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Title: Colour in the flower garden
Author: Jekyll, Gertrude
Language: English
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COLOUR IN THE
FLOWER GARDEN
[Illustration: _WHITE LILIES._]
_THE "COUNTRY LIFE"
LIBRARY_
COLOUR IN THE
FLOWER GARDEN
BY
GERTRUDE JEKYLL
[Illustration: A bunch of flowers.]
PUBLISHED BY
"COUNTRY LIFE," LTD. GEORGE NEWNES, LTD.
20, TAVISTOCK STREET 7-12, SOUTHAMPTON ST.
COVENT GARDEN, W.C. COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1908
INTRODUCTION
To plant and maintain a flower-border, _with a good scheme for colour_,
is by no means the easy thing that is commonly supposed.
I believe that the only way in which it can be made successful is to
devote certain borders to certain times of year; each border or garden
region to be bright for from one to three months.
Nothing seems to me more unsatisfactory than the border that in spring
shows a few patches of flowering bulbs in ground otherwise looking
empty, or with tufts of herbaceous plants just coming through. Then
the bulbs die down, and their place is wanted for something that comes
later. Either the ground will then show bare patches, or the place of
the bulbs will be forgotten and they will be cruelly stabbed by fork or
trowel when it is wished to put something in the apparently empty space.
For many years I have been working at these problems in my own garden,
and having come to certain conclusions, can venture to put them forth
with some confidence. I may mention that from the nature of the ground,
in its original state partly wooded and partly bare field, and from
its having been brought into cultivation and some sort of shape before
it was known where the house now upon it would exactly stand, the
garden has less general unity of design than I should have wished. The
position and general form of its various portions were accepted mainly
according to their natural conditions, so that the garden ground,
though but of small extent, falls into different regions, with a
general, but not altogether definite, cohesion.
I am strongly of opinion that the possession of a quantity of plants,
however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their
number, does not make a garden; it only makes a _collection_. Having
got the plants, the great thing is to use them with careful selection
and definite intention. Merely having them, or having them planted
unassorted in garden spaces, is only like having a box of paints
from the best colourman, or, to go one step further, it is like
having portions of these paints set out upon a palette. This does not
constitute a picture; and it seems to me that the duty we owe to our
gardens and to our own bettering in our gardens is so to use the plants
that they shall form beautiful pictures; and that, while delighting
our eyes, they should be always training those eyes to a more exalted
criticism; to a state of mind and artistic conscience that will not
tolerate bad or careless combination or any sort of misuse of plants,
but in which it becomes a point of honour to be always striving for the
best.
It is just in the way it is done that lies the whole difference between
commonplace gardening and gardening that may rightly claim to rank as a
fine art. Given the same space of ground and the same material, they
may either be fashioned into a dream of beauty, a place of perfect
rest and refreshment of mind and body--a series of soul-satisfying
pictures--a treasure of well-set jewels; or they may be so misused that
everything is jarring and displeasing. To learn how to perceive the
difference and how to do right is to apprehend gardening as a fine art.
In practice it is to place every plant or group of plants with such
thoughtful care and definite intention that they shall form a part of a
harmonious whole, and that successive portions, or in some cases even
single details, shall show a series of pictures. It is so to regulate
the trees and undergrowth of the wood that their lines and masses come
into beautiful form and harmonious proportion; it is to be always
watching, noting and doing, and putting oneself meanwhile into closest
acquaintance and sympathy with the growing things.
In this spirit, the garden and woodland, such as they are, have been
formed. There have been many failures, but, every now and then, I am
encouraged and rewarded by a certain measure of success. Yet, as the
critical faculty becomes keener, so does the standard of aim rise
higher; and, year by year, the desired point seems always to elude
attainment.
But, as I may perhaps have taken more trouble in working out certain
problems, and given more thought to methods of arranging growing
flowers, especially in ways of colour-combination, than amateurs in
general, I have thought that it may be helpful to some of them to
describe as well as I can by word, and to show by plan and picture,
what I have tried to do, and to point out where I have succeeded and
where I have failed.
I must ask my kind readers not to take it amiss if I mention here that
I cannot undertake to show it them on the spot. I am a solitary worker;
I am growing old and tired, and suffer from very bad and painful sight.
