limited space. In front of Comtesse de Tuder is a group
of _Funkia Sieboldi_, its bluish leaves harmonising delightfully with
the leaf-colour of the Peonies; next to them is a corner of glistening
deep green Asarum. No other flowers of any size are near, but there
are sheets of the tender yellow bloom and pale foliage of _Corydalis
ochroleuca_, of the white-bloomed Woodruff, and the pale green leafage
of Epimedium; and among them tufts of Lent Hellebores, also in fresh
young leaf, and a backing of the feathery fronds of Lady Fern and of
the large Solomon's Seal; with drooping garlands of _Clematis montana_
hanging informally from some rough branching posts. Yew-trees are at
the back, and then Beeches in tender young leaf.
The foot of the near mound is a pink cloud of London Pride. Shooting up
among it and just beyond is the white St. Bruno's Lily. More of this
lovely little lily-like Anthericum is again a few feet further along,
grouped with _Iris Cengialti_, one of the bluest of the Irises. The
back of the mound has some of the tenderly tinted Caparne hybrid Irises
two feet high, of pale lilac colouring, rising from among dark-leaved,
white-bloomed Iberis, and next the path a pretty, large-flowered tufted
Pansy that nearly matches the Iris.
But the glory of the mound is the long stretch of blue-lilac _Phlox
divaricata_, whose colour is again repeated by a little of the same on
the sunny bank to the left. Here it is grouped with pale pink Scotch
Brier, more pale yellow Corydalis and _Arenaria montana_ smothered
in its masses of white bloom. At the end of the bank the colour of
the _Phlox divaricata_ is deepened by sheaves of _Camassia esculenta_
that spear up through it. The whole back of this bank has a free
planting of graceful pale-coloured Columbines with long spurs,
garden kinds that come easily from seed and that were originally
derived from some North American species. They are pale yellow and warm
white; some have the outer portion of the flower of a faint purple,
much like that of some of the patches in an old, much-washed, cotton
patchwork quilt.
[Illustration: _MALE FERN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _EXOCHORDA GRANDIFLORA._]
[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
The dark trees on the right have rambling Roses growing into
them--Paul's Carmine Pillar and the Himalayan _R. Brunonis_. The red
Rose does not flower so freely here as on a pillar in sunlight, but its
fewer stems clamber high into the Holly and the bloom shows in thin
natural wreaths that are even more pleasing to an artist's eye than the
more ordered abundance of the flowery post. At the foot of the Hollies
hardy Ferns grow luxuriantly in the constant shade. A little later a
few clumps of Lilies will spring up from among them; the lovely pink
_rubellum_, the fine yellow _szovitzianum_, and the buff _testaceum_.
On the left-hand side, behind the sunny bank, a Garland Rose comes
through and tumbles out of a Yew, and some sprays of an old bush of
the single _R. polyantha_, that has spread to a circumference of one
hundred and fifty feet, have pushed their way through the Ilex.
The Hollies and Ilexes all round are growing fast, and before many
years are over the little garden will become too shady for the
well-being of the flowers that now occupy it. It will then change its
character and become a Fern garden.
All gardening involves constant change. It is even more so in woodland.
A young bit of wood such as mine is for ever changing. Happily, each
new development reveals new beauty of aspect or new possibility of good
treatment, such as, rightly apprehended and then guided, tends to a
better state than before.
Meanwhile the little tree-embowered garden has a quiet charm of its
own. It seems to delight in its character of a Hidden Garden, and in
the pleasant surprise that its sudden discovery provokes. For between
it and its owner there is always a pretty little play of pretending
that there is no garden there, and of being much surprised and
delighted at finding, not only that there is one, but quite a pretty
one.
The Hidden Garden is so small in extent, and its boundaries are already
so well grown, that there is no room for many of the beautiful things
of the time of year. For May is the time for the blooming of the most
important of our well-known flowering shrubs--Lilac, Guelder Rose,
White Broom, Laburnum, and _Pyrus Malus floribunda_. But one shrub, as
beautiful as any of these and as easily grown, seems to be forgotten.
This is _Exochorda grandiflora_--related to the Spiræas. Its pearl-like
buds have earned it the name of Pearl Bush, but its whole lovely bloom
should before now have secured it a place in every good garden.
Every one knows the Guelder Rose, with its round white flower-balls,
but the wild shrub of which this is a garden variety is also a valuable
ornamental bush and should not be neglected. It is a native plant,
growing in damp places, such as the hedges of water-meadows and the
sides of streams. The English name is Water Elder. Its merit as a
garden shrub does not lie, as in the Guelder Rose, in its bloom, but in
its singularly beautiful fruit. This, in autumn, lights up the whole
shrub with a ruddy radiance. Grown on drier ground than that of its
natural habitat, it takes a closer, more compact form.
[Illustration: _EUPHORBIA WULFENII._]
[Illustration: _IRISES AND LUPINES IN THE JUNE GARDEN._]
White Broom is in flower from the middle of May to the second week of
June. There is a fine Flag Iris of a rich purple colour called "Purple
King." It is well to grow it just in front of some young bushes of
White Broom. Then, if one of the hybrid Irises of pale lilac colour
is there as well, and a bush of _Rosa altaica_, the colour-effect
will be surprisingly beautiful. This Rose is the bolder-growing,
Asiatic equivalent of our Burnet Rose (_R. spinosissima_), with the
same lemon-white flowers. When any such group containing White Broom
is planted, it should be remembered that the tendency of the Broom is
to grow tall and leggy. It bears pruning, but it is a good plan to
plant some extra ones behind the others. After a couple of years, if
the front plants have grown out of bounds, the back ones can be bent
down and fastened to sticks, so that their heads come in the required
places. It is one of the many ways in which a pretty garden picture may
be maintained from year to year by the exercise of a little thought and
ingenuity. The undergrowth of such a group may be of Solomon's Seal at
the back, and, if the bank or border is in sun, of a lower groundwork
of Iberis and _Corydalis ochroleuca_, or, if it is shaded, of Tiarella,
Woodruff or _Anemone sylvestris_. With these, for the sake of their
tender green foliage, there may well be _Uvularia grandiflora_ and
_Epimedium pinnatum_.
A wonderful plant of May is the great _Euphorbia Wulfenii_. It adapts
itself to many ways of use, for, though the immense yellow-green
heads of bloom are at their best in May, they are still of pictorial
value in June and July, while the deep-toned, grey-blue foliage is in
full beauty throughout the greater part of the year. It is valuable
in boldly arranged flower borders, and holds its own among shrubs of
moderate size, but I always think its best use would be in the boldest
kind of rock-work.
One of my desires that can never be fulfilled is to have a rocky
hillside in full sun, so steep as to be almost precipitous, with walls
of bare rock only broken by ledges that can be planted. I would have
great groups of Yucca standing up against the sky and others in the
rock-face, and some bushes of this great _Euphorbia_ and only a few
other plants, all of rather large grey effect; _Phlomis_, Lavender,
Rosemary and Cistus, with _Othonna_ hanging down in long sheets
over the bare face of the warm rock. It would be a rock-garden on
an immense scale, planted as Nature plants, with not many different
things at a time. The restriction to a few kinds of plants would give
the impression of spontaneous growth; of that large, free, natural
effect that is so rarely achieved in artificial planting. Besides
natural hillsides, there must be old quarries within or near the
pleasure-grounds of many places in our islands where such a scheme of
planting could worthily be carried out.
[Illustration: _PART OF THE GARLAND ROSE AT THE ANGLE._]