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diff --git a/39673.txt b/39673.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8072b49 --- /dev/null +++ b/39673.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3314 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Year in a Lancashire Garden, by Henry +Arthur Bright + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Year in a Lancashire Garden + Second Edition + + +Author: Henry Arthur Bright + + + +Release Date: May 12, 2012 [eBook #39673] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Paula Franzini, sp1nd, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org/) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/cu31924002829723 + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + + + + +A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. + +[Decoration] + +A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. + +by + +HENRY A. BRIGHT. + +SECOND EDITION. + + + + + + + +London: +Macmillan And Co. +1879. + +The Right of Translation is Reserved. + +London: +R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, +Bread Street Hill. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +This volume is but a collection of Notes, which, at the request of the +editor, I wrote, month by month, in 1874, for the columns of the +_Gardeners' Chronicle_. + +They pretend to little technical knowledge, and are, I fear, of but +little horticultural value. They contain only some slight record of a +year's work in a garden, and of those associations which a garden is so +certain to call up. + +As, however, I found that this monthly record gave pleasure to readers, +to whom both the garden and its owner were quite unknown, I printed off +some fifty copies to give to those, whom I have the happiness to number +among my friends, and for whom a garden has the same interest that it +has for me. + +Four years have passed since then, and I am still asked for copies which +I cannot give. + +I have at last, rather reluctantly, for there seems to me something +private and personal about the whole affair, resolved to reprint these +notes, and see if this little book can win for itself new friends on its +own account. + +One difficulty, I feel, is that I am describing what happened five years +ago. But this I cannot help. To touch or alter would be to spoil the +truthfulness of all. The notes must stand absolutely as they were +written. But after all, I believe, the difficulty is only an apparent +one. The seasons, indeed, may vary--a spring may be later, a summer may +be warmer, an autumn may be more fruitful,--but the seasons themselves +remain. The same flowers come up each year, the same associations link +themselves on to the returning flowers, and the verses of the great +poets are unchanged. The details of a garden will alter, but its general +effect and aspect are the same. + +Nevertheless, something has been learnt, and something remembered, since +these notes were written, and this, also communicated from time to time +to the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, I have condensed into a supplementary +chapter. + +If, as I have heard from a friendly critic, there is too much _couleur +de rose_ in my descriptions, I am tempted to retort that this is a +colour not perhaps altogether inappropriate to my subject; but, be this +as it may, I have described nothing but as it really appeared to me, and +I have only wished that others should receive the same impressions as +myself. + +For my very open egotism I make no apology; it was a necessity of the +plan on which I wrote. + +I have added notes on the Roman Viola, and on the Sunflower of the +Classics, and have given some extracts respecting the Solanum and the +fly-catching Azalea. I have also reprinted, by the editor's kind +permission, part of an article of mine that appeared in the _Athenaeum_ +on "Flowers and the Poets." + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + I. PAGE + Introductory--The House--The Latest Flowers--The Arbutus + --Chrysanthemums--Fallen Leaves--Planting--The + Apple-room--The Log-house--Christmas 1 + + II. + Gardening Blunders--The Walled Garden and the Fruit Walls-- + Spring Gardening--Christmas Roses--Snowdrops--Pot Plants 10 + + III. + Frost--The Vineries and Vines--Early Forcing--Orange + Trees--Spring Work--Aconites--The Crocus 18 + + + IV. + The Rookery--Daffodils--Peach Blossoms--Spring Flowers-- + Primroses--Violets--The Shrubs of Spring 26 + + V. + The Herbaceous Beds--Pulmonaria--Wallflowers--Polyanthus + --Starch Hyacinths--Sweet Brier--Primula Japonica-- + Early Annuals and Bulbs--The Old Yellow China Rose 34 + + VI. + Ants and Aphis--Fruit Trees--The Grass Walk--"Lilac-tide" + --Narcissus--Snowflakes--Columbines--Kalmias-- + Hawthorn Bushes 42 + + VII. + The Summer Garden--The Buddleia--Ghent Azaleas--The + Mixed Borders--Roses--The Green Rose 51 + + VIII. + The Fruit Crop--Hautbois Strawberries--Lilium Auratum + --Sweet Williams--Carnations--The Bedding-out 59 + + IX. + Weeds--Tomatos--Tritomas--Night-scented Flowers-- + Tuberoses--Magnolia--Asters--Indian Corn 67 + + X. + St. Luke's Summer--The Orchard--The Barberry--White + Haricot Beans--Transplanting--The Rockery 75 + + XI. + The Wood and the Withered Leaves--Statues--Sun-dials--The + Snow--Plans for the Spring--Conclusion 82 + + + SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. + Flowering Shrubs--Yuccas--Memorial Trees--Ranunculus-- + Pansies--Canna Indica--Summer Flowers--Bluets--Fruit + blossoms and Bees--Strawberry Leaves--Garden Sounds-- + Mowing--Birds--The Swallow--Pleasures of a Garden 89 + + + NOTES. + I.--On the Viola of the Romans 107 + II.--On the Azalea Viscosa 110 + III.--On the Solanum Tribe 112 + IV.--On the Sunflower of the Classics 115 + V.--On Flowers and the Poets 118 + + + + +A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. + + + + +I. + +Introductory--The House--The Latest Flowers--The Arbutus-- + Chrysanthemums--Fallen Leaves--Planting--The Apple-room-- + The Log-house--Christmas. + + +_December 3._--These notes are written for those who love gardens as I +do, but not for those who have a professional knowledge of the subject; +and they are written in the hope that it may not be quite impossible to +convey to others some little of the delight, which grows (more certainly +than any bud or flower) from the possession and management of a garden. +I cannot, of course, by any words of mine, give the hot glow of colour +from a bed of scarlet Ranunculus with the sun full upon it, or bring out +the delicious scent of those double Tuberoses, which did so well with me +this autumn; but I can at least speak of my plans and projects, tell +what I am doing, and how each month I succeed or fail,--and thus share +with others the uncertainty, the risks and chances, which are in reality +the great charm of gardening. And then, again, gardening joins itself, +in a thousand ways, with a thousand associations, to books and +literature, and here, too, I shall have much to say. + + * * * * * + +Lancashire is not the best possible place for a garden, and to be within +five miles of a large town is certainly no advantage. We get smoke on +one side, and salt breezes on another, and, worst of all, there comes +down upon us every now and then a blast, laden with heavy chemical +odours, which is more deadly than either smoke or salt. Still we are +tolerably open, and in the country. As I sit writing at my library +window, I see, beyond the lawn, field after field, until at last the eye +rests on the spire of a church three miles away. + +A long red-gabled house, with stone facings, and various creepers +trained round it,--a small wood (in which there is a rookery) screening +us from a country road, and from the west,--lawns with some large trees +and several groups of evergreens,--and the walled garden, the outer +garden, and the orchard;--it is to these that I invite you. Exclusive +of meadow-land there are only some four acres, but four acres are enough +for many gardening purposes, and for very great enjoyment. + +These are certainly what the American poet Bryant calls "the melancholy +days, the saddest in the year." The late autumn flowers are over;--the +early spring ones are still buried under the soil. I could only find +this morning a single blighted monthly Rose, a Wallflower or two, an +uneasy-looking Polyanthus, and some yellow Jasmine against the +house--and that was all. Two days of early frost had killed the rest. +Oddly enough, however, a small purple flower caught my eye on the mixed +border; it was a Virginian Stock,--but what it was doing at this +unwonted season who can say? Then, of course, the Arbutus is still in +bloom, as it has been for the last two months, and very beautiful it is. +There is a large bush of it just as you enter the walled garden, and, +though the pink clusters of blossom are now past their best, they are +more welcome than ever in the present dearth of flowers. Can any one +tell me why my Arbutus does not fruit? It has only borne one single +berry in the last four years; and yet the Arbutus fruits abundantly in +other places in Lancashire, and at Lytham, close to the sea, I saw +clusters of berries only the other day. Sometimes I fancy there is a +better chance of the fruit setting if the pollen is from another tree, +and I have lately planted a second Arbutus for the experiment. I am very +fond of the Arbutus; it carries me back to the days of Horace, for we +remember how his goats, wandering along the lower slopes of Lucretilis, +would browse upon the thickets of Arbutus that fringed its side. + +Lastly, the Chrysanthemums are in flower, though not in the inner +garden. Some I have tended and trained, and they are now looking +handsome enough in the porch and vestibule of the house. Some I have +planted, and allowed to grow as they like, in front of the shrubbery +borders; these have failed very generally with me this year--they look +brown and withered, and the blooms are small, and the stems long and +ragged, while many have entirely disappeared. The best of them all is +Bob, with his bright, red, merry face, only surpassed by a trained Julia +Lagraviere in the porch. Another favourite Chrysanthemum of mine is the +Fleur de Marie, with its large white discs, all quilled inside and +feathered round the edge. Fastened up against a wall, I have seen it, +year after year, a mass of splendid snowy blossom. The Chrysanthemum has +three merits above almost every flower. It comes in the shortest and +darkest days; it blooms abundantly in the smoke of the largest cities; +it lasts longer than any flower when cut and put into water. If flowers +have their virtues, the virtue of the Chrysanthemum is its unselfish +kindliness. + +In the outer garden, we have been busy with the fallen leaves, brushing +them away from the walks and lawn, leaving them to rot in the wood, +digging them into the shrubbery borders. This work is finished now, and +we have swept up a great stack for future use at the end of two years. +The Beech and the Oak leaves we (in opposition to some authorities) hold +to be the most valuable, but of course we cannot keep them distinct from +the rest. These fallen leaves--of which we make our loam for potting +purposes--what endless moralities they have occasioned! The oldest and +the youngest poets speak of them. It is Homer, who compares the +generations of men to the generations of the leaves, as they come and +go, flourish and decay, one succeeding the other, unresting and +unceasingly. It is Swinburne, who says in his poems-- + + "Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf, + Cast forth without fruit upon air; + Take Rose-leaf, and Vine-leaf, and Bay-leaf + Blown loose from the hair." + +During this open weather we have been getting on with our planting. +Those beds of Rhododendrons just under the drawing-room windows have +become too thick. They are all good sorts--John Waterer, Lady Emily +Cathcart, and the rest--and must have sufficient room. We move a number +of them to the other side of the house, opposite the front door, where +till now there has been a bed of the common Rhododendrons, and this in +turn we plant as a fresh bed elsewhere. + +There will be now some space to spare in the hybrid beds, and I shall +plant in them a number of roots of the Lilium candidum--the dear old +white Lily of cottage gardens. They will come up each year from between +the Rhododendrons, and will send their sweet subtle odour through the +open windows into the house. And as I write I am told of a recipe +showing how, in the Wortlore of old, the firm white petals were esteemed +of use. You must gather them while still fresh, place them unbroken in a +wide-necked bottle, packed closely and firmly together, and then pour +in what brandy there is room for. In case of cut or bruise no remedy, I +am told, is more efficacious, and certainly none more simple. + + +_December 23._--The weather is still mild and open. We have had three +days' sharp frost, but it soon passed, and, while it lasted, it spared +even the Chrysanthemums. "Bob" looks better than ever. During the frost +was the time to look over the Apple-room, the Mushroom-bed, and the +Log-house. + +The Pears we are now using are the Winter Nelis, which I believe is +known also as the Bonne de Malines. It is a capital Pear at this season +of the year, and in these parts, and trained on my south-west walls, +bears well, though the trees are young. I only planted them some four +years ago, and, as all the world knows,-- + + "You plant Pears + For your heirs." + +The Mushrooms are late this year; the spawn appeared less good than +usual, and I expected a total failure, but, after all, there is promise +of a dish for Christmas Day. I do not care to grow Mushrooms when the +green vegetables are in full glory but now they are very welcome. + +As for the Log-house, it is full. We have cut down several trees, and +huge Yule logs lie in heaps, ready for the hall fire. We shall want them +before the winter is over. If Horace had to say to Thaliarchus in Italy +(this is Lord Denman's version)-- + + "Dissolve the cold, while on the dogs + With lavish hand you fling the logs,"-- + +surely in these northern latitudes, and in this dearth of coal, the +advice is doubly seasonable. And then a log fire is so charming. It does +more than warm and blaze--it glows and sparkles. But Mr. Warner, the +American, has just given us in his _Backlog Studies_ long pages about +wood-fires, and I need only refer to that very pleasant little book. One +quotation, however, I will give:-- + + "We burn in it Hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this + aromatic forest timber and its clear flame. The Birch is also a + sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritual flame, and an + even temper--no snappishness. Some prefer the Elm, which holds fire + so well; and I have a neighbour who uses nothing but Apple-tree + wood--a solid, family sort of wood, fragrant also, and full of + delightful associations. But few people can afford to burn up their + fruit-trees." + +But besides the dead wood, we have just cut our fresh Christmas boughs. +Up against an outhouse I have an immense Ivy, almost as large as one you +see growing up some old castle: it spreads along the wall, covering it +all over on both sides; then it climbs up a second wall at right angles +to the first, and throws its trailing branches down to the very ground: +and now they are one mass of blossom. + +It is from this ivy that we gather our best Christmas greenery; but +there are also cuttings from the Box, Yew, and Holly;--and one +variegated Holly has been beautiful, for its mottled leaves have in some +sprays become of a perfectly clear and creamy white--the colour of fine +old ivory. Mistletoe does not grow with us, and we have to buy it in the +market of our town. By the way, how strangely the idea of an English +Mistletoe bough now associates itself with that very uncomfortable +Italian story of the bride and the oaken chest. How curious, too, that, +in this country at least, the memory of poor Ginevra is due not to +Rogers's poem, but to Haynes Bayly's ballad. + +To-morrow will be Christmas Eve, and to-morrow (so the legend says), in +the vale of Avalon,--at the old abbey, where King Arthur was buried and +St. Dunstan lived--"outbuds the Glastonbury Thorn"--the sacred Thorn, +which sprang from the staff St. Joseph planted there. Unhappily no such +Thorns grow in my Lancashire garden. + + + + +II. + +Gardening Blunders--The Walled Garden and the Fruit Walls-- + Spring Gardening--Christmas Roses--Snowdrops--Pot Plants. + + +_January 5._--What wonderful notions some people have about gardens! In +a clever novel I have just been reading, there occurs this +description:--"The gardens at Wrexmore Hall were in a blaze of beauty, +with Geraniums and Chrysanthemums of every hue." In the published +letters of Mr. Dallas, who was formerly United States' Minister here, +there is something still more marvellous. He had been staying with Lord +Palmerston at Broadlands in the end of September, and he speaks of "the +glowing beds of Roses, Geraniums, Rhododendrons, Heliotropes, Pinks, +Chrysanthemums." I shall have to make a pilgrimage to Broadlands. +Meanwhile, why should we not more often bed out Chrysanthemums in +masses, as in the Temple Gardens? A "winter garden" is generally nothing +more than a garden of small evergreens, which, of course, is an +improvement on bare soil, but which is in itself not singularly +interesting. + +Since last I wrote, we have had storms of wind and rain, and some little +snow and frost, but the weather has, on the whole, been very genial for +the time of year. I have finished my planting, and am now busy +re-sodding the grass terrace which runs along the south and east of the +house; the grass had become full of weeds, and in places was bare and +brown. But my most important work has been within the walled garden. +This garden is entered by a door in the south-east wall, and two walls, +facing south-west and north-east, run at right angles to it. A thick +hedge, guarded by wire netting to keep out the rabbits, is at the +further or north-west side, and divides us from the home-croft. Along +the south-east wall we have two vineries, and between them a small range +of frames and hotbeds. Against the sheltered wall between the vineries +we have a Magnolia grandiflora, which flowered with me last year; a +Banksian Rose, which has done no good as yet; and a General Jacqueminot, +which is always beautiful. A Camellia (Woodsii), which flowered +abundantly last spring, I have moved elsewhere, and have planted a +Marechal Niel in its place. Beyond the vineries on both sides are my +best Peaches and Nectarines. On the south-west wall are Peaches and +Nectarines, Apricots, Plums and Pears, and on the north-east Cherries +and Currants. In front of the Vine border is a broad gravel walk, which +reaches along the whole breadth of the garden, and on the other side of +it are the flower-beds. There are about forty of them in all, of +different shapes and sizes, and divided from each other by little +winding walks of red Jersey gravel. As you come upon them all at once, +but cannot see the whole at a glance, I have no temptation to sacrifice +everything to monotonous regularity and a mere effect of colour. I take +bed by bed, and make each as beautiful as I can, so that I have a +constant variety, and so that at no season of the year am I entirely +bare of flowers. Box hedges three feet high and some two and a half feet +thick, and a screen of Rhododendrons, separate the flower garden from +the kitchen garden, which is beyond; and right through both flower +garden and kitchen garden, from the front of the Vine border to the far +hedge by the croft, we have just been extending a grass walk, and +planting, along the part that skirts the kitchen garden, Pears, Plums, +and (for sake of a very uncertain experiment) a Walnut and a Medlar. + +My spring gardening is on no great scale. A bed of mixed Hyacinths, +another of single Van Thol Tulips, and another of Golden Prince Tulips, +two beds of Wallflowers, one of red Daisies edged with white, and one of +Polyanthus, are all I have at present planted. There will be more by and +by. Meanwhile the spring flowers I really care about are those that come +up every year on the mixed borders,--the outside borders of the flower +garden. They are old friends that never fail us; they ask only to be +left alone, and are the most welcome "harbingers of spring," bringing +with them the pleasant memories of former years, and the fresh promise +of the year that is to come. + +I never saw such Christmas Roses as I have just now. Clustering beneath +their dark serrated leaves rise masses of bloom,--bud and blossom,--the +bud often tinged with a faint pink colour, the blossom a snowy white +guarding a centre of yellow stamens. I have counted from thirty to forty +blooms upon a single root, and I sometimes think the Eucharis itself is +not a finer flower. The Christmas Rose, the Helleborus niger, has been +celebrated by Pliny, by Spenser, and by Cowley; but I confess my own +favourite association with it is of a later date. I never see it without +recalling the description poor Anne Bronte gives in her strange wild +story of _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_. Just at the end, when Helen, +after her sad unhappy life, is free at last, and wishes to tell Gilbert +that what remains of her life may now be his, she turns to "pluck that +beautiful half-blown Christmas Rose that grew upon the little shrub +without, just peeping from the snow that had hitherto, no doubt, +defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the sun." And +then, "having gently dashed the glittering powder from its leaves," she +says, "This Rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood +through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has +sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds +have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not +blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower +can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals. Will you have it?" +Nowhere in the whole of the Bronte novels (so far as I remember) is a +flower described as this one is. + +It is suggestive enough of dark and drowsy winter, that the two flowers +which most enliven it should bear the deadly names of black Hellebore +and winter Aconite (though, indeed, the Eranthis is itself allied +rather to the Hellebores than to the Aconites); as yet, however, my +Aconites are still below the sod. + + +_January 20._--It is St. Agnes's Eve, and never was there a St. Agnes's +Eve so unlike that one which witnessed the happy adventure of young +Porphyro. _Then_ + + "St. Agnes' Eve; ah! bitter chill it was; + The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; + The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, + And silent was the flock in woolly fold." + +_Now_ the weather is soft, and almost warm. + +I always seem to connect the idea of a Snowdrop with St. Agnes; and +Tennyson speaks of "the first Snowdrop of the year" lying upon her +bosom. This year our first Snowdrop appeared on the 18th, and now each +day brings out fresh tufts on the herbaceous borders, where the sun +strikes most warmly. Another week will pass, and, under the Lime trees +which shade the orchard, I shall find other tufts of the double variety, +planted in bygone years I know not by whom, and now springing up half +wild and quite uncared for. And these Snowdrops gave me a hint a year or +two ago. I found that my gardener was in the habit of throwing away his +old bulbs--Hyacinths and Tulips--which had served their turn and lived +their season. There was, of course, no good in keeping them for garden +purposes; but this throwing them away seemed sadly wasteful. We now, +therefore, plant them in the orchard grass, and each year they come up +half wild like the Snowdrops, and each year they will be more numerous +and more effective. But the best way of growing Snowdrops is, I believe, +on a lawn itself. I have planted several hundreds of them in groups and +patches, in a corner, where I can see them from the library window. The +green spears are now piercing the grass, and in a few days there will be +a broken sheet of snowy white, which will last for at least a fortnight, +and which, from a distance, will seem like the lingering relic of some +snowdrift still unmelted by the sun.[1] By the way, was it not Mrs. +Barbauld who spoke of the Snowdrop as "an icicle changed into a flower?" +The conceit is not a particularly happy one, for the soft white petals +have nothing in common with the hard sparkle of the icicle. + + [1] As matter of fact, the Snowdrops were less abundant this year than + they usually are.--Has it ever been noticed that the colour of the + winter flowers, as that of the Arctic animals, is almost always white? + +We have not been fortunate this winter with the pot-plants which we +require for the house. The Primulas have been singularly shabby. We had +got some white sand from an excavation in the road near us, and it seems +to have checked the growth of several of our plants. The Roman +Hyacinths, too, have done less well than usual with us. There was a +gummy look about many of the bulbs, which made us fear at the time that +they were not properly ripened, and the result has proved that we were +right. For dinner-table decoration can anything be prettier at this +season than small Orange-trees--Japanese Oranges, I think they +are--laden with their wealth of green and golden fruit? I have only just +taken to them, and certainly I have seen nothing of the kind I like so +well. + + + + +III. + +Frost--The Vineries and Vines--Early Forcing--Orange-trees-- + Spring Work--Aconites--The Crocus. + + +_February 6._--We have had no morning so beautiful this winter. A clear, +bright frost is in the air, and on the grass, and among the trees. Not a +spray but is coated with crystals, white as snow and thick as moss; not +a leaf of Holly or of Ivy but is fringed with frosted fretwork. There is +not a breath of wind, and the birds, that were singing yesterday, have +all vanished out of sight. It is wonderfully beautiful while it lasts, +but it will be over before night. + +Meanwhile, I am thankful for any touch of frost, if it will only come +now instead of later. It will help to kill some few of the eggs and +larvae, which, in the different form of noxious insects, will plague us +through the summer. It will keep back the fruit-tree buds, which are +sadly too forward, and which will run a poor chance unless they are +checked betimes. The Apricots especially look almost ready to open, and +I can see colour even on the Nectarines. + +We are beginning to force our first vinery. The year before last we had +renewed the Vine border, and last year we did not venture any forcing; +this year I hope we may be repaid. Our Black Hamburghs are old Vines of +rather a good sort, with fine large berries and very few stones. The +Muscats--Canon Hall, Alexandria, and Troveren--are Vines which I planted +some three years ago. In the same house there is also an old Syrian +Vine, bearing big bunches, but otherwise worth but little. + +In the second vinery are Black Hamburghs again, Black Princes, Grizzly +Frontignan, and a Sweetwater,--all old Vines; and to these I have added +a Mrs. Pince's Muscat, a Foster's Seedling, and a Madresfield Court. +Both vineries are of old construction, with clumsy flues, and require a +thorough re-arranging, which I must give them some day. Quite the best +grape, so far as flavour goes, is, I contend, the Grizzly Frontignan, +which has now comparatively gone out of fashion. The bunches, it is +true, are not handsome, the berries are not large, and the colour is not +good; but has any Muscat a finer or more aromatic flavour? It was Sir +William Temple who first introduced it, and he speaks of it with pride +as "the noblest of all Grapes I ever ate in England." The Sweetwater is +of value in another way; it is of all Grapes the most grateful and +refreshing to an invalid. Only the autumn before last I was asked by an +old friend whether anywhere in our neighbourhood the Sweetwater was +still grown. He had been very ill, and was longing for Grapes,--but the +rich luscious Muscats, with their highly-flavoured and thickly-sugared +juice, had been forbidden. He had searched in vain among the vineries of +many great houses, where the Sweetwater has been long discarded, and it +was a pleasant surprise to find that in my small vineries this once +favourite old Grape could still be found. + +We are now bringing on our Strawberries; the Duc de Malakoff and Sir +Charles Napier are the two we are forcing this year. Last year we had +Oscar as well, but we found it a bad hanger, the first fruit damping +away if it were not at once gathered. We are forcing also French Beans, +Fulmer's Forcing,--and Tomatos, the Orangefield Dwarf. The prettiest +thing in our vinery is a large Orange-tree, laden with last year's +fruit, and soon to be covered with this spring's flowers. The fruit +itself is only good for preserving, but it is wonderfully handsome, and +no Orange-tree could be more prolific. Surely the old plan of having a +separate Orangery is dying out in England, except of course in the very +stately places. Thirty or forty years ago I think these Orangeries +were more common in gardens of less pretension. I recall one, half +green-house, half summer-house, with its large sashed windows +opening to a lawn--windows round which a dozen creepers twined and +blossomed;--inside stood the great Orange-trees in their huge tubs, +waiting till the full summer, when they would be arranged along the +broad terrace walk--in themselves beautiful, and calling up a thousand +fragrant memories of Southern France and Italy. Now, I generally see +trimmed Bays or Laurels arranged in porcelain pots, looking at once +shabby and artificial. Of course I do not suppose Oranges worth growing +except (a rather large exception) for their beauty; with Lemons it is +different--they are certainly worth growing,--but then they do best +trained up against the back of a moderately heated house, and not moved +out in summer. + + +_February 22._--Since I wrote we have had the sharpest and keenest +frost--sharper than we have had all the winter; and an east wind which +at once dried and froze up everything. Now spring has come again, and +(as Horace says) has "shivered" through the trees. The Elders are +already unfolding their leaves, and a Lonicera is in freshest bud. I +remember when, a few years ago, Mr. Longfellow, the American poet, was +in England, he told me that he was often reminded by the tender foliage +of an English spring of that well-known line of Watts, where the fields +of Paradise + + "Stand dressed in _living green_;" + +and I thought of this to-day when I looked, as I remember he was +looking, at the fresh verdure of this very Lonicera. + +But all things are now telling of spring. We have finished our pruning +of the wall-fruit; we have collected our pea-sticks, and sown our +earliest Peas. We have planted our Ranunculus bed and gone through the +herbaceous borders, dividing and clearing away where the growth was too +thick, and sending off hamperfuls of Paeony, Iris, Oenothera, Snowflake, +Japanese Anemone, Day Lily, and many others. On the other hand we have +been looking over old volumes of Curtis's _Botanical Magazine_, and +have been trying to get, not always successfully, a number of old +forgotten plants of beauty, and now of rarity. We have found enough, +however, to add a fresh charm to our borders for June, July, and August. + +On the lawn we have some Aconites in flower. They are planted at the +foot of two great Beech trees, and last year they lay there--a soft +yellow light upon the grass. This year they are doing badly. I suspect +they must have been mown away last spring before their tubers were +thoroughly ripe, and they are punishing us now by flowering only here +and there. I know no flower so quaint as this--the little yellow head +emerging from its deeply-cut Elizabethan ruff of green. Then, too, the +Crocuses are bursting up from the soil, like Byron's Assyrian cohorts, +"all gleaming in purple and gold." Nothing is more stupid than the +ordinary way of planting Crocuses--in a narrow line or border. Of course +you get a line of colour, but that is all, and, for all the good it +does, you might as well have a line of coloured pottery or variegated +gravel. They should be grown in thick masses, and in a place where the +sun can shine upon them, and then they open out into wonderful depths +of beauty. I am afraid Dr. Forbes Watson's most charming book on +_Flowers and Gardens_ is too little known. No modern author, not even +excepting Ruskin, has studied the form and the beauty of flowers so +closely and lovingly as he has done, and he entirely bears out my view. +He says-- + + "This is one of the many plants which are spoilt by too much + meddling. If the gardener too frequently separates the offsets the + individual blooms may possibly be finer, but the lover of flowers + will miss the most striking charms of the humbler and more + neglected plant. The reason is this: the bloom, when first opening, + is of a deeper orange than afterwards, and this depth of hue is + seemingly increased where the blossoms are small from crowded + growth. In these little clusters, therefore, where the flowers are + of various sizes, the colour gains in varieties and depth, as well + as in extent of surface, and vividness of colour is the most + important point in the expression of the yellow Crocus." + +Besides the clusters along the shrubberies and the mixed borders, I have +a number on the lawn beneath a large weeping Ash; the grass was bare +there, and, though this is hidden in summer by the heavy curtains of +pendent boughs and crowding leaves, it was well to do something to veil +its desolation in the spring. Nothing can be more successful than a mass +of Crocus, yellow, white, and purple. + +I sometimes think that the Crocus is less cared for than it deserves. +Our modern poets rarely mention it; but in Homer, when he would make a +carpet for the gods, it is of Lotus, Hyacinth, and Crocus; and Virgil's +bees find their honey among Cassia and Lime blossoms, and "iron-grey +Hyacinths and glowing Crocus." Virgil speaks, too, of the scent of the +Crocus (whatever that may be), and all Latin authors, when they wish to +express a bright deep orange colour, call it the colour of the Crocus. + +Our cool vinery is now gay with stages of Narcissus, Tulips, and +Hyacinths, which have been brought on in heat, and are well rewarding us +for what care we have given to them. + + + + +IV. + +The Rookery--Daffodils--Peach Blossoms--Spring Flowers-- + Primroses--Violets--The Shrubs of Spring. + + +_March 6._--We have a tradition, or, if you will, a superstition, in +this part of the world, that rooks always begin to build on the first +Sunday in March. Last year my rooks were punctual to a day. This year, +although they began a day or two earlier, it was not till the morning of +Sunday the 1st that they showed real activity. Then the belt of trees +which they frequent, and which for want of any better name we call "our +wood," was all alive and clamorous. These rooks are only with us from +March to the end of May, and then they are off again for the rest of the +year to the woods which cluster thickly round the stately hall of the +great nobleman of our county. But they never quite forget their nests +among our Elms; and it is pleasant to see them in summer, and oftener +still in late autumn, winging their way across the fields, and then +wheeling down upon the trees. Who was it, who so happily applied to +rooks the lines from the sixth Aeneid, where Virgil, speaking of the +descent of Aeneas and his guide upon the Elysian plains, says + + "Devenere locos laetos, et amoena vireta + Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas"? + + "And down they came upon the happy haunts, + The pleasant greenery of the favoured groves-- + Their blissful resting-place." + +There are many secrets about the rooks which I can never solve. Why do +they build in the Elm rather than the Beech? My best trees are Beeches, +but there are only two nests in them, whereas in a single Elm there are +no less than ten. Why, again, do the old birds prevent the young ones +from building in some particular tree? Sometimes, no doubt, there may be +an unhappy association of the past, as in a case mentioned in +Hawthorne's _English Note Book_, where in a garden, which I took him to +see, not very far from this, some nests were once destroyed in a clump +of trees, and never since has nest been built there. Sometimes, I think, +because the rooks like to reserve certain trees as storehouses, from +whence to gather their sticks. Again, how far is rook-shooting good for +a rookery? It is commonly believed that, if a certain number are not +shot, the rooks will desert. Is this so, and, if so, what should be the +proportion? I have some sixty nests, and I wish to keep about this +number. + +I have planted many wild Daffodils in the wood; they are now coming into +flower, but they do not seem to flourish as they should. I am told that +Daffodils do not do well under a rookery, but I hardly think this +likely. + +If, as I said last month, the Crocus has been neglected by English +poets, the Daffodil has no right to complain. Some of the most charming +lyrics in the language are connected with this flower. Who does not +remember Herrick's + + "Fair Daffodils, we weep to see + You haste away so soon;" + +or Wordsworth's + + "Host of golden Daffodils + Beside the lake, beneath the trees, + Fluttering and dancing in the breeze"? + +Jean Ingelow, too, in her _Persephone_, makes the Daffodil the flower +which tempts the unhappy maiden from her companions as they ramble along +the fields of Enna-- + + "The Daffodils were fair to see, + They nodded lightly on the lea, + Persephone, Persephone! + Lo! one she