My garden is my workshop, my private study and place of rest. For the
sake of health and reasonable enjoyment of life it is necessary to
keep it quite private, and to refuse the many applications of those
who offer it visits. My oldest friends can now only be admitted. So I
ask my readers to spare me the painful task of writing long letters
of excuse and explanation; a task that has come upon me almost daily
of late years in the summer months, that has sorely tried my weak and
painful eyes, and has added much to the difficulty of getting through
an already over-large correspondence.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
CHAPTER I
A MARCH STUDY AND THE BORDER OF EARLY BULBS 1
CHAPTER II
THE WOOD 8
CHAPTER III
THE SPRING GARDEN 21
CHAPTER IV
BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER 32
CHAPTER V
THE JUNE GARDEN 39
CHAPTER VI
THE MAIN HARDY FLOWER BORDER 49
CHAPTER VII
THE FLOWER BORDER IN JULY 58
CHAPTER VIII
THE FLOWER BORDER IN AUGUST 65
CHAPTER IX
THE FLOWER BORDERS IN SEPTEMBER 78
CHAPTER X
WOOD AND SHRUBBERY EDGES 83
CHAPTER XI
GARDENS OF SPECIAL COLOURING 89
CHAPTER XII
CLIMBING PLANTS 106
CHAPTER XIII
GROUPING OF PLANTS IN POTS 112
CHAPTER XIV
SOME GARDEN PICTURES 121
CHAPTER XV
A BEAUTIFUL FRUIT GARDEN 127
CHAPTER XVI
PLANTING FOR WINTER COLOUR 133
CHAPTER XVII
FORM IN PLANTING 138
INDEX 143
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
WHITE LILIES _Frontispiece_
IRIS STYLOSA _To face page_ 4
MAGNOLIA CONSPICUA " " 5
MAGNOLIA STELLATA " " 6
FERNS IN THE BULB BORDER " " 7
THE BANK OF EARLY BULBS " " 7
DAFFODILS BY A WOODLAND PATH " " 10
WILD PRIMROSES IN THIN WOODLAND " " 11
THE WIDE WOOD PATH " " 12
CISTUS LAURIFOLIUS " " 13
A WOOD PATH AMONG CHESTNUTS " " 14
A WOOD PATH AMONG BIRCHES " " 15
CISTUS CYPRIUS " " 16
CISTUS BY THE WOOD PATH " " 17
GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FLOWER " " 18
GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FRUIT " " 19
WHITE IRISH HEATH " " 20
THE SPRING GARDEN FROM =D= ON PLAN " " 21
PLAN OF THE SPRING GARDEN " " 23
THE FERN-LIKE SWEET CICELY " " 24
THE SPRING GARDEN FROM =E= ON PLAN " " 25
"FURTHER ROCK" FROM =G= ON PLAN " " 28
"FURTHER ROCK" FROM =H= ON PLAN " " 29
"NEAR ROCK" FROM =F= ON PLAN " " 30
THE PRIMROSE GARDEN " " 31
STEPS TO THE HIDDEN GARDEN " " 32
PHLOX DIVARICATA AND ARENARIA MONTANA " " 33
MALE FERN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN " " 34
EXOCHORDA GRANDIFLORA " " 35
PLAN OF THE HIDDEN GARDEN " " 35
EUPHORBIA WULFENII " " 36
IRISES AND LUPINES IN THE JUNE GARDEN " " 37
PART OF THE GARLAND ROSE AT THE ANGLE " " 39
ROSE BLUSH GALLICA ON DRY WALLING " " 42
SPANISH IRIS " " 43
PLAN OF THE JUNE GARDEN " " 44
PLAN OF IRIS AND LUPINE BORDERS " " 44
WHITE TREE LUPINE " " 46
CATMINT IN JUNE " " 47
SCOTCH BRIARS " " 48
GERANIUM IBERICUM PLATYPHYLLUM " " 49
THE FLOWER BORDER IN LATE SUMMER " " 50
THE CROSS WALK " " 51
THE EAST END OF THE FLOWER BORDER " " 52
PLAN OF THE MAIN FLOWER BORDER " " 53
GOOD STAKING--CAMPANULA PERSICIFOLIA " " 54
CAREFUL STAKING OF MICHAELMAS DAISIES " " 55
WHITE ROSE LA GUIRLANDE; GREY BORDERS
BEYOND " " 60
CLEMATIS RECTA " " 61
DELPHINIUM BELLADONNA " " 62
CANTERBURY BELLS " " 63
ROSE THE GARLAND IN A SILVER HOLLY " " 64
ERYNGIUM OLIVERIANUM " " 65
TALL CAMPANULAS IN A GREY BORDER " " 66
YUCCA FILAMENTOSA " " 70
THE GREY BORDERS: STACHYS, &C. " " 71
A LAVENDER HEDGE " " 74
ÆSCULUS AND OLEARIA " " 75
PLAN OF GARDEN OF CHINA ASTERS " " 77
SOME OF THE EARLY ASTERS " " 78
THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN " " 79
THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN " " 80
THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN " " 80
BEGONIAS WITH MEGASEA FOLIAGE " " 80
EARLY ASTERS AND PYRETHRUM ULIGINOSUM " " 81
PLAN OF SEPTEMBER BORDERS " " 81
GARLAND ROSE, WHERE GARDEN JOINS WOOD " " 84
POLYGONUM AND MEGASEA AT A WOOD EDGE " " 84
LILIES AND FUNKIAS AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE " " 84
OLEARIA GUNNI, FERN AND FUNKIA " " 85
FERNS AND LILIES AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE " " 86
GYPSOPHILA AND MEGASEA " " 87
LILIES AND FERNS AT THE WOOD EDGE " " 88
SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER; SECOND YEAR " " 88
SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER; THIRD YEAR " " 88
STOBÆA PURPUREA " " 89
THE GREY BORDERS: GYPSOPHILA,
ECHINOPS, &C. " " 92
OCTOBER BORDERS OF MICHAELMAS DAISIES " " 92
A SEPTEMBER GREY GARDEN " " 92
THE GREY BORDER: PINK HOLLYHOCK, &C. " " 93
PLANS OF SPECIAL COLOUR GARDENS " " 93
A DETAIL OF THE GREY SEPTEMBER GARDEN " " 100
YUCCAS AND GREY FOLIAGE " " 102
A FRONT EDGE OF GREY FOLIAGE " " 103
HARDY GRAPE VINE ON SOUTH SIDE OF HOUSE " " 106
HARDY GRAPE VINE ON HOUSE WALL " " 107
VINE AND FIG AT DOOR OF MUSHROOM HOUSE " " 108
CLEMATIS MONTANA AT ANGLE OF COURT " " 108
CLEMATIS MONTANA OVER WORKSHOP WINDOW " " 108
CLEMATIS MONTANA TRAINED AS GARLANDS " " 108
CLEMATIS FLAMMULA AND SPIRÆA LINDLEYANA " " 108
ABUTILON VITIFOLIUM " " 108
IPOMŒA "HEAVENLY BLUE" " " 108
SOLANUM JASMINOIDES " " 108
CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON ANGLE OF COTTAGE " " 108
CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON COTTAGE " " 109
CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON A WOODEN FENCE " " 110
SWEET VERBENA " " 111
POT PLANTS JUST PLACED " " 112
PLANTS IN POTS IN THE SHADED COURT " " 112
MAIDEN'S WREATH (FRANCOA RAMOSA) " " 112
MAIDEN'S WREATH BY TANK " " 113
GERANIUMS, &C., IN A STONE-EDGED BED " " 116
MAIDEN'S WREATH IN POTS ABOVE TANK " " 116
FUNKIA, HYDRANGEA AND LILY IN THE SHADED
COURT " " 116
FUNKIA AND LILIUM SPECIOSUM " " 117
LILIUM AURATUM " " 120
A TUB HYDRANGEA " " 120
STEPS AND HYDRANGEAS " " 120
THE NARROW SOUTH LAWN " " 121
HYDRANGEA TUBS AND BIRCH-TREE SEAT " " 124
HYDRANGEA TUBS AND NUT WALK " " 124
WHITE LILIES " " 124
THE STEPS AND THEIR INCIDENTS " " 125
PLAN--THE BEAUTIFUL FRUIT GARDEN " " 129
PLAN--A WILD HEATH GARDEN " " 139
COLOUR IN THE FLOWER GARDEN
CHAPTER I
A MARCH STUDY AND THE BORDER OF EARLY BULBS
There comes a day towards the end of March when there is but little
wind, and that is from the west or even south-west. The sun has gained
much power, so that it is pleasant to sit out in the garden, or, better
still, in some sunny nook of sheltered woodland. There is such a place
among silver-trunked Birches, with here and there the splendid richness
of masses of dark Holly. The rest of the background above eye-level
is of the warm bud-colour of the summer-leafing trees, and, below,
the fading rust of the now nearly flattened fronds of last year's
Bracken, and the still paler drifts of leaves from neighbouring Oaks
and Chestnuts. The sunlight strikes brightly on the silver stems of the
Birches, and casts their shadows clear-cut across the grassy woodland
ride. The grass is barely green as yet, but has the faint winter green
of herbage not yet grown and still powdered with the short remnants
of the fine-leaved, last-year-mown heath grasses. Brown leaves still
hang on young Beech and Oak. The trunks of the Spanish Chestnuts are
elephant-grey, a notable contrast to the sudden, vivid shafts of the
Birches. Some groups of the pale early Pyrenean Daffodil gleam level on
the ground a little way forward.
It is the year's first complete picture of flower-effect in the
woodland landscape. The place is not very far from the house, in the
nearest hundred yards of the copse; where flowers seem to be more in
place than further away. Looking to the left, the long ridge and south
slope of the house-roof is seen through the leafless trees, though the
main wall-block is hidden by the sheltering Hollies and Junipers.
Coming down towards the garden by another broad grassy way, that goes
westward through the Chestnuts and then turns towards the down-hill
north, there comes yet another deviation through Rhododendrons and
Birches to the main lawn. But before the last turn there is a pleasant
mass of colour showing in the wood-edge on the dead-leaf carpet. It
is a straggling group of _Daphne Mezereon_, with some clumps of red
Lent Hellebores, and, to the front, some half-connected patches of the
common Dog-tooth Violet. The nearly related combination of colour is a
delight to the trained colour-eye. There is nothing brilliant; it is
all restrained, refined, in harmony with the veiled light that reaches
the flowers through the great clumps of Hollies and tall half-overhead
Chestnuts and neighbouring Beech. The colours are all a little "sad,"
as the old writers so aptly say of the flower-tints of secondary
strength. But it is a perfect picture. One comes to it again and again
as one does to any picture that is good to live with.
To devise these living pictures with simple well-known flowers seems
to me the best thing to do in gardening. Whether it is the putting
together of two or three kinds of plants, or even of one kind only in
some happy setting, or whether it is the ordering of a much larger
number of plants, as in a flower-border of middle and late summer, the
intention is always the same. Whether the arrangement is simple and
modest, whether it is obvious or whether it is subtle, whether it is
bold and gorgeous, the aim is always to use the plants to the best of
one's means and intelligence so as to form pictures of living beauty.
It is a thing that I see so rarely attempted, and that seems to me so
important, that the wish to suggest it to others, and to give an idea
of examples that I have worked out, in however modest a way, is the
purpose of this book.
These early examples within the days of March are of special interest
because as yet flowers are but few; the mind is less distracted by
much variety than later in the year, and is more readily concentrated
on the few things that may be done and observed; so that the necessary
restriction is a good preparation, by easy steps, for the wider field
of observation that is presented later.
Now we pass on through the dark masses of Rhododendron and the Birches
that shoot up among them. How the silver stems, blotched and banded
with varied browns and greys so deep in tone that they show like a
luminous black, tell among the glossy Rhododendron green; and how
strangely different is the way of growth of the two kinds of tree;
the tall white trunks spearing up through the dense, dark, leathery
leaf-masses of solid, roundish outline, with their delicate network of
reddish branch and spray gently swaying far overhead!
Now we come to the lawn, which slopes a little downward to the north.
On the right it has a low retaining-wall, whose top line is level;
it bears up a border and pathway next the house's western face. The
border and wall are all of a piece, for it is a dry wall partly planted
with the same shrubby and half-shrubby things that are in the earth
above. They have been comforting to look at all the winter; a pleasant
grey coating of Phlomis, Lavender, Rosemary, Cistus and Santolina;
and at the end and angle where the wall is highest, a mass of _Pyrus
japonica_, planted both above and below, already showing its rose-red
bloom. At one point at the foot of the wall is a strong tuft of _Iris
stylosa_ whose first blooms appeared in November. This capital plant
flowers bravely all through the winter in any intervals of open
weather. It likes a sunny place against a wall in poor soil. If it is
planted in better ground the leaves grow very tall and it gives but
little bloom.