marked of rarer growth + Than Orchis or Anemone; + For it the maiden left them both + And parted from her company. + Drawn nigh she deemed it fairer still, + And stooped to gather by the rill + The Daffodil, the Daffodil." + +The end of the story we all know right well, for "Perdita" told us long +ago how Persephone let her Daffodils all fall "from Dis's waggon." + + +_March 25._--Again we have had frost and snow, and this time it has done +us harm. The early bloom of the Apricot has turned black, and our chance +of a crop rests with the later buds. However, there are plenty still; +and now, in words familiar to half the children of England, "the crimson +blossoms of the Peach and the Nectarine are seen, and the green leaves +sprout." Here our promise is not so good, and we have nothing like the +bloom of last year; in fact, a crop of Peaches and Nectarines in the +open air is very uncertain in this Lancashire climate, and many of my +neighbours have given in entirely, and have taken to glass-houses. I +still go on; but certainly last year, in spite of the show of blossom, +was not encouraging. Whether it is the increase of smoke or of chemical +works I cannot say, but formerly wall fruit answered far better in these +parts than it does at present. It is remarkable, however, that Sir +William Temple, writing just 200 years ago, objects to growing Peaches +farther north than Northampton, and praises a Staffordshire friend for +not attempting them, and "pretending no higher, though his soil be good +enough, than to the perfection of Plums." + +We have been busy renewing the Box edgings to our flower-beds where it +was required. Last year we had carelessly laid down salt on the narrow +walks to destroy some weeds, and it has injured a good deal of the Box; +some injury, too, has been caused by the growth of several strong +plants, which got out of bounds and smothered it. Our garden is not a +good spring garden. The soil is cold and heavy, and the delicate spring +flowers do not thrive; but, on the other hand, no garden about is a +better summer garden. It is a regular sun-trap, and yet even in the +hottest weather the plants keep fresh and unburnt. Meanwhile the white +Scilla, the double Daffodil, the Arabis, and some others, are doing well +enough. A bed of Daisies and another of Polyanthus are far from +satisfactory. Hepaticas I have tried over and over again, and they +always fail. + +In front of one of the beds of evergreens on the lawn I planted some +double Primroses--yellow, white, red, and lilac; some of them are +showing their blossoms, but they are not vigorous. By the way, I found +it very difficult to get these Primroses, and had to pay what seemed an +excessive price for them. They are, I fear, among the old neglected +flowers, which we run a good chance of losing altogether, if gardeners +will confine themselves entirely to bedding plants. + +There is a charmingly fantastic conceit in one of Herrick's poems, "To +Primroses filled with Morning Dew." He thinks they may be weeping, +because + + "Ye have not seen as yet + The Violet." + +My Primroses at least have not this excuse, for we have Violets in +abundance, and they scent all the air as we pass through the garden +door. Even in winter a faint fragrance lingers among their leaves--a +shadowy memory of a perfume, which haunts them even when no single +flower can be found. Bacon says that "the flower which above all others +yields the sweetest smell in the air is the Violet; specially the +double white Violet which comes twice a-year: about the middle of April +and about Bartholomew-tide." Where is the double white Violet grown now? + +One of the greatest floral heresies of modern days is as regards the +Violet. Both Ruskin and Lord Stanhope have asserted that the Violet of +the Greek and Latin poets was an Iris! If so, we are to believe that +Athens was crowned with Iris; that the revellers at banquets decked +themselves with wreaths of Iris; that wine was flavoured with Iris +juice; and that a Violet is nowhere mentioned! Fortunately, however, +Pliny makes it clear that there were Violets and Irises both, in old +classic times; and the city of the Violet-crown is fragrant as of +yore.[2] + + [2] See note I. on the Viola of the Romans. + +Some of the flowering shrubs are now coming out and looking gay. There +is the Mezereon with its upright shoots, all purpled over with their +blossom; there is the Rhododendron dauricum with its beautiful lilac +bloom; there, the oldest favourite of all, is the Pyrus japonica, with +its bunches of cherry-coloured flowers, breaking out all along the +hard-twisted branches. This Pyrus is no doubt most effective when +trained up against a wall, and then, of course, it flowers earlier; but +one bush of it is quite worth growing in any garden. + +The last bit of planting we have done this year is an addition to our +flowering-trees. We have got two of the best Robinias--the glutinosa and +the hispida--and I shall be much disappointed if they do not prove a +great success. + + + + +V. + +The Herbaceous Beds--Pulmonaria--Wallflowers--Polyanthus-- + Starch Hyacinths--Sweet Brier--Primula Japonica--Early + Annuals and Bulbs--The Old Yellow China Rose. + + +_April 4._--Is any moment of the year more delightful than the present? +What there is wanting in glow of colour is more than made up for in +fulness of interest. Each day some well-known, long-remembered plant +bursts into blossom on the herbaceous borders, and brings with it +pleasant associations of days that are no more, or of books that cannot +die. It is, I think, Alphonse Karr who says we should watch closely and +rejoice greatly over the slow procession of the flowers, as one by one +they appear, bloom, and fade; if we are past middle life, it is a sight +which, at best, we can only see some twenty or thirty times again. + +The common double Daffodils are already past, but we have still the +variety which, from its blended hues of dark orange and pale citron, the +children call--as they call the wild Linaria--"the butter-and-egg +flower." Here is the Saxifraga crassifolia, with its huge broad leaves +and its thick spikes of pink bell-blossom. It is almost too coarse +growing, however, for the border, and does better on a rude rockery, or +rather "loggery," which I have elsewhere. + +Here is the Pulmonaria or Lungwort, with its varied bloom of red and +blue, and with the white markings on its leaves, which were supposed to +look like lungs, and from which it takes its name. This Pulmonaria is +one of the large class of plants, which, it was believed, had a healing +power, and indicated that healing power by the form of leaf, or root, or +blossom. These herbs of grace--and it is doubtful whether any plant +would be entirely excepted--bore about with them, plain for all to see, +outward and visible signs of their secret and subtle virtue. Thus the +Liverwort (Hepatica) had the shape of a liver in its leaves, the +Eyebright (Euphrasia) looked up to you with an eye like your own--and +each had potency of healing for that part of the human body, of which +the image was expressed in its own frail form. + +Farther on are close green tufts of the Corydalis, with its delicate +lilac flowers. Then come bushes of Wallflower of the richest red-brown +colour--a colour like nothing else, and indeed without a name, that +would convey the depth and beauty of the dark tawny hue. What a contrast +to the little wild yellow flower, which draws its scanty life from the +wall of some grey old castle like that of Conway! Few scents are more +delicious than that of Wallflowers. Bacon says of them that they "are +very delightful, to be set under a parlour or lower chamber window." It +is an old controversy whether the Wallflower and the Gillyflower are the +same; but it seems tolerably clear that the latter name was rather +loosely used, and meant sometimes the Wallflower, but sometimes also the +Stock or the Clove Carnation. The Polyanthus on the borders has done +better than those on the separate bed; the pretty _tortoise-shell_ +blossoms (to use a good expression of Forbes Watson) are just now in +full perfection, and I have also a perfectly white Hose-in-hose +Polyanthus, which is really charming. There is a droll passage in one of +Sterne's love-letters to his future wife, in which he says--and he means +to be sentimental and pathetic-- + + "The kindest affections will have room to shoot and expand in our + retirement.--Let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a + distance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. [the + lady's name was Lydia] has seen a Polyanthus blow in December! + Some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind.--No + planetary influence shall reach us but that which presides over and + cherishes the sweetest flowers." + +There is still one other flower of which I must speak. It grows so +abundantly, it flowers so luxuriantly with me;--it comes up like a weed +on almost every border, and I have given it one entire bed to itself. It +is the Starch or Grape Hyacinth, known also, I believe, as the Plum or +Cluster Hyacinth. Its lower bells are of the darkest indigo, but towards +the top it melts into the softest sky-blue tints, and when in masses it +is beautiful. Ruskin says it is "as if a cluster of Grapes and a hive of +honey had been distilled and compressed together into one small boss of +celled and beaded blue." + +Upon the wall by the vinery a Corchorus (Kerria) japonica is laden with +wreaths of golden blossom. An Almond-tree near the front door is just +shedding its pink petals. The double Gorse will be in flower in a week. +But after all there is no flowering shrub, which we care for more just +now than the still unflowering Sweet Brier. Towards the end of the +walled garden I have laid out a miniature herb garden, with its separate +little beds for Thyme and Marjoram, and Sage and Borage, and the rest, +and inclosed it within a hedge of Sweet Brier. This Sweet Brier is now +in leaf, and, after rain especially, it fills all that corner of the +garden with whiffs and snatches of sweetest perfume. The Sweet Brier is +the true Eglantine of the poets, for though Milton seems to confound +"twisted Eglantine" with the Honeysuckle, Shakspeare has it right, and +Titania's bower is, as we all know, + + "Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine, + With sweet Musk Roses, and with Eglantine." + +By the way, is the Musk Rose still found in English gardens, and what is +it? Two years ago I got, with infinite trouble, a root or two, but they +have died down again, and I begin to doubt whether I shall ever know its +scent--a scent which Bacon says comes next to the Violet in perfuming +the garden's air. + + +_April 25._--The stages in the cool vinery are now gay with Spiraeas and +Cinerarias. The Lilies of the Valley are over, but they have done +exceedingly well this year. I wonder whether the Trillium grandiflorum +or Canadian Wood-Lily is generally known. I believe it to be hardy, but +it was new to me, and I had grown it in a pot in the vinery, and a very +pretty little flower it is, with its three green leaves, its three green +sepals, and its three white petals. I have grown in the same way, for +the first time, the Primula japonica, and surely nothing can be more +beautiful than its five circles of crimson blossoms, one whorl above +another. I have been so pleased with it, that I have just given orders +for an entire bed of it to be made, which shall remain permanently, and +between the plants I am dropping in Gladiolus bulbs, so that the bed +will be in beauty for many weeks. + +As I have before explained, you can hardly see the various beds of my +flower-garden at a glance, so that I can go to work independently of the +effects of the colour produced by elaborate bedding out. To tell the +truth, too, I am heartily weary of the monotony of modern gardens, with +their endless Pelargoniums, Calceolarias, and Verbenas. Some few such +beds I cannot of course dispense with, but I am always glad when I can +_reclaim_ a bed for permanent herbaceous plants, as in this case of the +Primula japonica. + +Another bed, I trust, may be successful in another way--it is a bed of +the blue Nemophila insignis. Two years ago I saw in the People's Garden +at Dublin, in the beginning of May, two beds, which struck me as being +almost the most effective in their colouring of any I had ever seen. One +was of Nemophila, the other of Virginian stock; one was a mass of the +most brilliant blue, the other a blending of shades of tenderest lilac. +The blooms were thick and close as possible, and the size of the flowers +much finer than that of the ordinary spring-sown annuals. The manager of +these gardens kindly explained to me his secret: the seeds were sown in +autumn, pricked out in spring, protected during the early months, and +then finally bedded out. Last year we tried with the Nemophila, but we +were too soon, and the frost caught us and destroyed our plants. This +year we are later, and, by giving some protection against cold and sun +for a few days longer, I hope to reproduce what I saw in Dublin. Another +year I may make trial of the Virginian Stock as well. + +The Hyacinth bed has done fairly well, but there were too many pinks +among the spikes for it to be quite successful. The Van Thol Tulips are +a terrible failure. Some mice got to the bed, and, though we have killed +thirteen of them, they had already eaten away so many of the crowns that +some dozen Tulips, appearing here and there, are all I have. The bed of +Golden Prince Tulips is, however, doing better; this always seems to me +a very handsome Tulip, and I sometimes fancy has a sweetness of scent +beyond all other kinds--a something, which at times half reminds one of +the odour of some Tea Rose. + +By the bye, I have had a Tea Rose in blossom in the vinery--of a sort I +rarely see, and of which I really do not know the proper name. It used +to grow over a cottage in Herefordshire, which I knew many years ago, +and the Herefordshire nurseryman, from whom I got my standard, calls it +"the old yellow China." Is this the right name, and is the Rose more +common than I imagine? Its petals are loose and thin, and of a pale +primrose colour, and before it is fully out it is at its best. Its +leaves are large and handsome, and of glossy green. Its blossom has a +certain half-bitter scent of Tea about it, to which the scent of no +other Tea Rose can at all compare--it is so strong and aromatic. + +We gathered our first forced Strawberries on the 16th; our first forced +French Beans on the 17th, and our first Asparagus on April 18. This is +early for us, but we are having the finest weather. + + + + +VI. + +Ants and Aphis--Fruit Trees--The Grass Walk--"Lilac-tide"-- + Narcissus--Snowflakes--Columbines--Kalmias--Hawthorn Bushes. + + +_May 4._--May set in this year with (as Horace Walpole somewhere says) +"its usual severity." We felt it all the more after the soft warm summer +weather we had experienced in April. The Lilac, which is only due with +us on the 1st of May, was this year in flower on the 28th of April. +Green Gooseberry tarts, which farther south are considered a May-day +dish, we hardly hope to see in this colder latitude for ten days later, +and now these cold east winds will throw back everything. + +I have been going over the fruit walls. The Apricots have, after all, +done fairly well, and, if they do not fall off at the "stoning," we +shall have nothing to complain of. Peaches and Nectarines are even worse +than I had feared. There was not much bloom to begin with; then what +bloom there was has set but badly; and now my most promising trees are +overrun with aphis and with ants. We are doing everything that can be +done to check the plague, but with only a partial success. I am told +that ants do no harm, and, indeed, are useful as against the aphis. I do +not know how this is. They seem to be most excellent friends, and the +more ants there are the more the leaves curl up, and the more the aphis +seems to thrive.[3] Last year one Peach-tree was completely killed, and +this year two of them are looking very miserable. There has been no want +of care or attention, but the enemy increases faster than we can destroy +it. Is it a disease (so to speak) in a particular tree, which spreads to +other trees? Or is it a blight in the air, against which we cannot +guard? And what remedy is there when we have used tobacco-powder and +Gishurst Compound, and all in vain? + + [3] I have since learned that the fact of the ant and the aphis being + constantly together is well known; and further, that a sweet juice + exudes from the aphis, on which the ant feeds. Pierre Huber declares + that the aphis is the _milch-cow_ of the ant; and adds, "Who would have + supposed that the ants were a _pastoral people_?" + +Two Fig-trees against the wall, in the sunniest corners, are promising a +full crop for this district; another Fig-tree of a smaller variety close +by bears nothing. The old Arabic proverb, which Emerson quotes, that "A +Fig-tree looking upon a Fig-tree becometh fruitful," has not held good +in this case. Lancashire, of course, is not the climate for Figs, but I +should doubt whether Fig-trees are anywhere so common in England as they +were 150 years ago, when Batty Langley of Twickenham wrote. He +recommends them to be grown as dwarfs or standards as well as against a +wall, and says they "are either white, black, yellow, grey, green, +brown, purple, or violet-coloured, consisting of sixteen different +kinds,"--but he adds that the white and the long purple do the best. + +The Pears against the wall have but little fruit, but the standards are +setting well, and the Apples will not, I hope, have suffered from this +spell of cold. The new grass walk, of which I wrote on January 5 as +passing right through the garden, is shaded by some Apple-trees, and it +is pleasant to see their flakes of rosy snow falling softly on the fresh +green beneath. Between these old Apple-trees and the young standards I +have planted, there was room, which I am making ornamental with cones of +Scarlet Runners. We have some five circles on each side of the walk, and +shall train up the bean tendrils by strings fastened to a centre pole, +so that in summer we shall have a succession of tents of scarlet and +green. I tried this method of training Scarlet Runners on a smaller +scale last year. The effect was excellent. Then, too, close along the +grass on either side I am planting a broad belt of Violets, so that this +new walk will one day be the sweetest part of the garden. Lastly, to +give colour to the end of the walk, where it is bounded by the hedge of +the croft, I am sowing the large Everlasting Pea, and the strongest +growing Nasturtium, that they may climb and trail among the Hawthorn and +the clipped Beech. + +The outside borders and the lawn clumps are beautiful with flowering +shrubs. No season is like "Lilac-tide," as it has been quaintly called, +in this respect. Besides the Lilac itself, there are the long