[Illustration: _IRIS STYLOSA._]
Now we pass among some shrub-clumps, and at the end come upon a
cheering sight; a tree of _Magnolia conspicua_ bearing hundreds of
its great white cups of fragrant bloom. Just before reaching it, and
taking part with it in the garden picture, are some tall bushes of
_Forsythia suspensa_, tossing out many-feet-long branches loaded with
their burden of clear yellow flowers. They are ten to twelve feet high,
and one looks up at much of the bloom clear-cut against the pure
blue of the sky; the upper part of the Magnolia also shows against the
sky. Here there is a third flower-picture; this time of warm white
and finest yellow on brilliant blue, and out in open sunlight. Among
the Forsythias is also a large bush of _Magnolia stellata_, whose
milk-white flowers may be counted by the thousand. As the earlier _M.
conspicua_ goes out of bloom it comes into full bearing, keeping pace
with the Forsythia, whose season runs on well into April.
[Illustration: _MAGNOLIA CONSPICUA._]
It is always a little difficult to find suitable places for the early
bulbs. Many of them can be enjoyed in rough and grassy places, but we
also want to combine them into pretty living pictures in the garden
proper.
Nothing seems to me more unsatisfactory than the usual way of having
them scattered about in small patches in the edges of flower-borders,
where they only show as little disconnected dabs of colour, and where
they are necessarily in danger of disturbance and probable injury when
their foliage has died down and their places are wanted for summer
flowers.
It was a puzzle for many years to know how to treat these early bulbs,
but at last a plan was devised that seems so satisfactory that I have
no hesitation in advising it for general adoption.
On the further side of a path that bounds my June garden is a border
about seventy feet long and ten feet wide. At every ten feet along
the back is a larch post planted with a free-growing Rose. These are
not only to clothe their posts but are to grow into garlands swinging
on slack chains from post to post. Beyond are Bamboos, and then an
old hedge-bank with Scotch Firs, Oaks, Thorns, &c. The border slopes
upwards from the path, forming a bank of gentle ascent. It was first
planted with hardy Ferns in bold drifts; Male Fern for the most part,
because it is not only handsome but extremely persistent; the fronds
remaining green into the winter. The Fern-spaces are shown in the plan
by diagonal hatching; between them come the bulbs, with a general
edging to the front of mossy Saxifrage.
The colour-scheme begins with the pink of _Megasea ligulata_, and with
the lower-toned pinks of _Fumaria bulbosa_ and the Dog-tooth Violets
(_Erythronium_). At the back of these are Lent Hellebores of dull red
colouring, agreeing charmingly with the colour of the bulbs. A few
white Lent Hellebores are at the end; they have turned to greenish
white by the time the rather late _Scilla amœna_ is in bloom. Then
comes a brilliant patch of pure blue with white--_Scilla sibirica_ and
white Hyacinths, followed by the also pure blues of _Scilla bifolia_
and _Chionodoxa_ and the later, more purple-blue of Grape Hyacinth.
A long drift of white Crocus comes next, in beauty in the border's
earliest days; and later, the blue-white of _Puschkinia_; then again
pure blue and white of _Chionodoxa_ and white Hyacinth.
Now the colours change to white and yellow and golden foliage, with
the pretty little pale trumpet Daffodil Consul Crawford, and beyond it
the stronger yellow of two other small early kinds--_N. nanus_ and the
charming little _N. minor_, quite distinct though so often confounded
with _nanus_ in gardens. With these, and in other strips and patches
towards the end of the border, are plantings of the Golden Valerian,
so useful for its bright yellow foliage quite early in the year. The
leaves of the Orange Day-lily are also of a pale yellowish green colour
when they first come up, and are used at the end of the border. These
plants of golden and pale foliage are also placed in a further region
beyond the plan, and show to great advantage as the eye enfilades
the border and reaches the more distant places. Before the end of
the bulb-border is reached there is once more a drift of harmonised
faint pink colouring of _Megasea_ and the little _Fumaria_ (also known
as _Corydalis bulbosa_) with the pale early Pyrenean Daffodil, _N.
pallidus præcox_.
The bulb-flowers are not all in bloom exactly at the same time, but
there is enough of the colour intended to give the right effect in each
grouping. Standing at the end, just beyond the Dog-tooth Violets, the
arrangement and progression of colour is pleasant and interesting, and
in some portions vivid; the pure blues in the middle spaces being much
enhanced by the yellow flowers and golden foliage that follow.
Through April and May the leaves of the bulbs are growing tall, and
their seed-pods are carefully removed to prevent exhaustion. By the
end of May the Ferns are throwing up their leafy crooks; by June the
feathery fronds are displayed in all their tender freshness; they
spread over the whole bank, and we forget that there are any bulbs
between. By the time the June garden, whose western boundary it forms,
has come into fullest bloom it has become a completely furnished bank
of Fern-beauty.
[Illustration: _MAGNOLIA STELLATA._]
[Illustration: _FERNS IN THE BULB BORDER._]
[Illustration: _THE BANK OF EARLY BULBS._]
CHAPTER II
THE WOOD
Ten acres is but a small area for a bit of woodland, yet it can be made
apparently much larger by well-considered treatment. As the years pass
and the different portions answer to careful guidance, I am myself
surprised to see the number and wonderful variety of the pictures of
sylvan beauty that it displays throughout the year. I did not specially
aim at variety, but, guided by the natural conditions of each region,
tried to think out how best they might be fostered and perhaps a little
bettered.
The only way in which variety of aspect was deliberately chosen was in
the way of thinning out the natural growths. It was a wood of seedling
trees that had come up naturally after an old wood of Scotch Fir had
been cut down, and it seemed well to clear away all but one, or in
some cases two kinds of trees in the several regions. Even in this the
intention was to secure simplicity rather than variety, so that in
moving about the ground there should be one thing at a time to see and
enjoy. It is just this quality of singleness or simplicity of aim that
I find wanting in gardens in general, where one may see quantities of
the best plants grandly grown and yet no garden pictures.