plumes of +the white Broom, the brilliant scarlet of the hybrid Rhododendrons, the +delicious blossoms, both pink and yellow, of the Azaleas, the golden +showers of the Laburnum, and others too numerous to mention. A +Judas-tree at an angle of the house is in bud. The General Jacqueminot +between the vineries has given us a Rose already. + +The cuckoo has been calling for days past among the trees beyond the +orchard, and the song birds seem to be awake half through the night. + +The foliage of the large forest-trees is particularly fine this year. +The Horse Chestnuts were the first in leaf, and each branch is now +holding up its light of waxen blossom. The Elms came next, the Limes, +the Beeches, and then the Oaks. Yet still + + "the tender Ash delays + To clothe herself when all the woods are green," + +and is all bare as in mid-winter. This, however, if the adage about the +Oak and the Ash be true, should be prophetic of a fine hot summer. + + +_May 21._--I wonder if any effect of bedding out is finer than that +which my mixed borders have now to show. They are at their very best, +for it is the reign of the Paeony and the Iris. Great clumps of each, the +one bowed down with the weight of its huge crimson globes, the other +springing up erect with its purple-headed shafts, appear at intervals +along the borders, and each lends a fresh grace to the form and colour +of the other. + +Among other flowers in rare beauty just now are (as once in the garden +of "the Sensitive Plant,") + + "Narcissi, the fairest among them all, + Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess + Till they die of their own dear loveliness." + +Was it, I wonder, owing to this story of Narcissus, and as an emblem of +self-seeking, that the Greeks twined the white stars of this flower +among the tangled locks of the Eumenides? + +The Snowflakes have been flowering abundantly, but they are now passing. +The Greek name for the Snowflake is the Leucoion--literally the white +Violet--and I think it possible that in a passage of Ovid, where he +speaks of the Violet, the Poppy, and the Lily being broken by a storm, +he is really thinking of the Snowflake. I am satisfied, as I have +already said, that the _Iris_ is never (as Lord Stanhope asserted) +called the Violet. + +My Auriculas are not as good as they should be in a Lancashire garden, +for of all flowers it is the old Lancashire favourite. It is still known +as the Basier (a corruption, no doubt, of Bear's Ear), and a pretty +Lancashire ballad ends every verse with the refrain, + + "For the Basiers are sweet in the morning of May." + +The old-fashioned Columbine is in full bloom, as is also the Aquilegia +glandulosa. I have planted the Aquilegia coerulea, but both the plant +and some seeds which I have sown have failed me, and I half fear I may +never be successful with this finest of the Columbines. Before I leave +the Columbine, let me mention a mistake in one of Jean Ingelow's very +prettiest poems, which her _literary_ critics seem never to have +detected. She says-- + + "O Columbine, open your folded wrapper, + Where two twin turtle-doves dwell." + +But she is confusing the Columbine with the Monk's Hood. The doves of +the Columbine cluster round the centre like the doves of Pliny's vase. +The doves of the Monk's Hood are only seen as you remove the "wrapper," +and then the old idea was that they are drawing a "Venus' chariot." + +The accidental grouping of plants on a mixed border is often very happy. +A week or two back I found growing out of a tuft of Forget-me-not a +plant of the Black Fritillary. The blue eyes of the Forget-me-not seemed +to be looking up into the hanging bells of the Fritillary, and were a +pleasant contrast to the red-brown of its petals. Gerarde's name for the +Fritillary was the "Turkie or Ginnie-hen Flower," and the name of the +Fritillary was itself derived from the _fritillus_ or dice-box, which +the common Fritillary was supposed to resemble in its markings. + +In the middle of each group of beds, which the grass walk divides, is a +circular bed full of American shrubs. Among these shrubs are several +rather fine Kalmias. Very often they do not flower at all, or at best +bear a bloom only here and there. This year they are laden with blossom, +which is now just ready to burst, and I shall have a show of Kalmia +flowers such as I have not seen, since two-and-twenty years ago, I +wandered among the Kalmia brakes in the forests of Virginia; and the +flower is so beautiful--pink outside, and, as Ruskin says, inside "like +the beating out of bosses in hollow silver, beaten out apparently in +each petal by the stamens instead of a hammer." + +Another bed, which will be very effective in a day or two, is a bed of +the double Persian Brier, pegged and trained. The festoons of yellow +buds are all but out, and will be one mass of sweet and lovely little +Roses. + +The Nemophila bed has done very well, but we did not plant it as thickly +as we should have done, and there are bare places here and there. + +I have still to mention the great bushes, or rather trees, of Hawthorn, +of which some stand in front of the dining-room windows, while others +fling their perfume across the hedge that divides the garden and the +croft. There is another Lancashire May song, from which I cannot but +quote a few lines, as it is but little known. The Mayers come to the +door and sing (or sang, rather, for the custom no longer holds with +us):-- + + "We have been rambling all this night, + And almost all this day; + And now, returned back again, + We've brought you a branch of May. + A branch of May we have brought you, + And at your door it stands; + It is but a sprout, but it's well budded out, + By the work of our Lord's hands." + + + + +VII. + +The Summer Garden--The Buddleia--Ghent Azaleas--The Mixed + Borders--Roses--The Green Rose. + + +_July 13._--There is a longer interval than usual since my last notes; +but I have been away among the Soldanellas and the Gentians of +Switzerland, and I have had to leave my garden to the gardener's care. +Now that I have returned, I find how much has gone on, and how much I +must have missed. The Nemophila bed, I hear, gradually filled up and +became a perfect sheet of brilliant blue. The Anemone bed was very good, +and that of Ranunculus very fair; but best of all, as I knew it would +be, was the bed of Brier Roses, with their trained branches laden with +sweet little yellow blossoms. + +The Kalmias too are over, and the alpine Rhododendrons (Roses des Alpes) +are also nearly at an end; but I have just found them wild upon the +Wengern Alp, and that must be my consolation. There is nothing I am +more sorry to have missed than the great shrub--almost tree--of Buddleia +globosa, which grows in the centre of one of the herbaceous borders. It +has been, as it always is, covered with its golden balls, smelling of +honey, and recalling an old garden in Somersetshire which I knew years +ago. It is certainly true that nothing calls up associations of the past +as does the sense of smell. A whiff of perfume stealing through the air, +or entering into an open window, and one is reminded of some far-off +place on some long-past day when the same perfume floated along, and for +one single moment the past will seem more real than the present. The +Buddleia, the Magnolia, and one or two other flowers always have this +power over me. + +I have still one Azalea, and only one, in blossom; it has a small and +very fragrant white flower. + +I have been lately reading several articles about the fly-catching +flowers. Is it generally known that no fly-catcher is more cruel and +more greedy than the common Ghent Azalea, especially, I think, the large +sweet yellow one? On one single blossom, which I gathered just before +leaving home, at the end of May, I found no less than six flies; four of +them were quite dead, and of one or two nothing remained but a shred of +wing. Two others were still alive, but the Azalea had already nearly +drained their life away, and held them so tightly with its viscid hairs +that I could hardly release them from its grasp. On the other blossoms +in the truss were other flies, three, four, or five; so that the entire +Azalea shrub had probably caught some hundreds.[4] + + [4] See note II. on the Azalea viscosa. + +The mixed borders are almost past their best,--at least the hairy red +Poppy, the day Lily, and the early purple Gladiolus are over, and, of +course, the Irises and Paeonies. At present various Canterbury Bells, +Valerian (which I saw bedded out the other day at Liege), and the white +and orange Lily, are the gayest things we have. There is a Mullein, too, +which is well worth a corner in any garden. Not long since I saw, in +some book of rambles through our southern counties, the spire of a +cathedral with its pinnacles and crockets compared to a spike of Mullein +flower. It is certainly the Mullein (the distinctive name of which I do +not know) which is now in bloom with me; and, indeed, the resemblance +had occurred to me before I had read the book. + +But I hardly care to linger over other flowers, when the Rose-beds are +in their fullest splendour. The summer Roses must have been better a +fortnight back, but the perpetuals are as good as can be, and many of +the summer Roses yet remain. I sometimes fear that the passion for +large, well-formed blossoms, and the desire of novelty, will make some +of the dear old Roses of our childhood pass into entire neglect; yet, +when we think of a Rose, of which any poet has written, it will not be +La France, or Senateur Vaisse, or Alfred Colomb--beautiful as they are. +When Herrick warns us-- + + "Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may," + +or when Hood tells us-- + + "It was the month of Roses, + We plucked them as we passed," + +--their Roses were other than the favourite Roses of to-day. Perhaps +they were the old Cabbage Rose, a great bush of which grows next to a +bed of Lavender, and pleasantly scents the garden as you enter it. +Perhaps they were the Portland Rose, of which I have some three beds, +and than which no Rose is better for the making of Pot Pourri, as the +young ladies in Mr. Leslie's picture may learn to their advantage. +Perhaps they were the Moss Rose, with its mossed buds and fragrant +blossoms, of which I have another bed entirely for itself. Perhaps they +were the Maiden Blush, or the York and Lancaster, or the sweet old +China, with its pink shell petals, which comes so soon and lingers on so +late--the last Rose, not of summer but of autumn.[5] Then there are +other old Roses which should not be neglected. The Rose Unique, which is +a white Cabbage Rose, is one; the Rose Celeste, the thin delicate buds +of which are so beautiful, is another. Then there is the little Rose de +Meaux, and the old Damask, which indeed seems to have nearly +disappeared. + + [5] It is mentioned in the _Baroness Bunsen's Life_ how Mrs. Delany + loved to fill her china bowls with the pink buds of the Monthly Rose, + surrounded by sea-green shoots of the young Lavender. + +It must have been one of these Roses, be sure, and not a Tea or a +perpetual, which Lady Corisande finds in her garden for Lothair. + +Not of course that we are not grateful for the new Roses, with their +brilliant colouring and their perfect form, but we are unwilling that +the old should be forgotten. The Gloire de Dijon and General Jaqueminot +seem to me the most vigorous and most useful, if not the finest; but I +have two old standards which are at the moment more effective than +anything I have. One is Boule de Nantes, the other an old summer Rose, +the name of which I do not know, but which, when fully out, much +resembles the Comtesse de Jaucourt. They are not trained in any way, and +I find, measuring round their heads, that one has a circumference of 12 +feet, and the other of 12-1/2 feet. In the South of England it is no +doubt different, but for us these are large dimensions; and certainly +nothing I now get from the nursery gardens seems inclined to attain to +half the size. + +There is one Rose in my garden which flourishes abundantly, but which is +the only Rose, of which I should decline to give a cutting. It is so +ugly that it is worth nothing, except as a curiosity; and if it ceased +to be a curiosity it would be quite valueless. It is a _green_ Rose. I +got a small plant from Baltimore, in America, some years ago, and I find +it perfectly hardy. It flowers very freely, and all through the summer; +the bud is a perfect Rose bud in appearance, but the open flower shows +that the Rose is of monstrous and not natural growth; the petals are, it +seems to me, no real petals at all, but an expansion of the green heart, +which often appears in Roses, and which has here been so cultivated as +to take the place of the natural Rose. These petals are coarse and +irregular, and have serrated edges, with a very faint scent.[6] + + [6] Mr. Buist, of the Rosedale Nurseries, Philadelphia, has since + written to the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ on the origin of the Green + Rose:--"There appears to be some uncertainty in regard to the origin of + this Rose. It is a sport from Rosa Indica (the China Rose of England and + Daily Rose of America). It was caught in Charleston, S.C., about 1833, + and came to Baltimore through Mr. R. Halliday, from whom I obtained it, + and presented two plants to my old friend, Thomas Rivers, in 1837." + +How the Rose twines itself around all history and all literature! There +are the Rose gardens of Persia, and the loves of the Rose and +nightingale; there are those famous Roses once plucked in the Temple +Garden, of which "the pale and bloody petals" (to use a fine expression +of Hawthorne's) were strewed over many an English battle-field; there is +the golden Rose which the Pope gives as the best of gifts to the +foremost among Catholic monarchs--emblem at once of a fading earthly +life, and of the unfading life in heaven. + +Of English poets is there one, who does not celebrate the Rose, and of +all is there one, who draws from it a more tender morality than Waller +in "Go, lovely Rose"? + +But no nation ever loved the Rose as did the Greeks, and it was _their_ +legend that told us how the Rose sprang to birth. Bion's "Lament for +Adonis" has been translated by Mrs. Browning, and I know no translation +equal to it in general fidelity and vigour of expression. It appears to +me, on the whole, perhaps the very best translation in the language. +Here are the lines which tell this part of the story:-- + + "Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead; + She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed, + And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden close,-- + Her tears to the Windflower, his blood to the Rose." + +Another still more famous Greek poem about the Rose is one by Sappho, +which Mrs. Browning has also most beautifully translated--a fit task, +which unites the names of the two great poetesses of Greece and England. +The poem begins:-- + + "If Zeus chose us a king of the flowers in his mirth, + He would call to the Rose and would royally crown it: + For the Rose, ho! the Rose, is the grace of the earth; + Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it." + +No wonder the Greeks wove their wreaths of the Rose, or that "under the +Rose" they passed many a gay and happy hour, to be kept in memory, if +untold in words. + +My bedding-out is of course finished, but of this I must speak on the +next occasion. The weather has been hot, and rain will now be welcome. + + + + +VIII. + + The Fruit Crop--Hautbois Strawberries--Lilium Auratum--Sweet + Williams--Carnations--The Bedding-out. + + +_August 15._--It is, I find, a dangerous thing to leave a garden +masterless for even a month. The best of gardens will probably fall +short in some respect, and I certainly discover several matters which +would have been otherwise had I remained at home. My readers will hardly +be interested by the details of my grievances; it is pleasanter to tell +where we have been successful. + +The wall fruit, however, I must mention. The ants and the aphis, and +possibly some frost, have destroyed the Peach crop utterly. There is not +a single Peach, and the Nectarines, which are certainly a hardier fruit +with us, only number thirty in all! The Apricots have done fairly, and +were so early that we gathered three or four in the last days of July--a +full month before their usual time. The Moorpark Apricot, which we owe +to Sir William Temple, is still the best. By the way, he tells us that +the Roman name for Apricots is Mala epirotica. Is this the root of the +word Apricot, or may we still look upon it as from "apricus," the "sunny +fruit,"--the fruit that loves the sun and has caught its own bright +colour?[7] + + [7] I believe, as a matter of fact, that the more received derivation + of Apricot is "praecox." + +Of the smaller fruit Cherries have been a failure, with the exception +indeed of the Morellos. Gooseberries have done well, though I fear I +cannot compete with the giant Gooseberries of a Lancashire Gooseberry +show. The Currants, whether against the wall or on bushes, have been +capital, and the black Currants would take a prize at any show. We now +net up some Currant bushes for the later autumn. The Raspberries, which +we train in arches, have done tolerably, and we should have a second +crop of the white ones in October. + +The Strawberries have been an average crop, and the little Alpines have +been capital--so large, so highly flavoured, and so redolent of +Switzerland! + +I am trying, too, for the first time, to grow Hautbois Strawberries, +which are almost unknown with us. We are as yet not very successful, and +I well know how capricious a fruit it is as regards setting. A year or +two ago I was breakfasting with a well-known and most courtly physician +in London, who is since dead. A dish of beautiful Hautbois was on the +table. We were all admiring. "Yes," said our host, "they are now getting +very rare. Sometimes a patient says to me, 'May I not have a little +fruit?' 'Certainly not!' is my answer. 'Surely a few Strawberries?' +Then, that I may not seem a great curmudgeon, I say, 'Well, a few +Strawberries, but be sure they are Hautbois;' _and I know they can't get +them!