Of course one has to remember that there are many minds to which this
need of an artist's treatment of garden and woodland does not appeal,
just as there are some who do not care for music or for poetry, or
who see no difference between the sculpture of the old Greeks and
that of any modern artist who is not of the first rank, or to whom
architectural refinement is as an unknown language. And in the case of
the more superficial enjoyment of flowers one has sympathy too. For
a love of flowers, of any kind, however shallow, is a sentiment that
makes for human sympathy and kindness, and is in itself uplifting, as
everything must be that is a source of reverence and admiration. Still,
the object of this book is to draw attention, however slightly and
imperfectly, to the better ways of gardening, and to bring to bear upon
the subject some consideration of that combination of common sense,
sense of beauty and artistic knowledge that can make plain ground and
growing things into a year-long succession of living pictures. Common
sense I put first, because it restrains from any sort of folly or sham
or affectation. Sense of beauty is the gift of God, for which those
who have received it in good measure can never be thankful enough.
The nurturing of this gift through long years of study, observation,
and close application in any one of the ways in which fine art finds
expression is the training of the artist's brain and heart and hand.
The better a human mind is trained to the perception of beauty the more
opportunities will it find of exercising this precious gift and the
more directly will it be brought to bear upon even the very simplest
matters of everyday life, and always to their bettering.
So it was in the wood of young seedling trees, where Oak and Holly,
Birch, Beech and Mountain Ash, came up together in a close thicket of
young saplings. It seemed well to consider, in the first place, how to
bring something like order into the mixed jumble, and, the better to do
this, to appeal to the little trees themselves and see what they had to
say about it.
The ground runs on a natural slope downward to the north, or, to be
more exact, as the highest point is at one corner, its surface is
tilted diagonally all over. So, beginning at the lower end of the
woody growth, near the place where the house some day might stand, the
first thing that appeared was a well-grown Holly, and rather near it,
another; both older trees than the more recent seedling growth. Close
to the second Holly was a young Birch, the trunk about four inches
thick and already in the early pride of its silvering bark. That was
enough to prompt the decision that this part of the wood should be of
silver Birch and Holly, so nearly all other growths were cut down or
pulled up. A hundred yards higher up there were some strong young Oaks,
then some Beeches, and, all over the top of the ground a thick growth
of young Scotch Fir, while the western region had a good sprinkling of
promising Spanish Chestnut.
[Illustration: _DAFFODILS BY A WOODLAND PATH._]
[Illustration: _WILD PRIMROSES IN THIN WOODLAND._ (_From a Picture by
Henry Moon._)]
All these natural groupings were accepted, and a first thinning was
made of the smallest stuff of other kinds. But it was done with the
most careful watching, for there were to be no harsh frontiers. One
kind of tree was to join hands with the next, and often a distinct
deviation was made to the general rule. For the beautiful growth of the
future wood was the thing that mattered, rather than obedience to any
inflexible law.
Now, after twenty years, the saplings have become trees and the
preponderance of one kind of tree at a time has given a feeling of
repose and dignity. Here and there something exceptional occurs, but
it causes interest, not confusion. Five woodland walks pass upward
through the trees; every one has its own character, while its details
change during the progress--never abruptly but in leisurely sequence;
as if inviting the quiet stroller to stop a moment to enjoy some
little woodland suavity, and then gently enticing him to go further,
with agreeable anticipation of what may come next. And if I may judge
by the pleasure that these woodland ways give to some of my friends
that I know are in sympathy with what I am trying to do, and by my own
thankful delight in them, I may take it that my little sylvan pictures
have come fairly right, so that I may ask my reader to go with me in
spirit through some of them.
My house, a big cottage, stands facing a little to the east of south,
just below the wood. The windows of the sitting-room and its outer
door, which stands open in all fine summer weather, look up a straight
wide grassy way, the vista being ended by a fine old Scotch Fir with
a background of dark wood. This old Fir and one other, and a number
in and near the southern hedge, are all that remain of the older wood
which was all of Scotch Fir.
This green wood walk, being the widest and most important, is treated
more boldly than the others--with groups of Rhododendrons in the region
rather near the house, and for the rest only a biggish patch of the
two North American Brambles, the white-flowered _Rubus nutkanus_, and
the rosy _R. odoratus_. In spring the western region of tall Spanish
Chestnuts, which begins just beyond the Rhododendrons, is carpeted with
Poets' Narcissus; the note of tender white blossom being taken up and
repeated by the bloom-clouds of _Amelanchier_, that charming little
woodland flowering tree whose use in such ways is so much neglected.
Close to the ground in the distance the light comes with brilliant
effect through the young leaves of a wide-spread carpet of Lily of the
Valley, whose clusters of sweet little white bells will be a delight to
see a month hence.
The Rhododendrons are carefully grouped for colour--pink, white, rose
and red of the best qualities are in the sunniest part, while, kept
well apart from them, near the tall Chestnuts and rejoicing in their
partial shade, are the purple colourings, of as pure and cool a purple
as may be found among carefully selected _ponticum_ seedlings and the
few named kinds that associate well with them. Some details of this
planting were given at length in my former book "Wood and Garden."
[Illustration: _THE WIDE WOOD-PATH._]
[Illustration: _CISTUS LAURIFOLIUS AT THE SUNNY ENTRANCE OF THE FERN
WALK._]
Among the Rhododendrons, at points carefully devised to be of good
effect, either from the house or from various points of the lawn and
grass paths, are strong groups of _Lilium auratum_; they give a new
picture of flower-beauty in the late summer and autumn and till near
the end of October. The dark, strong foliage makes the best possible
setting for the Lilies, and gives each group of them its fullest value.
Another, narrower path, more to the east, is called the Fern walk,
because, besides the general growth of Bracken that clothes the whole
of the wood, there are groups of common hardy Ferns in easy patches,
planted in such a way as to suggest that they grew there naturally. The
Male Fern, the beautiful Dilated Shield Fern, and Polypody are native
to the ground, and it was easy to place these, in some cases merely
adding to a naturally grown tuft, so that they look quite at home.
Lady Fern, _Blechnum_ and _Osmunda_, and Oak and Beech Ferns have been
added, the _Osmunda_ in a depression that collects the water from any
storms of rain.
At the beginning of all these paths I took some pains to make the
garden melt imperceptibly into the wood, and in each case to do it a
different way. Where this path begins the lawn ends at a group of Oak,
Holly and Cistus, with an undergrowth of Gaultheria and Andromeda.
The larger trees are to the left and the small evergreen shrubs on a
rocky mound to the right. Within a few yards the turf path becomes a
true wood path. Just as wild gardening should never look like garden
gardening, or, as it so sadly often does, like garden plants gone
astray and quite out of place, so wood paths should never look like
garden paths. There must be no hard edges, no conscious boundaries. The
wood path is merely an easy way that the eye just perceives and the
foot follows. It dies away imperceptibly on either side into the floor
of the wood and is of exactly the same nature, only that it is smooth
and easy and is not encumbered by projecting tree-roots, Bracken or
Bramble, these being all removed when the path is made.
If it is open enough to allow of the growth of grass, and the grass has
to be cut, and is cut with a machine, then a man with a faghook must
follow to cut away slantingly the hard edge of standing grass that is
left on each side. For the track of the machine not only leaves the
hard, unlovely edges, but also brings into the wood the incongruous
sentiment of that discipline of trimness which belongs to the garden,
and that, even there in its own place, is often overdone.
Now we are in the true wood-path among Oaks and Birches. Looking round,
the view is here and there stopped by prosperous-looking Hollies,
but for the most part one can see a fair way into the wood. In April
the wood-floor is plentifully furnished with Daffodils. Here, in the
region furthest removed from the white Poets' Daffodil of the upper
ground, they are all of trumpet kinds, and the greater number of strong
yellow colour. For the Daffodils range through the wood in a regular
sequence of kinds that is not only the prettiest way to have them, but
that I have often found, in the case of people who did not know their
Daffodils well, served to make the whole story of their general kinds
and relationships clear and plain; the hybrids of each group standing
between the parent kinds; these again leading through other hybrids
to further clearly defined species, ending with the pure trumpets. As
the sorts are intergrouped at their edges, so that at least two removes
are in view at one time, the lesson in the general relationship of
kinds is easily learnt.
[Illustration: _A WOOD-PATH AMONG CHESTNUTS._]
[Illustration: _A WOOD-PATH AMONG BIRCHES._]
They are planted, not in patches but in long drifts, a way that not
only shows the plant in good number to better advantage, but that is
singularly happy in its effect in the woodland landscape. This is
specially noticeable towards the close of the day, when the sunlight,
yellowing as it nears the horizon, lights up the long stretches
of yellow bloom with an increase of colour strength, while the
wide-stretching shadow-lengths throw the woodland shades into large
_phrases_ of broadened mass, all subdued and harmonised by the same
yellow light that illuminates the long level ranks of golden bloom.
From this same walk in June, looking westward through the Birch stems,
the value of the careful colour-scheme of the Rhododendrons is fully
felt. They are about a hundred yards away, and their mass is broken
by the groups of intervening tree-trunks, but their brightness is all
the more apparent seen from under the nearer roofing mass of tree-top,
and the yellowing light makes the intended colour-effect still more
successful by throwing its warm tone over the whole.
But nearer at hand the Fern walk has its own little pictures. In early
summer there are patches of _Trillium_, the white Wood Lily, in cool
hollows among the ferns, and, some twenty paces further up, another
wider group of the same. Between the two, spreading through a mossy
bank, in and out among the ferns and right down to the path, next to
a coming patch of Oak Fern, is a charming little white flower. Its
rambling roots thread their way under the mossy carpet, and every few
inches throw up a neat little stem and leaves crowned with a starry
flower of tenderest white. It is _Trientalis_, a native of our most
northern hill-woods, the daintiest of all woodland flowers.
To right and left white Foxgloves spire up among the Bracken. When the
Foxglove-seed is ripe, we remember places in the wood where tree-stumps
were grubbed last winter. A little of the seed is scattered in these
places and raked in. Meanwhile one forgets all about it till two years
afterwards there are the stately Foxgloves. It is good to see their
strong spikes of solid bloom standing six to seven feet high, and
then to look down again at the lowly _Trientalis_ and to note how the
tender little blossom, poised on its thread-like stem, holds its own in
interest and importance.
[Illustration: _CISTUS CYPRIUS IN THE CISTUS CLEARING._]
[Illustration: _CISTUS BY THE WOOD-PATH._]
Further up the Fern walk, near the upper group of _Trillium_, are some
patches of a plant with roundish, glittering leaves. It is a North
American _Asarum_ (_A. virginicum_); the curious wax-like brown and
greenish flower, after the usual manner of its kind, is short-stalked
and hidden at the base of the leaf-stems. Near it, and growing
close to the ground in a tuft of dark-green moss, is an interesting
plant--_Goodyera repens_, a terrestrial Orchid. One might easily
pass it by, for its curiously white-veined leaves are half hidden
in the moss, and its spike of pale greenish white flower is not
conspicuous; but, knowing it is there, I never pass without kneeling
down, both to admire its beauty and to ensure its well-being by a
careful removal of a little of the deep moss here and there where it
threatens too close an invasion.
Now there comes a break in the Fern walk, or rather it takes another
character. The end of one of the wide green ways that we call the Lily
path comes into it on the right, and, immediately beyond this, stands
the second of the great Scotch Firs of the older wood. The trunk, at
five feet from the ground, has a girth of nine and a half feet. The
colour of the rugged bark is a wonder of lovely tones of cool greys
and greens, and of a luminous deep brown in the fissures and cavities.
Where the outer layers have flaked off it is a warm reddish grey, of a
quality that is almost peculiar to itself. This great tree's storm-rent
head towers up some seventy feet, far above the surrounding foliage of
Oak and Birch. Close to its foot, and showing behind it as one comes up
the Fern walk, are a Holly and a Mountain Ash.