_" To ordinary Strawberries a Hautbois is what a Tea Rose is to +ordinary Roses; it has an aroma all its own, and unlike all others. + +In the flower garden the finest bed is one which I have now had for the +last three years. It is a bed of Lilium auratum, with the dark +Heliotrope growing in between. I take up the Lily bulbs for the winter, +bring them on in heat, and then plant them out. They are really +beautiful, and each year they seem more vigorous. Some have four +blossoms, some have six or eight, and one has as many as ten. The strong +perfume lies heavy on that end of the garden, and I think this Lily +should never be brought inside the house. It is curious how the blossoms +vary; in some the golden stripes are so much deeper, in some the dark +claret spots are so much more numerous. + +Another bed is of Lilium speciosum, planted to take the place of a bed +of Sweet William, which was quite a glow of colour in the earlier part +of the summer. This dear old Sweet William, which was the favourite in +the old cottage gardens, and which, with the Lad's-love and the Pink, +was the chosen flower for the buttonhole of the country boy, is now far +too much neglected. Its rich velvet clusters of twenty different shades +make a bed of exquisite beauty. It is over too soon, but it can be +_supplanted_ (may I say?) by something else. In a second bed of Sweet +Williams I placed Gladiolus bulbs, and now they are coming into flower +from out the green cushion, from which we have cut the withered +blossoms. + +A bed of the sweet little pink Pinks has of course been over some time, +and though the bed is now quite bare of bloom--for I cannot disturb the +roots--it is well worth sacrificing some colour in autumn for the three +summer weeks of delicious perfume. Clusters of white Pinks have been no +less sweet on the herbaceous borders, and now the Clove Carnations take +their place. + +It is curious that so familiar a flower as the Pink should be scarcely +mentioned by the great poets. Shakspeare only just names it, and I do +not think Marvell does. Milton, in his _Lycidas_, barely alludes to "the +white Pink," and Cowley has no separate poem in its praise. Indeed, one +may say generally that, with the exception of the Rose, the flowers in +which the poets have rejoiced, and which they have immortalised, are the +flowers of spring. Cowley, who wrote as a horticulturist, is the almost +solitary exception. There is, however, a rather pretty and fanciful +little song of Herrick's "To Carnations:"-- + + "Stay while ye will, or goe; + And leave no scent behind ye: + Yet trust me, I shall know + The place where I may find ye: + Within my Lucia's cheek, + Whose livery ye weare, + Play ye at hide or seek, + I'm sure to find ye there." + +For the ordinary bedding-out of ordinary gardens I have a real contempt. +It is at once gaudy and monotonous. A garden is left bare for eight +months in the year, that for the four hottest months there shall be a +blaze of the hottest colour. The same combinations of the same flowers +appear wherever you go. Calceolarias, Verbenas, and Zonal Pelargoniums, +with a border of Pyrethrum or Cerastium--and that is about all. There +is no thought and no imagination. The "bedding-stuff" is got together +and planted out, and each year of planting is a repetition of the year +before; and thus, as Forbes Watson says so truly, "Gardeners are +teaching us to think too little about the plants individually, and to +look at them chiefly as an assemblage of beautiful colours. It is +difficult in those blooming masses to separate one from another; all +produce so much the same sort of impression. The consequence is, people +see the flowers on our beds without caring to know anything about them, +or even to ask their names." Any interest in the separate plants is +impossible, and then they are, almost without exception, scentless +plants, to which no association attaches, and which are cared for merely +because they give a line or patch of red or yellow to the garden. "The +lust of the eye and the pride of life,"--there is little purer pleasure +to be drawn from "bedding stuff" than those words convey. However, there +is already a reaction setting in, and the use of Echeverias and the like +gives evidence at least of a more refined taste in colour, though in +themselves nothing can be less interesting. Meanwhile, as some +bedded-out beds will always be necessary, we may try to diversify them +as much as possible. The following are among my most successful:--A bed +of Agapanthus, with its beautiful foliage and sky-blue umbels, is +surrounded with bright yellow Peacock Gazania; a bed of scarlet Lobelia +cardinalis (is this the "Cardinal Flower" that American writers speak +of?) is edged with the white Ribbon-grass, and that again with the blue +Lobelia speciosa; and a second bed of the same Lobelia cardinalis, the +bronze foliage of which harmonises so well with the spikes of glowing +red, has the Lobelia speciosa next to it, and the Golden Pyrethrum as a +border. Another bed is of Humea elegans, edged with the white +variegated-leaved Miss Kingsbury Pelargonium, and that again with the +blue Lobelia. Into other beds I have introduced the variegated Aloe and +the Aralia, as centres for the more dwarf and brightly-coloured +Verbenas. + +Of the variegated Pelargoniums I find the Beauty of Calderdale the most +effective and most vigorous, and though I am told "Mrs. Pollock has a +most excellent constitution," she does less well with me. One other bed, +which is now over, has been too pretty for me not to mention; it was a +bed of Antirrhinums of all colours, and I shall certainly repeat it +another year. Lastly, I have a large bed of Clematis Jackmanii in full +glory. Last year it did fairly well, but the plants were comparatively +weak, and the flowers trailed upon the ground. This year the plants have +grown vigorously, and I have trained Withies all across the bed, so that +the purple blossoms twine and cling around them, and are now a perfect +mass of blossom. + +On the house a Clematis lanuginosa, with its large discs of lilac-grey, +is also very handsome, and seems to be doing as well as possible. + +In the outer garden a great cluster of yellow Broom has made the border +near the front door aglow with golden light; and in the vinery a +beautiful Clethra arborea--The Lily of the Valley Tree--has been laden +with bunches of its delicate and delicately-scented flowers. + +The weather has broken completely during the last fortnight, and it is +now too much, and not too little rain, of which we are complaining. + + + + +IX. + +Weeds--Tomatos--Tritomas--Night-scented Flowers--Tuberoses + --Magnolia--Asters--Indian Corn. + + +_September 4._--"The rain it raineth every day." It finds its way +through the old timbers of my first vinery, and the Grapes have to be +cut out by dozens. It drenches the Pelargoniums and Verbenas, till their +blossoms are half washed away. It soaks the petals of the great Lilies, +and turns them into a sickly brown. The slugs, I suppose, like it, for +they crawl out from the thick Box hedges and do all the harm they can. +Weeds, too, of every kind flourish luxuriantly, and we find it no easy +work to keep ahead of them. The author of _My Summer in a Garden_--the +most humorous little book about gardening ever written--never had such +trouble with "pusley" (what is "pusley"?) as I have with Groundsel. I +have enough to feed all the canary birds in the parish. Then, besides +the more ordinary and vulgar weeds, I have two varieties of Willow-herb, +which have seeded themselves all over the borders, and are for ever +appearing where I had fondly imagined they had been utterly uprooted. A +yellow Oxalis, too, has turned into a nuisance, and spreads where it was +never wanted. Meanwhile the summer fruits are over. The few Nectarines +we had have been gathered, and most of the Figs. The Apple-room begins +to fill with Keswick Codlings for cooking purposes, and Franklin's +Golden Pippin for dessert. As yet none of our Pears are ripe. The +Mulberry tree in the orchard drops its fruit before it is mature, but it +is rather too much shaded with the orchard trees, and, were it +otherwise, there has been but little sun to get to it. We use the +Mulberries, however, for tarts and for Mulberry ice, which I can +thoroughly recommend. The Tomatos are reddening in numbers along the +garden walls. We grow two sorts, Keye's Prolific and the Orangefield +Dwarf, and I hardly know which is best. Formerly the Tomato was known as +the Pomum amoris, or Love-apple, and was apparently grown only as a +garden ornament, and not for use.[8] Cowley mentions it in his "Flora," +with the Foxglove and the Canna. Gerarde says of it, "In Spaine and +those hot regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with +pepper, salt, and oil; but they yeelde very little nourishment to the +bodie, and the same naught and corrupt." Nor does Batty Langley, writing +in 1728, mention Tomatos, though he gives long lists of "raw sallets," +which include Nasturtium blossoms, Tarragon, Borage flowers, and Sorrel. + + [8] See Note III. on the "Solanum" tribe. + +The handsomest of our beds at present (except always the beds of +Jackman's Clematis and scarlet Lobelia) is a permanent bed of Tritomas, +which hold up their orange and crimson maces thickly as possible. These +Tritomas would, however, show to most advantage if planted with the +Arundo conspicua, the white plumes of which form the happiest contrast +to their glowing spikes. The Pampas-grass would be better still, but I +have not been able to make them blossom together. A patch of Tritomas on +the corner of the lawn has been a failure, owing to the carelessness of +a gardener, who cut them down with the grass in mowing. + +One other bed, also a permanent one, I have still to mention. It is a +mass of Anemone japonica[9] alba with Statice latifolia round it. This +Anemone, with its white blossoms surrounding a yellow centre, and +looking just like some very perfect white wild Rose, is a beautiful +flower, and the grey branched sprays of the Statice harmonise +wonderfully with it. + + [9] Why is this Anemone called _japonica_? It was first brought from + _Simla_ by Lady Amherst (the wife of the Governor-General of India), as + her granddaughter assures me. + +All along the vinery border has been a long row of Stocks, Asters, and +Mignonette, and the scent has been delicious, especially towards +evening, or after a warm shower of rain. In hot weather the garden is +almost too hot when the sun is full upon it, and I have always taken +care to grow the night-scented Stock and other flowers of the kind, so +that the garden, as evening comes on, may be as sweet as can be; but +this year these annuals, with several others, have done no good. On the +other hand, the large tall Oenothera opens hundreds of yellow stars each +night; and, better still, the beautiful Oenothera taraxacifolia, on the +herbaceous borders, unfolds a number of its large white blossoms, which +gleam out among the rich green foliage close upon the ground. Next year +I think I will have an entire bed of this white Oenothera; it will be +worth the space. + + +The Dahlias have been good with me this year, but I have done badly in +Hollyhocks. The Tobacco-plants, which I generally grow, and which were +last year so handsome, have also failed me; and so have the Ice-Plants, +the Egg-plants, and the Amaranthus salicifolius, nor do I see any +sufficient reason for it. + +The Tuberose, the flower which, even in the perfect garden of the +"Sensitive Plant," was said to be + + "The sweetest flower for scent that grows," + +has been very sweet with us. But we dare not leave it in our garden; we +bring the pots, with their tall green wands tipped with delicious tufts +of bloom, into the centre hall, and the warm perfume rises up the +staircase, and floats along the open gallery above. + + +_September 19._--I have just gathered from the wall between the vineries +the finest blossom I ever happen to have seen of what I maintain is the +finest flower in the world--the Magnolia grandiflora--so large and round +is it, of such a rich cream colour, and with such a rich strong scent. +The Tuberose even seems a plebeian flower by the side of the Magnolia. +Once only have I seen this Magnolia growing upon a lawn as a standard, +and I never saw any flowering tree so grand, as its dark green leaves +lifted up the large white chalices to catch the freshest dews from +heaven. But what must it be where this beautiful tree grows wild, as on +the + + "Hills with high Magnolia overgrown," + +where Gertrude of Wyoming was used to wander? + +And, as I gather this Magnolia, the feeling comes across me that now the +year is over as regards the garden. We may have another month of +flowers, but they are the flowers that linger on, not the flowers that +open out new pleasures for us; the Michaelmas Daisy alone remains,--for +"the Michaelmas Daisy blows lonely and late,"--before we reach the +Chrysanthemums and winter. We have now had all that summer and autumn +had to give us, and it seems as though Nature had exhausted all her +energies, and were ready for a long rest. The Fuchsias, that come up +year by year, are still in great beauty. The Jasmine, with variegated +leaves, that clings round an old brick pedestal in the middle of a +Kalmia bed, still opens its white blossoms. The Escallonia, that grows +up the house, will hang its red flowers in front of the library windows +for a fortnight still to come. But the year is virtually at an end, and +we talk only of the bulbs for the spring, or of the moving of shrubs in +the early winter. + +Yet I find two things, of which I have still to speak. The Asters have +been good. I had planted them in among the standard Rose beds, and very +gay they are. Many years have passed since I found the wild Aster of +America growing on the hill-side at Concord behind Hawthorne's house, +and was reminded of Emerson's lines-- + + "Chide me not, laborious band, + For the idle flowers I brought; + Every Aster in my hand + Goes home loaded with a thought." + +Then, by the side of the vinery, is growing a little row of Indian Corn. +The plants stand each from 9 to 11 feet high, and each bears its +flowering plume above, and its tasselled ears below. There are two +varieties, one yellow and one red. I brought them on in heat, and +planted them out when they were about a foot in height. This year, as +for three years past, they have ripened with me, and on one plant, +strangely enough, a piece of the flower has itself fructified! I am not +botanist enough to understand how this has happened.[10] + + [10] The editor of the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ explains--"It is simply an + admixture of the seed-bearing flowers with the pollen-forming flowers--a + not very uncommon event, though ordinarily the male and female blossoms + are borne in distinct spikes or panicles." The effect is certainly very + curious. + + + + +X. + +St. Luke's Summer--The Orchard--The Barberry--White Haricot + Beans--Transplanting--The Rockery. + + +_October 15._--This is St. Luke's summer, or the "Indian summer" as it +is called in America. The air is soft and warm and still. The yellow +leaves fall from the Beeches in countless numbers, but slowly and +noiselessly, and as if reluctant to let go their hold. The rooks come +back to us again across the fields, and clamour among the empty nests, +which were their homes in spring. The "remontant" Roses are putting out +their latest blooms, and the Antirrhinums, Mulleins, and some few other +flowers, show themselves "remontant" also. There is an aromatic +fragrance everywhere from the withering leaves and from the lingering +flowers. + +But there is sadness with it all. We cannot deceive ourselves, but we +know that all is now over, and that at any moment the frost may come, +and leave us nothing but decay and death. + +There are some lines in Morris's _Earthly Paradise_--the very best +lines, I think, in the whole poem--which speak of some old men's last +peaceful days, as + + "--like those days of later autumn-tide, + When he who in some town may chance to bide + Opens the window for the balmy air, + And, seeing the golden hazy sky so fair, + And from some city garden hearing still + The wheeling rooks the air with music fill-- + Sweet, hopeful music--thinketh, Is this spring? + Surely the year can scarce be perishing. + But then he leaves the clamour of the town, + And sees the withered scanty leaves fall down; + The half-ploughed field, the flowerless garden plot; + The full dark stream, by summer long forgot; + The tangled hedges where, relaxed and dead, + The twining plants their withered berries shed, + And feels therewith the treachery of the sun, + And knows the pleasant time is well-nigh done." + +Was picture ever more truly painted?--and any day it may be true for us. + +Our Apple harvest has been over for nearly a fortnight; but how pleasant +the orchard was while it lasted, and how pleasant the seat in the corner +by the Limes, whence we see the distant spire on the green wooded +slopes. The grey, gnarled old Apple-trees have, for the most part, done +well. The Ribston Pippins are especially fine, and so is an apple, which +we believe to be the King of the Pippins. On the other hand, we have +some poor and worthless sorts--probably local varieties,--which no +pomologist, however able and obliging, would undertake to name. One of +the prettiest of Apples--and one of the best, too--is the Delaware. It +has an orange-red colour, and reminds one almost of an Orange as it +hangs upon the tree. It has a crisp, delicious flavour, but requires to +be eaten as soon as it is ripe, for otherwise it soon gets mealy. Indeed +all eating apples, with but few exceptions, are best when freshly +gathered, or, better still, when, on some clear soft day, they have just +fallen on the grass, and lie there, warmed by the rays of the autumn +sun. + +Of my Pears I have not much to say: the new trees I have planted have +hardly come into bearing, and the old ones are of inferior quality. In +another year or two, however, I shall hope to be supplied through all +the winter months up to the middle of the spring. Plums have done but +little, and Damsons, which are supposed to succeed so well in +Lancashire, are an absolute failure. I must not forget the Red Siberian +Crab, which has been laden with fruit, and one tree of which should find +its corner in every garden. Last of all, I have to speak of the +Barberry. There is a great bush which stands by the grass walk in the +walled garden. In the summer it was a mass of scented yellow blossoms, +round which bees were always buzzing. Then, as the year grew older, +bunches of bright coral hung over it from top to bottom. We consider our +Barberries as not the least important of our fruit crop. We preserve +them, some in bunches, some picked like Currants. We crystallize them in +sugar, and they become delicious _bonbons_. We steep them in salt and +water, and they keep as a gay garnish for cold meat or game. Our +Barberry-tree is not looking its best at present; a big branch has +withered, and I must cut it in. + + +_October 24._--Since I wrote we have had a great gale, which has swept +over us, and torn down an Elm in the wood and a fine Chestnut in the +croft. I could ill spare either of them, and it is but poor comfort to +think that our piled-up logs will outlast the winter. It was the "wild +west wind," of which Shelley sings, which has done the mischief; and +smaller branches, lying scattered all over the lawn and walks, show us +where it passed. + +We are now preparing our Mushroom bed, for we shall need it as the green +vegetables fail us. I have said but little about the kitchen garden, +for I do not suppose it differs much from