This spot is a meeting-place of several ways. On the right the
wide green of the Lily path; then, still bearing diagonally to the
right, one of the ways into the region of Azalia and Cistus; then,
straight past the big tree, a wood walk carpeted with Whortleberry
and passing through a whole Whortleberry region under Oaks, Hollies
and Beeches, and, lastly, the path which is the continuation of the
Fern walk. Looking along it one sees, a little way ahead, a closer
shade of trees, for the most part Oak, but before entering this, on
the right-hand gently rising bank, is a sheet of bright green leaves,
closely set in May with neat spikes of white bloom. It is _Smilacina
bifolia_, otherwise known as _Maianthemum bifolium_. The pretty little
plant has taken to the place in a way that rejoices the heart of the
wild gardener, joining in perfect accord with the natural growth of
short Whortleberry and a background of the graceful fronds of Dilated
Shield Fern, and looking as if it was of spontaneous growth.
Now the path passes a large Holly, laced through and through with wild
Honeysuckle. The Honeysuckle stems that run up into the tree look like
great ropes, and a quantity of the small ends come showering out of the
tree-top and over the path, like a tangled veil of small cordage.
The path has been steadily rising, and now the ascent is a little
steeper. The character of the trees is changing; Oaks are giving way to
Scotch Firs. Just where this change begins the bank to right and left
is covered with the fresh, strong greenery of _Gaultheria Shallon_.
About twenty years ago a few small pieces were planted. Now it is a
mass of close green growth two to three feet high and thirty paces
long, and extending for several yards into the wood to right and left.
In a light, peaty soil such as this, it is the best of undershrubs. It
is in full leaf-beauty in the dead of winter, while in early summer it
bears clusters of good flowers of the Arbutus type. These are followed
by handsome dark berries nearly as large as black currants, covered
with a blue-grey bloom.
[Illustration: _GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FLOWER._]
[Illustration: _GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FRUIT._]
Now the path crosses another of the broad turfy ways, but here the
turf is all of Heath; a fourteen-foot wide road of grey-rosy bloom
in August; and now we are in the topmost region of Scotch Fir, with
undergrowth of Whortleberry.
The wood path next to this goes nearly straight up through the middle
of the ground. It begins at another point of the small lawn next
the house, and passes first by a turf walk through a mounded region
of small shrubs and carefully placed pieces of the local sandstone.
Andromeda, Skimmia, and Alpenrose have grown into solid masses, so that
the rocky ridges peer out only here and there. And when my friends
say, "But then, what a chance you had with that shelf of rock coming
naturally out of the ground," I feel the glowing warmth of an inward
smile and think that perhaps the stones have not been so badly placed.
Near the middle of the woody ground a space was cleared that would
be large enough to be sunny throughout the greater part of the day.
This was for Cistuses. It is one of the compensations for gardening on
the poorest of soils that these delightful shrubs do well with only
the preparation of digging up and loosening the sand, for my soil is
nothing better. The kinds that are best in the woody landscape are _C.
laurifolius_ and _C. cyprius_; _laurifolius_ is the hardiest, _cyprius_
rather the more beautiful, with its three-and-a-half-inch wide flowers
of tenderest white with a red-purple blotch at the base of each petal.
Its growth, also, is rather more free and graceful. It is the kind
usually sold as _ladaniferus_, and flowers in July. _C. laurifolius_ is
a bush of rather denser habit; it bears an abundance of bloom rather
smaller than that of _C. cyprius_, and without the coloured blotch.
But when it grows old and some of its stems are borne down and lie
along the ground, the habit changes and it acquires a free pictorial
character. These two large-growing Cistuses are admirable for wild
planting in sunny wood edges. The illustrations (pp. 16, 17) show their
use, not only in their own ground, but by the sides of the grassy ways
and the regions where the wood paths leave the lawn.
The sheltered, sunny Cistus clearing has an undergrowth of wild heaths
that are native to the ground, but a very few other Heaths are added,
namely, _Erica ciliata_ and the Cornish Heath; and there is a fine
patch at the joining of two of the little grassy paths of the white
form of the Irish Heath (_Menziesia polifolia_).
[Illustration: _WHITE IRISH HEATH._]
[Illustration: _THE SPRING GARDEN FROM_ =D= _ON PLAN. "NEAR ROCK" IS TO
THE LEFT._]
CHAPTER III
THE SPRING GARDEN
As my garden falls naturally into various portions, distinct enough
from each other to allow of separate treatment, I have found it well to
devote one space at a time, sometimes mainly, sometimes entirely, to
the flowers of one season of the year.
There is therefore one portion that is a complete little garden of
spring flowers. It begins to show some bloom by the end of March, but
its proper season is the month of April and three weeks of May.
In many places the spring garden has to give way to the summer garden,
a plan that greatly restricts the choice of plants, and necessarily
excludes some of the finest flowers of the early year.
My spring garden lies at the end and back of a high wall that shelters
the big summer flower border from the north and north-west winds. The
line of the wall is continued as a Yew hedge that in time will rise
to nearly the same height, about eleven feet. At the far end the Yew
hedge returns to the left so as to fence in the spring flowers from the
east and to hide some sheds. The space also encloses some beds of Tree
Peonies and a plot of grass, roughly circular in shape, about eight
yards across, which is nearly surrounded by Oaks, Hollies and Cobnuts.
The plan shows its disposition. It is of no design; the space was
accepted with its own conditions, arranged in the simplest way as to
paths, and treated very carefully for colour. It really makes as pretty
a picture of spring flowers as one could wish to see.
The chief mass of colour is in the main border. The circles marked V
and M are strong plants of Veratrum and Myrrhis. Gardens of spring
flowers generally have a thin, poor effect for want of plants
of important foliage. The greater number of them look what they
are--temporary makeshifts. It seemed important that in this little
space, which is given almost entirely to spring flowers, this weakness
should not be allowed. But herbaceous plants of rather large growth
with fine foliage in April and May are not many. The best I could think
of are _Veratrum nigrum_, _Myrrhis odorata_ and the newer _Euphorbia
Wulfenii_. The _Myrrhis_ is the Sweet Cicely of old English gardens.