that of other people. Our Peas +have, however, served us particularly well, and we had our last dish on +October 1--later than I ever before have known them here. One excellent +vegetable I have generally grown, and I would thoroughly recommend it to +any one who has space to spare: it is the French White Haricot. It is +not often seen with us though it is so very common in France. It is a +species of French Bean, of which you eat the white bean itself instead +of slicing up the pod. I suspect that, taking England through, there are +very few gardens where the White Haricot is found. + +We are now busy with our planting. Some Rhododendrons and Aucubas in the +borders near the front gate have been pining away--starved by the +Elm-tree roots around them. We are trenching up the ground, cutting away +what smaller roots we can, and putting in manure and some new shrubs. We +are planting a row of Hollies to screen a wall towards the lane. We are +moving a Salisburia adiantifolia, with its strange foliage like a +gigantic Maidenhair Fern, from a corner into a more prominent place. We +shall then set to work to re-arrange the rockery. This, I think, I have +never mentioned. In the middle of the little wood was once a pond, but I +found the stagnant water and the soaking leaves, which fell and rotted +there, no advantage to the place; I therefore drained away the water and +planted beds of Azaleas and Rhododendrons along the slopes, with +Primroses, Violets, and Blue Bells, and in the middle of all I have +lately placed a tuft of Pampas-grass. On one slope I have managed a +rockery with a stone tank in the centre, where for three summers past +has flowered an Aponogeton distachyon. I have means of turning on fresh +water into the tank, and I am well repaid for any trouble, as the little +white boat-blossoms, laden with delicious spicy scent, rise up to the +surface of their tiny lake. The rockery is, however, too much under the +shade and drip of trees, and I cannot hope that delicate alpine flowers +should grow there. Sedums and Saxifragas, Aquilegias, Aubrietias, the +white Arabis, and the yellow Moneywort, besides Ferns of various kinds, +all do well. In another part of the wood is a loggery, which I have +entirely covered with the large white Bindweed, which rambles about at +its own will, and opens its blossoms, sometimes a dozen at a time, all +through the summer months. Past that, there is a little patch of +Bluebells, then more beds of Rhododendrons, and then a short walk, which +takes us by a private path to the village church, and then by another +branch returns again towards the house. In this part of the grounds +there is still room for planting, and I shall probably try some Tree +Rhododendrons. A standard Honeysuckle, which I have endeavoured to grow, +has done no good as yet; its shoots get nipped by the north-east winds, +but I do not yet despair. The most useful undergrowth I find is the +Elder; it thrives wonderfully, and is covered with blossom and with +berry. One variety, the Parsley-leaved Elder, is here equally hardy with +the common Elder, and much more graceful in its growth. + +We have now to take in our tender and half-hardy plants, for fear of a +sudden frost. The large Myrtles, which have stood out in their boxes, +must be placed in safety, and the Lobelia cardinalis and other +bedding-plants, which we may need next year, must be removed. + + + + +XI. + +The Wood and the Withered Leaves--Statues--Sun-dials--The + Snow--Plans for the Spring--Conclusion. + + +_November 7._--The soft autumn weather still spares what flowers the +rains have left us, and here and there are signs as if of another +spring. Violets along the grass walks, Strawberries in flower, and +to-day a little yellow Brier Rose blossoming on an almost leafless +spray, remind us of the early months of the year that is no more. But +here, too, are some of the flowers of November. The Arbutus has again +opened its bunches of waxen pink, and the Chrysanthemums are again +blooming on the shrubbery beds. The year has all but completed its +circle since first I wrote these notes, and I speak to-day of the +flowers, the same, yet not the same, as those of which I wrote eleven +months ago. + +The trees have lost nearly every leaf, and our little wood is bare as +the wood wherein poor Millevoye, so soon to die, once strolled when + + "De la depouille de nos bois + L'automne avait jonche la terre; + Le bocage etait sans mystere + Le rossignol etait sans voix." + + "The autumn's leafy spoil lay strewn + The forest paths along; + The wood had lost its haunted shade, + The nightingale his song." + +Had there been in happier days a "mystere" beyond the charm of waving +branches and whispering leaves? + +Another French poem on a withered leaf is better known, for it was +Macaulay who translated Arnault's verses, and rendered the last three +lines so perfectly:-- + + "Je vais ou va toute chose, + Ou va la feuille de Rose, + Et la feuille de Laurier." + + "Thither go I, whither goes + Glory's laurel, Beauty's rose." + +Among my ideas--I cannot call it plan, for my mind is not quite made up +about it--I half fancy putting up a statue of some sort in a nook in the +little wood, where the Beeches grow the tallest and the Elders are the +thickest. Such things were once common, and then they got so common, and +often so out of place, that they became absurd. Every villa garden had +its statue and its rockery. + +Batty Langley has an amusing chapter about statues. He says--"Nothing +adds so much to the beauty and grandeur of gardens as fine statues, and +nothing is more disagreeable than when they are wrongly placed; as +Neptune on a terrace walk, mound, &c.; or Pan, the god of sheep, in a +large basin, canal, or fountain;" and then, "to prevent such +absurdities," he gives the most elaborate directions. Mars and Jupiter, +Fame and Venus, Muses and Fates, Atlas, Hercules, and many more, are for +open centres or lawns. Sylvanus, Actaeon, and Echo, are among those +recommended for woods. Neptune, Oceanus, and the Naiades, will do for +canals and fish-ponds. Pomona and the Hesperides for orchards, Flora and +Runcina ("the goddess of weeding") for flower-gardens, Bacchus for +vineyards, Aeolus for high terrace walks, and "the goddess Vallonta" for +valleys. He gives the right deities for paddocks, for wheat-fields, for +"ambuscados," and for beehives. In short there is no place for which he +does not think a statue ornamental and appropriate. I hope he would +approve of my own very humble idea, which is a statue of +Hyacinthus,--for, where I thought of placing it, the wild Hyacinths or +Bluebells will come clustering up, and make the grass all blue. The +poetry of gardens is so entirely neglected in these days of "bedding +stuff," that it is well to do anything that can properly be done, +without extravagance of taste or method, to revive it. + +In the inner garden I think also of placing a sun-dial, which would be +in good keeping with the rather formal character of the beds. Mrs. +Gatty's beautiful book on sun-dials should help me to a motto. They are +of two sorts--the mottoes that warn, and the mottoes that console. "The +night cometh,"[11] or "Pereunt et imputantur," are good examples of the +one; "Horas non numero nisi serenas," or "Post tenebras lucem spero," +are the best instances of the other. But there is a verse by Mrs. +Browning, which (if I may so adapt it by a slight alteration in the +second line) would make a finer inscription still-- + + "See, the shadow on the dial, + In the lot of every one, + Marks the passing of the trial, + Proves the presence of the sun." + + [11] Many years ago Miss Martineau told me of this motto, and I see + that in her "Autobiography" she speaks of it as "perfect in its way." + She however finally adopted for her own sun-dial the happier "Come, + light! visit me!" + + +_Nov. 28._--We wake to find snow all thick upon the ground, over lawn +and flower-bed, and the children are out betimes rolling up huge +snowballs on the grass. This snow is the best thing possible for the +garden, for we have already had a night or two of sharp frost, which +killed all it could reach of our herbaceous plants. "Autumn's last +delights were nipped by early cold," as in the garden of Lord Houghton's +"Old Manorial Hall," and the Dahlias and the Fuchsias were all +shrivelled into brown unsightly tufts. We have covered up the Fig-trees +on the wall. We have trenched up the shrubbery borders. We have done our +last planting--a Catalpa in one place, a Paulownia in another--and some +more fruit-trees in the orchard. We have planted our bulbs and sowed our +autumn annuals for spring gardening. I was so pleased with the Nemophila +bed of last May that I am repeating the experiment on a larger scale. I +shall have one bed of Nemophila, and another of Virginian Stock. I shall +have a bed of pink Saponaria edged with white. Along the Vine border I +shall stretch a ribbon of white Saponaria, blue Myosotis, pink Silene, +and many-coloured Sweet Peas. + +Then again, at the end of the grass walk, where it runs up against the +hedge of the croft, I am fixing an arched trelliswork of wire, with a +wire seat inside, and over it I shall train and trail the broad leaves +of the Aristolochia and the scarlet blossoms of the Tropaeolum speciosum. + +The vineries are of course at rest; but in them are Roman Hyacinths, now +ready for the house, and pots of Polyanthus Narcissus will be also ready +within a week. + +The porch of the house is filled on either side with stages of +Chrysanthemums, and the fine glossy foliage of an Aralia looks well in +the inside vestibule. + +And now I bring these notes to an end. My aim has been to show how much +interest and pleasure may be gathered out of a garden of moderate +pretensions, and with no great appliances in the way of glass, nor any +advantage in the way of climate. + +I have endeavoured, too, to reclaim for our English gardens those old +flowers, which Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Cowley loved. They +have been far too long neglected for flowers, whose only charm is charm +of colour and a certain evenness of growth. The ordinary bedded garden +of to-day is as inferior to the Elizabethan gardens of old, as all +gardens anywhere must be to the delights, which fancy conjures up in +the enchanted gardens of Armida, or the bowered pleasance of Boccaccio. +Meanwhile we can only do what best we can, and when all else fails we +can say, like Candide, "Il faut cultiver _notre_ jardin." + +And so I bid a hearty farewell to those readers, who for months past +have followed the fortunes, and shared with me the hopes, of a year in a +Lancashire garden. + + + + +SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. + +Flowering Shrubs--Yuccas--Memorial Trees--Ranunculus-- + Pansies--Canna Indica--Summer Flowers--Bluets-- + Fruit-blossoms and Bees--Strawberry Leaves--Garden Sounds-- + Mowing--Birds--The Swallow--Pleasures of a Garden. + + +Almost more interesting than herbaceous plants are the flowering shrubs. +Most beautiful of all, if, indeed, it may be called a shrub, is the +Buddleia Globosa, in the inner garden, which I have already mentioned. +When June draws to its close, it is laden with thousands of blossoms +like little golden oranges, and fills the air with honied scent. It is +the largest Buddleia I ever happen to have seen, for it stands sixteen +feet high, and stretches its branches over a round bed of blue Iris to a +circumference of seventy feet. + +And just about the time when the Buddleia is in bloom, masses of the +sweet homely English Elder, screening off the little wood, will perfume +all the approach to the house. Common enough it is, but delightful in +its dark foliage, its rich creamy blossoms, its clusters of purple +berries. We do not make the use of it we should, and Elderberry water +and Elderberry Wine are known to me by name alone, but the berries are +excellent for tarts and puddings. + +One shrub which I planted a year or two ago has answered far better than +I had any right to hope. It is the Desfontainea Spinosa. It is so like a +holly that it puzzles everybody who sees, for the first time, the +scarlet and yellow tubes of blossom which stand out among the prickly +leaves. The year before last it flowered twice with me, but the cruel +winter we have just had has cut it sadly, and it will be long before it +will recover. + +I have spoken of trying whether by the planting of a second Arbutus I +could make my beautiful old shrub fruit. The result has been quite +successful, and I have had for two years past bright red berries hanging +down among the pale waxen blossoms and the dark-green leaves. The +Magnolia between the vineries has become prodigal of flowers as it has +grown older, and last year I had no less than ten blossoms from it, and +it is still young. The Magnolia (also a Grandiflora) on the house has +also begun to flower, but I had nearly lost it altogether, and the story +is rather a curious one. I had noticed that both it and other creepers +were looking unhappy, and I could not guess the reason. The Escallonia +showed bare branches in many places, the Ceanothus seemed shrunken and +brown, and a Gloire de Dijon Rose did no good. At last it occurred to my +gardener that the galvanised wire, which I had put up to avoid driving +nails into the stone work of the windows, was to blame. I pulled it all +down, coated it thickly over with paint, and, when it was again put up, +all the creepers seemed to start into fresh life, and grew strong and +vigorous. + +On a patch of green grass near the house stands a Yucca Gloriosa, which +I am always hoping will flower, but it has never done so yet. Not long +ago I was at a stately place in Shropshire, and at the end of a broad +walk, where a circle of Yuccas had been planted, there were no less than +five in full flower, throwing up pale jets of blossom, like fountains, +towards the sky. I never saw anything more perfect in its way. But it is +said that the right time to see a Yucca is by moonlight. There is a very +striking passage in one of the letters of the most remarkable of +American women, Margaret Fuller (afterwards Countess D'Ossoli), in which +she says:-- + +"This flower" (it was the Yucca Filamentosa) "was made for the moon as +the Heliotrope is for the sun, and refuses other influences, or to +display her beauty in any other light. Many white flowers are far more +beautiful by day. The lily, for instance, with its firm thick leaf, +needs the broadest light to manifest its purity, but these transparent +leaves of greenish white, which look dull in the day, are melted by the +moon to glistening silver...." The second evening I went out into the +garden again. In clearest moonlight stood my flower, more beautiful than +ever. The stalk pierced the air like a spear; all the little bells had +erected themselves around it in most graceful array, with petals more +transparent than silver, and of softer light than the diamond. Their +edges were clearly but not sharply defined--they seemed to have been +made by the moon's rays. The leaves, which had looked ragged by day, now +seemed fringed by most delicate gossamer, and the plant might claim, +with pride, its distinctive epithet of _filamentosa_. + +On another grass-plot near I have one of the beautiful Retinosporas of +Japan, which was one day planted for me by a friend. He is the poet, +who says that-- + + "Eastward roll the orbs of heaven, + Westward tend the thoughts of men: + Let the Poet, nature-driven, + Wander Eastward now and then:--" + +and this tree, while it lives, will remind me of the East, and of him +who wrote these lines. + +But there are other pleasant ways of recalling one's friends to memory. + +I never stay anywhere, where there is a garden, without bringing back +with me some one or more shrubs, as a remembrance of a beautiful place +or happy hours; and, when I plant them, I fasten to them a label, +mentioning their old home, and thus I am reminded--now of a quaint low +house covered with creepers and nestling among the hills of Wales--now +of a magnificent castle with its pleasance in the north of Ireland,--now +of a great hall in Scotland, where a wild glen runs down past the garden +to the woods,--now of an old English abbey, where the flowers of to-day +spring up among the ruins of a thousand years ago. + +Among the flowers in the inner garden, which have well repaid me during +the last year or two, have been the Anemones--delightful old +flowers--"pied wind-flowers," Shelley calls them,--which first sprang +to birth when Venus wept Adonis. Then I have had two successful beds of +Ranunculus; one was prettily and fancifully mottled; the other was of +the finest scarlet,--a scarlet so intense that it seemed to be almost +black in the inner shadows of the petals. A gifted American lady once +said to me--"Does not black seem to underlie all bright scarlet?" and I +have thought of this as I have looked at this bed of Ranunculus, and I +think of it often as I see the red coats of our soldiers passing by. I +have often noticed, too, that, in an evening, when there is still light +enough to see flowers, that are yellow, or blue, or pink, the blossoms +of a scarlet Pelargonium give forth no colour, but look as if cut out of +some soft black velvet. Another spring bed, from which I had hoped much, +has disappointed me. It was a bed of Crown Imperials, but for some +reason they flowered irregularly and produced no effect. But the +individual flowers of some were magnificent. I had never examined a +Crown Imperial properly before, and never knew that its great beauty lay +in the little circlet of pearls--nectaries, I suppose they are--which +lie at the bottom of each orange bell. They are quite exquisite in their +grey and white glittering movement, as the light plays upon them, and +are more like pearls than anything else in nature. + +Among my humbler flowers, of which I have somehow made no mention, is +the Pansy, yet few flowers have more associations connected with them. +The Pansy--the _Heartsease_ we still sometimes call it--is Shakespeare's +"Love in Idleness," and Milton's "Pansy freak'd with jet." The American +poet, Edgar Poe, speaks of the "beautiful Puritan Pansies;" and I +remember a fine wild passage in one of this same poet's little-known +essays, where two angels are talking, and one of them says--"We will +swoop outward into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where for Pansies, +and Violets, and Heartsease, are the beds of the triplicate and +triple-tinted suns." + +Last year my finest bed was one of the Canna Indica, in which every +plant threw up grand broad leaves and spikes of crimson or yellow +blossom. Why is not the Canna far more common in all our gardens? At +present one sees it in public parks, or where gardening on a great scale +is carried on, but in smaller gardens it is very rare, and yet it is +easy enough to grow; and once I think it must have been more known than +it is at present. Gerarde speaks of it as "the flowering reed," and +gives a very fair illustration of it. He adds, however, "Myself have +planted it in my garden divers times, but it never came to flowering or +seeding, for that it is very impatient to endure the injury of our cold +climate." Cowley, too, speaks of the "lustre of the Indian flowering +reed;" and Dr. Darwin, in his _Loves of the Plants_, gives it (with its +single pistil and stamen), as the best type of the conjugal fidelity of +flowers, and tells how-- + + "The tall Canna lifts his curled brow, + Erect to heaven;" + +adding, in prose, that "the seeds are used as shot by the Indians, and +are strung for prayer-beads in some Catholic countries." Indeed, the +plant is often called the "Indian Shot," and as the seeds, shining, hard +and black, ripened with me last year, I can understand how appropriate +is the name. + +A bed of double Potentillas, some red, some yellow, and some with the +two colours mingled, has been very fine; and so has a bed of hybrid +Bulbous Begonias, which seem quite hardy. I plant the blue Lobelia +between them, and it contrasts pleasantly with their crimson and orange +bells. A long row of Sweet Peas of every variety of colour extends +along the border in front of the vinery, and fills the garden with its +scent; and not far off is a wire screen, which I cover with the large +Convolvulus, and through the summer months the "Morning Glories," as the +blossoms were once called, display all their short-lived beauty. + +On either side of the grass-walk, which runs down the garden, at a right +angle to the vineries, I am making rustic trellises of logs of wood, +round which I shall plant Vegetable Marrows and Gourds, and at intervals +clumps of the great Sunflower.[12] In another corner I am sowing a bed +of the Bluet, or Corn-flower, the favourite flower of the Emperor of +Germany. For some reason the Violets of Napoleon, of which I once had +abundance, have not been so successful with me during the last few +years,--will the Corn-flower do better?--What a glorious blue it is! and +how much we have neglected it! because, I suppose, it is too common, and +grows wild amid the ripening Corn and the scarlet Poppy. + + [12] See Note IV. on the Sunflower of the Classics. + +Turning to the fruit-garden, my great discovery has been that I _must_ +have bees--not at all for the honey, but for the proper setting of the +fruit. A large May Duke Cherry is always covered with blossom, but +scarcely anything has ever come from it. Last year I examined its +blossom closely, and found that the pistil is so much longer than the +stamens that it cannot fertilise itself, and must be dependent on +insects. This is not the case with other varieties of Cherries, so far +as I can see, and I am curious to find out whether my remedy of a +bee-hive will this year have the desired effect. I believe it will be of +service to the other wall-fruit too, and I have already seen the +affection the bees have for the blossoms of the Apricot. + +How beautiful a garden is when all the fruit-trees are in bloom! and how +various that bloom is! Each Pear-tree bears a different blossom from its +neighbour, and the handsomest of all, in size and shape of flower and +form of cluster, is the Jargonelle. But no Pear-blossom can compare with +the beauty of blossom on the Apple-trees;--and of all Apple-trees the +Pomeroy is most beautiful, when every bough is laden with clusters of +deep-red buds, which shade off into the softest rosy white, as, one by +one, the blossoms open out. + +Of other fruit I have nothing new to notice, unless it be to ask whether +any one now living can smell the scent of dying Strawberry leaves? We +all remember how Mrs. Gaskell in her delightful story gives Lady Ludlow +the power, but now we all seem to have lost it. Certainly my dying +Strawberry leaves give me no sense of sweetness. Was it a mere fond and +foolish fancy? or were the Strawberries of Elizabethan gardens different +from those we are now growing? Bacon tells us that, next to the white +double Violet and the Musk Rose, the sweetest perfume in the open air is +"Strawberry leaves dying, which yield a most excellent cordiale smell;" +and I find in an old play by Sir John Suckling-- + + "Wholesome + As dying leaves of Strawberries." + +But there are sounds that haunt a garden hardly less delightful than its +sights and scents. What sound has more poetry in it than when in the +early morning one hears the strong sharp sweep of the scythe, as it +whistles through the falling grass, or the shrill murmur of the blade +upon the whetstone; and, in spite of mowing machines, at times one hears +the old sound still. How fond Andrew Marvell was of mowing and the +mowers! He has given us "Damon the Mower," "The Mower to the Glow-worm," +"The Mower's Song," "The Mower against Gardens," and "Ametas and +Thestylis making Hay-ropes;" and again, in his fine poem, on "Appleton +House," he describes the "tawny mowers" dividing the "grassy deeps," + + "With whistling scythe and elbow strong." + +One of our latest poets too, Mr. Allingham, has a delicious little +mower's song, with a quite perfect refrain of-- + + "A scythe-sweep and a scythe-sweep, + We mow the grass together." + +And again, what does not the garden owe to the voice of birds; the deep +cawing of the rook in its "curious flight" around the elm-trees; the +clear note of the cuckoo from the limes that bound the orchard; and, +best of all, the rich, full melody of the thrush! The nightingale's song +may be sweeter and stronger, but the nightingale only sings in certain +places (certainly not with us), and the thrush is everywhere. The +nightingale sings later in the night, but the thrush will go on till +nine, and begin again at four, and surely that is all we need. Can +anything be truer, or better said, than these lines of Browning's about +a thrush?-- + + "Hark! where my blossomed Pear-tree in the hedge + Leans to the field, and scatters on the clover + Blossoms and dewdrops, at the bent spray's edge-- + That's the wise thrush--he sings each song twice over, + Lest you should think he never could recapture + The first fine careless rapture." + +But there is one bird dearer to us than the thrush, and that is the +swallow, which for some years past has built its nest in our porch. It +has been pretty to mark her skimming round and round with anxious +watching, till we have left the place. Prettier still, when we have kept +ourselves concealed, to see her darting upwards to the nest, which was +fringed by four little heads all in a row, and, going from one to the +other, give each its share. We could hear the sharp little cry of +satisfaction as each nestling was attended to. How much the poets have +written about swallows! There is the charming passage in Longfellow's +"Golden Legend," where the old monk is speaking; he is the librarian, +whose duty it is to illuminate the missals for the convent's use and +pride:-- + + "How the swallows twitter under the eaves! + There, now there is one in her nest; + I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast, + And will sketch her thus in her quiet nook, + For the margin of my gospel-book." + +Then how delightful is the boast, which Mr. Courthope, in his _Paradise +of Birds_, puts into the nightingale's mouth, that a bird is better than +a man, for-- + + "He never will mount as the swallows, + Who dashed round his steeples to pair, + Or hawked the bright flies in the hollows + Of delicate air." + +And, long before this, Banquo had marked their "pendent beds" on +Macbeth's castle, and noticed that-- + + "Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed + The air is delicate." + +And who does not recall Tennyson's-- + + "Swallow, swallow, flying, flying south," + +and bearing on swift wing the message that-- + + "Dark and true and tender is the north"? + +Or who, that has once read it, can forget _Les Hirondelles_ of Beranger, +and how the French captive among the Moors questions the swallows about +his country, his home, his friends, which they perhaps have seen? + +Lastly, what a felicitous line is this of the American poet Lowell, when +he describes + + "The thin-winged swallow _skating_ on the air." + +I must bring these Notes, such as they are, to a close, and yet I feel I +have scarcely even yet described the pleasures of a garden. But my +memory at least can do it justice. It recalls summer afternoons, when +the lawn tennis went merrily on on the lawn, by the weeping ash-tree, +and summer evenings, when the house was too hot, and we sat out after +dinner upon the terrace with the claret and the fruit. The air was all +perfume, and the light lingered long in the east over the church steeple +three miles away, and no sound but of our own voices broke the silence +and the peace. + +Again, there were fine bright autumn days--days when the garden was full +of warm scent and warmer colour--days when the children could swing for +hours in the hammock, which hangs between two large Sycamores, and have +their tea-table beneath the trees,--days when the still air was only +stirred by the patter of a falling chestnut, or the note of some +solitary bird, or the sound of church bells far away. Beyond the +grass-field, which comes nearly up to the house, was a field of wheat, +and we could watch the harvesting, and follow with our eyes the loaded +waggons as they passed along by the hedge-row trees. + +But such recollections grow thicker as I write, and words, such as I at +least can command, do them little justice. I cannot really share with my +readers these pleasures of the past, though I like to fancy that they +may feel some kindly sympathy, as they remember happy days in gardens +dear to them as mine to me. + + + + +NOTES. + + +NOTE I. + +ON THE VIOLA OF THE ROMANS. + +I contributed the following note on "The Viola of the Romans," to the +_Gardeners' Chronicle_ of September 26, 1874, as I found a correspondent +had been adopting Lord Stanhope's views. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Ruskin in his _Queen of the Air_ wrote, "I suspect that the flower +whose name we translate 'Violet' was in truth an Iris" (he is speaking +of the Greek _ion_, but the Viola no doubt is whatever the _ion_ was). + +In Lord Stanhope's _Miscellanies_, second series, which was published in +1872, a paper, which had been previously (in 1830) read before the +Society of Antiquaries, treats of the "Viola of the Ancients." + +Lord Stanhope identifies it with the Iris, and on the following +grounds:-- + +1. Because when riding through Sicily in the winter of 1825, he saw many +Irises and no Violets, and heard that the country people called the Iris +Viola. + +2. Because Pliny speaks of Violae luteae, whereas there are no Violets of +that colour. + +3. Because Pliny also describes the Violet as growing in sunny and +barren places ("apricis et macris locis"), whereas really Violets always +grow in the shade. + +4. Because he speaks of the Violet as springing from a fleshy root-stock +("ab radice carnoso"), whereas the Violet root is fibrous. + +5. Because Ovid couples the Violet with the Poppy and the Lily as +flowers which, when broken off, hang their heads to the ground. + +I need not say much as to Lord Stanhope's not finding Violets in Sicily +in winter, for the question is, whether he would not find them in Italy +in spring. Nor does the fact of the Sicilian peasants speaking of the +Iris as a Violet disturb me any more than when I hear a Scotch peasant +speak of the "Harebell" as a "Bluebell." + +The real authority is Pliny, and Pliny settles the question completely. +He says (I quote for convenience from Bohn's translated edition):--"Next +after the Roses and the Lilies, the Violet is held in the highest +esteem. Of this there are several varieties, the purple, the yellow, and +the white, all of them reproduced from plants, like the Cabbage. The +Purple Violet, which springs up spontaneously in sunny spots with a thin +meagre soil, has larger petals than the others, springing immediately +from the root, which is of a fleshy substance. This Violet has a name, +too, distinct from the other wild kinds, being called 'ion,' and from it +the ianthine cloth takes its name." + +He goes on to say that of cultivated kinds the Yellow Violet is held in +most esteem. He speaks then of the Tusculan and Marine Violet as having +broader petals than the others, but being less sweet, while the +Calathian Violet is also without scent. + +A little farther on he describes the Iris itself, and says "the stem of +this plant is a cubit in length and erect, the flower being of various +colours like the rainbow, to which circumstance it is indebted for its +name." It is, he adds, a plant of a caustic nature, and the root is used +in perfumery and medicine, but the flower is _never employed for +garlands_. + +After this, perhaps, it is needless to add that of course Lord Stanhope +is mistaken in supposing that there are no Yellow Violets (he may find +any number half-way up the Rigi), or that Violets do not often grow in +sunny and sterile places, or that the Purple Violet has not a fleshy +root-stock. + +That the Sweet Violet, which Pliny says was used for wreath-making, was +generally cultivated is certain from Horace's + + "Tum _violaria_ et + Myrtus, et omnis copia narium + Spargent olivetis odorem." + + _Odes_, ii. 15. + +Then, again, the Sweet Violet was used for the flavouring of wine--the +"vinum violatum." + +There are other passages in which Pliny speaks of the sweetness of the +Violet. He says it is sweetest at a distance, and that it has no scent +except in the flower itself. + +There can be no doubt then whatever (I conceive) that the Greeks, when +they spoke of the "ion," or the Romans of the "Viola," generally meant +our Violet, and that the Violet-wreaths were made from this familiar +flower. + +Still the name was perhaps loosely used, and it is highly probable that +the flower to which Ovid refers, in the passage which Lord Stanhope +quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet"). + + +NOTE II. + +ON THE AZALEA VISCOSA. + +I was much pleased to see my observations on the Azalea as a fly-catcher +confirmed by a subsequent paragraph (October 3, 1874,) in the +_Gardeners' Chronicle_. It is interesting, and I now reprint it. + + * * * * * + +AZALEA VISCOSA A FLY-CATCHER. + +Under this heading Mr. W. W. Bailey gives the following observations in +the current number of the _American Naturalist_:-- + +"The many curious observations published of late in regard to vegetable +fly-catchers have opened my eyes to such phenomena as are presented in +my forest walks. As is well known to all botanists, our sweet swamp +Azalea (Azalea viscosa) has its corolla covered on the outside with +innumerable clammy and glandular hairs. Each hair is a prolongation of +the cuticle, and is surmounted by a purple and globular band. In the bud +these hairs appear to cover the whole surface of the flower, but when +the corolla expands they are seen to occupy the midrib of the petals as +well as the tube of the corolla. These glandular hairs are efficacious +fly-catchers, but what the object is in thus securing insect prey I will +not pretend to state. I have been amusing myself, if any such +apparently cruel occupation can be considered entertaining, in watching +the capture of flies by the Azaleas. When I first brought the flowers +home, many small insects, as winged ants, were entrapped amidst the +hairs. These have remained alive several days, still vainly struggling +for freedom. As the house-flies are abundant in my room, it occurred to +me that I might extirpate the pests, and at the same time learn +something of the process of insect-catching. I have not noticed that the +powerful fragrance of the blossoms attracts the house-fly, although I +have no doubt that it does the smaller insects. It seemed to be +accidental when the house-flies were captured. I exposed a number of +buds and fully-opened blossoms on a sunny window-sill thronged with +flies. It was not many minutes before I had several captives. A mere +touch of a fly's leg to the glutinous hairs was sufficient for his +detention. A struggle only made matters worse, as other legs were by +this means brought in contact with the glands. These emit long glairy +threads, which fasten to the hairs of the flies' legs. They may be drawn +out to a great length and tenuity, still retaining their strength. If +two buds are pressed together, and then drawn apart, innumerable threads +may be seen to bind them. There is a complete network of them between +the various glands. They will confine the strongest fly; he is at once +held like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Under the microscope the legs +of the fly are seen to be covered with the secretion, which is perfectly +white and transparent. In one attempt to escape, a house-fly lifted a +flower bodily from the window-sill, perhaps a quarter of an inch, but at +once sank back exhausted amidst the hairs. One, after long efforts, +escaped, but seemed incapable of using its legs; it flew away readily. +In one instance I have found the dried remains of a small insect +embedded amidst the hairs, but cannot say whether its juices were in any +way absorbed by the plant. If such assimilation takes place, what is its +purpose? Can this phenomenon of fly-catching be accidental, or is some +nice purpose concealed in it? I merely state the facts as I have +observed them; perhaps others can supply further information." + + +NOTE III. + +ON THE SOLANUM TRIBE. + +It is very curious to compare the two following passages of two great +masters of style--Ruskin and Michelet--both writing of the tribe to +which belongs the Tomato. Ruskin, in _The Queen of the Air_, p. 91, +says:-- + + "Next, in the Potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground + stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil, having the deadly + nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the + witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern + civilisation--tobacco. And the strange thing about this tribe is, + that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group + distinctly separate from those that are happier in function. There + is nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean + blossom; but there is another family with forms and structure + closely connected with this venomous one. Examine the purple and + yellow bloom of the common hedge Nightshade;--you will find it + constructed exactly like some of the forms of the Cyclamen; and + getting this clue, you will find at last the whole poisonous and + terrible group to be--sisters of the Primulas. + + "The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them, + and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned + flower may always be known from the innocent one,--that the stamens + of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas + opposite the lobes of the corolla." + +Now for M. Michelet. In _La Sorciere_, p. 119, he writes of the herbs +used by the witches:-- + + "Ce que nous savons le mieux de leur medecine, c'est qu'elles + employaient beaucoup, pour les usages les plus divers, pour calmer, + pour stimuler, une grande famille de plantes, equivoques, fort + dangereuses, qui rendirent les plus grands services. On les nomme + avec raison, les _Consolantes_ (Solanees). + + "Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des especes sont + surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille, + tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents especes. + Rien de plus facile a trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces + plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de + l'audace pour en preciser les doses, l'audace peut-etre du genie. + + "Prenons par en bas l'echelle ascendante de leurs energies. Les + premieres sont tout simplement potageres et bonnes a manger (les + aubergines, les tomates, mal appelees pommes d'amour). D'autres de + ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur meme, les molenes + (bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations. + + "Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante deja suspecte, que plusieurs + croyaient un poison, la plante miellee d'abord, amere ensuite, qui + semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mange un peu de miel, et + voila pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est + l'amortissement de la douleur. La douce-amere, c'est son nom, dut + etre le premier essai de l'homoeopathie hardie, qui, peu a peu, + s'eleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La legere irritation, les + picotements qu'elle donne purent la designer pour remede des + maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau." + +Speaking of magical herbs reminds one of the "moly," which Mercury gives +to Ulysses, and which enabled him to withstand the enchantments of +Circe. This "moly" with its white blossom is particularly well known to +me, for, when I first came to my present house, the wood near the lodge +was so full of it that it seemed as if a dinner of onions was for ever +being cooked: I found it exceedingly hard to eradicate. "Moly" is none +other than the Garlic, and Circe had apparently the same objection to it +as had the wife of the Merchant of Bagdad in the _Arabian Nights_. + +By the way, what could Mr. Tennyson have been thinking of when he +describes his lotus-eaters as + + "Propt on beds of amaranth and _moly_"? + +Another poet too, now a well-known divine, once spoke of + + "--souls that pure and holy + Live and love and prosper well, + Leaning aye on myrrh and _moly_, + Melilote and asphodel." + + +NOTE IV. + +ON THE SUNFLOWER OF THE CLASSICS. + +I have been much puzzled to know what was the Sunflower of classical +story,--in other words, what was the flower into which, according to the +legend, Clytie was so sadly changed. + +I had always supposed, as nearly every one supposes, that it was what +_we_ call the Sunflower (the Helianthus), with its upright stem and +large radiated disc. But, first of all, I found, as a matter of fact, +that the Helianthus does _not_ follow the course of the Sun, and that +various blossoms of the same plant may at the same time be facing in +different directions. And then I found, what of course was fatal, that +the Helianthus is not a European plant at all, and first came to us from +North America. + +Having consulted _Notes and Queries_ in vain, I determined to look into +the matter more closely, as it seemed to me a rather curious question. + +If the Sunflower of the Classics was not the Helianthus, and if this, as +I imagine, only obtained its name from its flowers, which in some way +resemble the old pictures of the Sun, could it be the plant we know as +_Heliotrope_? The name of course means "turning Sunward," but again the +name is no guide to us; the scented flowers of the Heliotrope do not, so +far as I know, turn to the Sun, and in any case the plant is of Peruvian +and not of European origin. + +I then fell back upon the classical authors themselves. I got nothing +very distinct from Theophrastus, and moreover it is Ovid, to whom we +chiefly owe our knowledge of the story. He tells us that when her lover +Phoebus left her, poor Clytie "still gazed on the face of the departing +god, and bent her looks on him. It is said that she remained rooted to +the ground; of her fresh bloom ('color'), part is turned by livid pallor +into bloodless leaves, on part a blush remains, and a flower most like a +Violet has covered all her face. Held firmly by the root, she still +turns to the Sun she loves, and, changed herself, she keeps her love +unchanged." + +Pliny says the Heliotropium "turns with the Sun, in cloudy weather even, +so great is its sympathy with that luminary. At night, as though in +regret, it closes its blue flowers." + +What then can this flower be, a blue flower, which turns towards the +Sun? + +I next examined the magnificent volumes of Sibthorp's _Flora Graeca_. +There is there indeed a European "Heliotropium," "Heliotropium supinum," +but this surely cannot be the flower of Clytie; the blossom is quite +insignificant ("flore minimo") and _white_. Then there are two Crotons +(Tinctorium and Villosum) which are also locally called Heliotropium, +and which grow in Crete and Lemnos ("ex qua paratur Tournesol"), but +their flowers again are hardly more noticeable and are _yellow_. + +Foiled at every point, I thought I would at least see what in _England_ +was the traditionary Sunflower, but I am hardly any wiser. + +Gerarde says that Valerius Cordius calls the dwarf Cistus Helianthemum, +and Solis flos or Sunne-flower. He quotes Pliny as calling it also +"Heliocalliden, or the Beautie of the Sunne;" and adds, "which if it be +the Sunneflower, yet there is another of the same name, but which may be +taken for the right it is hard to tell (but that experience teacheth +us), seeing Plinie is so breefe." + +Gerarde has also a chapter on the "Tornesole," and says, "there be five +sorts of Tornesole, differing one from another in many notable points, +as in greatnesse and smallnesse, in colour of flowers, in forme and +shape," and then he describes the varieties of "Tornesoles" or +"Heliotropium." + +He says, "the Graecians call it Heliotropium;"--"it is named +Heliotropium, not because it is turned about at the daily motion of the +sunne, but by reason it flowreth in the summer solstice, at which time +the sunne being farthest gone from the equinoctiale circle, returneth to +the same;" but he adds that the French and Italians call it "Turnesol," +and says, "it is also called Herba Clitiae, whereof the poet hath these +verses, + + "'Herba velut Clitiae semper petit obvia solem, + Sic pia mens Christum, quo prece spectet, habet.'" + +Cowley's Sunflower is called in a foot-note Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, +but is probably a form of Helianthus. The flower is supposed to speak, +and claims to be a _child_ of the Sun, for, + + "My orb-like aspect bound with rays + The very picture of his face displays; + +and again, + + "I still adore my sire with prostrate face, + Turn where he turns, and all his motions trace." + +So after all I am as much in the dark as ever. Was the mysterious +flower, as some suggest, a Calendula (Marygold), or an Aster? I cannot +tell, and only know that neither answers the description. On the whole +then I am disposed to wonder whether either Ovid or Pliny knew much more +about the matter than ourselves, and I may some day come to doubt +whether Clytie was ever turned into a Sunflower at all.[13] + + [13] One of our very best living authorities on such a subject has sent + me the suggestion that the common Salsafy, or possibly the Anagallis, + may be the flower, but he adds (agreeing with Gerarde), "the word + Heliotropium does not mean a flower which turns to the sun, but which + flowers at the solstice." + + +NOTE V. + +FLOWERS AND THE POETS. + +Both the flowers of the garden and what Campbell calls "wildings of +nature" have had their bards, and in the case of certain flowers the +association with a poet is so strong that the sight of the flower will +recall the verse. Of course this is chiefly so as regards the less +familiar flowers. No one, not even Sappho, has an exclusive possession +in the Rose; but who would care to dispute Shelley's right to the +Sensitive Plant, or Wordsworth's to the lesser Celandine? The poets, +however, have sometimes more of a love than a knowledge of plants, and +Milton talks of the "twisted Eglantine" in confusion between the +Sweetbrier and the Honeysuckle. + +It is interesting to see the different ways in which flowers are +treated by the poets. Shakspeare, no doubt, loved them in his way, but +after all, there are but few passages in which flowers are used +otherwise than as an illustration or an emblem. There are, indeed, +Titania's flowered bank, and Perdita's garden,--redolent of herbs and +gay with Violets, Primroses, and Daffodils, but where no Gillyflower was +allowed to grow,--and poor Ophelia's melancholy blossoms, and the song +in _Love's Labour's Lost_, and that is nearly all. Shakspeare often +speaks of Roses, but almost always, excepting in the scene at the Temple +Gardens, by way of compliment or comparison. The _musk_-rose, indeed, +appears in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and this Rose, which is now +quite unknown to most of us, was evidently a favourite in Elizabethan +gardens, for Bacon says of it that, next the white double Violet (which +is also almost lost), the musk-rose "yeelds the sweetest smell in the +aire." + +But Shakspeare's favourite flowers seem to have been the Primrose, the +Violet, the Pansy, and, above all, the Cowslip. He must often have +recalled his boyish walks in spring along the Avon, and remembered how +the low-lying fields of Stratford were all sweet and yellow with the +Cowslip. And so it is within a Cowslip's bell that Ariel hides, and +Cowslips are Titania's pensioners on whose ears the fairies must hang +pearls, and when the fields of France are desolated the "freckled +Cowslip" does not grow there any more, and the mole on Imogen's breast +is "like the crimson drops i' the bottom of a Cowslip." + +Before passing from Shakspeare, I should like to call the attention of +the directors or managers of New Place to the absurdity of the garden, +which they are supposed to keep up in remembrance of Shakspeare. I +chanced to visit it a summer or two ago, and, instead of finding an +Elizabethan garden with flowers associated with Shakspeare and his +times, I saw little but a wretched ribbon border of starveling +Calceolarias, scrubby Pelargoniums, and miserable Perillas. Such a +garden is a mockery, and would be more suggestive and more pathetic if +left wild to the growths of nature. + +If Milton enjoyed more completely the luxury of gardens, it is safe to +say that he knew less of separate flowers than Shakspeare. He not only +speaks of the Eglantine as "twisted," but he calls the Cowslip "wan," +the Violet "glowing," and the Reed "balmy." He makes Roses and Crocuses +bloom together in Paradise, and Hyacinths and Roses in the gardens of +Hesperus, while Lycid's "laureate hearse" is to be strewn with Primrose +and Woodbine, Daffodil and Jessamine. Paradise and the gardens of +Hesperus are, of course, ideal gardens, which may be superior to our +times and seasons, but the same excuse cannot hold good for the flowers +of the "Lycidas," and it is tolerably clear that Milton's special +knowledge was somewhat vague. But, on the other hand, what a sensuous +pleasure he has in gardens! He is not thinking of Elizabethan gardens, +but such gardens as he may have seen in Italy, or read of in Tasso or +Boccaccio. The west winds fling around the cedared alleys sweet smells +of Nard and Cassia, or the covert is of inwoven shade of Laurel and +Myrtle fenced by Acanthus and odorous shrubs. The rich rhythm of his +lines seems to breathe perfume and delight. + +And the reason why, in later years at least, the scent rather than the +sight of flowers was dear to Milton, is known to all of us, for has he +not himself told us how, + + "Not to me returns + Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, + Or _sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose_?" + +He could still drink in the perfumed air of gardens, though only memory +could recall the form and colour of those flowers, which he would never +see again.[14] + + [14] I remember how years ago I was struck with a beautiful little poem + about a blind man, written by Mr. James Payn, the well-known novelist. + The lines are quite worth repeating, and will be new to many:-- + + "There an old man, far in his wintry time, + Sits under his porch, while the roses climb; + But the breath of its sweetness is all he knows + Of the glory about the fair round rose; + The lilies that sway in the brook beneath, + So cold and white in the beauty of death, + Are to him far less than the rushes tall + When the wind is bowing them one and all, + Like the voice of nature so soft and kind, + That whispers how fair she is to _the blind_." + + +Only one English poet has surpassed Milton in his love of gardens. Like +Milton he probably knew little of particular flowers, but he revelled in +the scent and colour of Roses and of Lilies. It is Andrew Marvell; who, +it is to be feared, is far less remembered than he deserves to be. +Marvell's gardens are all of the true English character, and his +description of Lord Fairfax's, though somewhat quaint and fanciful, has +many touches as natural as they are graceful. That the flowers should +stand on parade, like soldiers, through the day, and fold up at night in +tents, in which bees remain as sentinels, is a far-fetched conceit +enough; but nothing can be better than many of his lines. Was it his own +garden at Highgate of which he thought, when he spoke of the garden in +which Sylvio's fawn was wont to hide? + + "I have a garden of my own, + But so with roses overgrown + And lilies, that you would it guess + To be a little wilderness." + +Cowley's love of a garden was of quite another kind. He cared about it +as a horticulturist, and knew the various plants and their qualities; +but he never luxuriated in it like Milton or like Marvell. His elaborate +poem is interesting, if only to show the flowers that were cultivated in +his day, and it is curious to find the Tomato (or love-apple) grown for +beauty and not for use, and the _Canna Indica_, which is hardly common +with us even now, mentioned as among the ordinary flowers of his time. +On the whole, however, there are very few lines of Cowley about flowers +(we are not speaking of anything else) which are worth quoting or +remembering. + +Herrick's use of flowers is very different. He loved them, no doubt, and +is always talking about them, and making them useful. + + "He twists his coronals of fancy + Out of all blossoms," + +if I may so misapply a line from Lord Houghton's _Letters of Youth_. He +makes moralities out of Daffodils, and compliments from Carnations, and +warnings from Rosebuds. Charming as many of his poems about flowers are, +it is impossible not to feel that the motive of the poem is not the +flower itself, but the Anthea or Sappho or Julia, to whom the flower is +to teach a lesson of the power of love or the uncertainty of life. + +It is, of course, impossible to speak of all the poets who have written +about flowers, for probably the list would include them all; but the +five I have mentioned are perhaps the most characteristic, though there +are memorable lines in Chaucer, Spenser, Burns, and Keats, and more +especially in Wordsworth. + +From Byron there is singularly little to quote; but no English poet has +given so perfect a description of a garden as has Shelley in "The +Sensitive Plant." How delicately he paints each flower, and how he makes +us see them all, as we tread with him + + "The sinuous paths of lawn and of moss + Which led through the garden along and across; + Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, + Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees." + +Of living English poets perhaps Mr. Tennyson alone shows any real love +for flowers. And this love is scarcely shown so much in the well-known +song in "Maud" as by little touches here and there--the "long green box +of mignonette" which the miller's daughter has set on her casement +edge,--the "wild marsh-marygold" which "shines like fire in swamps" for +the happy May Queen,--or the water-lilies which blossom round the island +of Shalott. And who can forget the stanza in "In Memoriam"?-- + + "Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, + The little speedwell's darling blue, + Deep tulips dasht with fiery dew, + Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire." + +Of American poets, Mr. Longfellow has, rather strangely, written nothing +very memorable about flowers; but there are some pretty verses of Mr. +Bryant's, and an occasional good line of Mr. Emerson's, as where he +speaks of the Gentian as "blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover." + +As we once again look round upon the poets that have sung, it is clear +that their favourite flowers have been the Rose and the Daisy,--the one +recalling all the delights of the summer garden, the other all the +freshness of the open field,--the one loved for its beauty, the other +cherished for its constancy. + + "The rose has but a summer reign, + The daisy never dies;" + +says Montgomery, in one of the best known of his poems. Cowslips, +Violets, Daffodils, and Pansies are probably the next favourites. +Painters have done more for Lilies than the poets have; and Carnations +and the later flowers of the year have never made much place for +themselves in the poetry of England. The English garden of to-day still +awaits its laureate, and, except where, in Mr. Allingham's "Therania," + + "Vase and plot burn scarlet, gold and azure," + +I scarcely know of a description of modern "bedding-out," and sincerely +hope that the present fashion may disappear before the thankless task is +undertaken. + + + + LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + + In general every effort has been made to replicate the original text + as faithfully as possible, including possible instances of no longer + standard spelling and punctuation, and variable spelling (notably, + Shakspeare/Shakespeare). Variations in hyphenation and compound words + have been preserved. + + The following changes were made to correct apparently typographical + errors: + + p. x "Mowing--Brds--The Swallow" Brds changed to Birds + p. 50 "There is another Lancahire" Lancahire changed to Lancashire + p. 66 "bed of Clematis Jackmanni" Jackmanni changed to Jackmanii + p. 92 "epithet of _filamentosa_."" quotation mark removed + p. 96 "can undertand how appropriate" undertand changed to understand + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 39673.txt or 39673.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/9/6/7/39673 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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