It is an umbelliferous plant with large fern-like foliage, that makes
early growth and flowers in the beginning of May. At three years old a
well-grown plant is a yard high and across. After that, if the plants
are not replaced by young ones they grow too large, though they can be
kept in check by a careful removal of the outer leaves and by cutting
out some whole crowns when the plant is making its first growth. The
Veratrum, with its large, deeply plaited, undivided leaves is in
striking contrast, but the two kinds of plants, in groups as the plan
shows, with running patches of the large form of _Megasea cordifolia_,
the great _Euphorbia Wulfenii_ and some groups of Black Hellebore,
just give that comfortable impression of permanence and distinct
intention that are usually so lamentably absent from gardens of spring
flowers.
[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE SPRING GARDEN._]
Many years ago I came to the conclusion that in all flower borders
it is better to plant in long rather than block-shaped patches. It
not only has a more pictorial effect, but a thin long planting does
not leave an unsightly empty space when the flowers are done and the
leaves have perhaps died down. The word "drift" conveniently describes
the shape I have in mind and I commonly use it in speaking of these
long-shaped plantings.
Such drifts are shown faintly in the plan, reduced in number and
simplified in form, but serving to show the general manner of planting.
There are of course many plants that look best in a distinct clump or
even as single examples, such as _Dictamnus_ (the Burning Bush), and
the beautiful pale yellow _Pæonia wittmanniana_, a single plant of
which is marked W near the beginning of the main border.
For the first seven or eight yards, in the front and middle spaces,
there are plants of tender colouring--pale Primroses, Tiarella, pale
yellow Daffodils, pale yellow early Iris, pale lemon Wallflower, double
Arabis, white Anemones and the palest of the lilac Aubrietias; also a
beautiful pale lilac Iris, one of the Caparne hybrids; with long drifts
of white and pale yellow Tulips--nothing deeper in colour than the
graceful _Tulipa retroflexa_. At the back of the border the colours are
darker; purple Wallflower and the great dull red-purple double Tulip
so absurdly called Bleu Celeste. These run through and among and behind
the first clump of Veratrums.
[Illustration: _THE FERN-LIKE SWEET CICELY._]
[Illustration: _THE SPRING GARDEN FROM_ =E= _ON PLAN. "FURTHER ROCK" IS
ON THE NEAR RIGHT HAND._]
In the middle of the length of the border there is still a good
proportion of tender and light colouring in front: white Primroses and
Daffodils; the pale yellow Uvularia and _Adonis vernalis_; but with
these there are stronger colours. Tulip Chrysolora of fuller yellow,
yellow Wallflowers, the tall Doronicum, and, towards the back, several
patches of yellow Crown Imperial.
Then again in front, with more double Arabis, is the lovely pale blue
of _Myosotis dissitiflora_ and _Mertensia virginica_, and, with sheets
of the foam-like Tiarella, the tender pink of _Dicentra eximia_ and
pink and rose-red Tulips. At the back of this come scarlet Tulips, the
stately cream-white form of _Camassia Leichtlini_ and a bold tuft of
Solomon's Seal; then Orange Tulips, brown Wallflowers, Orange Crown
Imperial, and taller scarlet Tulips of the _gesneriana_ class. The
strong colouring is repeated beyond the cross-path where the patches
of Acanthus are shown, with more orange Tulips, brown Wallflowers,
orange Crown Imperial and great flaming scarlet _gesneriana_ Tulips.
All this shows up finely against the background of dark yew. At the
extreme end, where the yew hedge returns forward at a right angle, this
point is accentuated by a raised mound of triangular shape, dry-walled
and slightly curved forward on the side facing the border and the
spectator. On this at the back is a young plant of _Yucca gloriosa_
for display in future years and a front planting of the large growing
_Euphorbia Wulfenii_, one of the grandest and most pictorial of plants
of recent acquirement for garden use.
The Acanthus and Yucca are of course plants of middle and late summer;
between them are some Tritomas. These plants are here because one of
the most often used of the garden thoroughfares passes the point C,
which is a thick-roofed arch of Rose and Clematis, and, seen from this
point and framed by the near greenery, they form a striking picture of
middle-distant form and colour in the later summer.
The space marked Further Rock is an upward-sloping bank; the Hollies
standing in rather higher ground. Here the plants are between, and
tumbling over, rocky ridges. Next the large Holly, and extending to
the middle of the rocky promontory, are again the strong reds and
browns, with accompanying bronze-red foliage of _Heuchera Richardsoni_.
This gives place to dark green carpeting masses of Iberis with
cold-white bloom, and, nearer the path, _Lithospermum prostratum_;
the flower-colour here changing, through white, to blue and bluish;
_Myosotis_ in front telling charmingly against the dark-leaved
_Lithospermum_. At the highest points, next to a great crowning
boulder, is the Common Blue Iris and a paler one of the beautiful
Caparne series. Then down to the path where it begins to turn is
a drift of the bluish lilac _Phlox divaricata_, and, opposite the
cross-path, some jewels of the newer pale yellow _Alyssum sulphureum_.
This rocky shoulder is also enlivened by a natural-looking but very
carefully considered planting of white Tulips that run through both the
blue and the red regions.
The corner marked Near Rock is also a slightly raised bank. The dark
dots are cobnuts; the dotted line between is where there are garlands
of _Clematis montana_ that swing on ropes between the nuts. The
garlands dip down and nearly meet the flowers of some pale pink Tree
Peonies. Open spaces above the garlands and under the meeting branches
of the nuts give glimpses of distant points where some little scheme
has been devised to please the eye, such as the bit of bank to the
left of Seat A, where there are two little fish-like drifts of palest
Aubrietia in a dense grey setting of Cerastium.
The point of the Near Rock next the path agrees with the colouring
opposite, but also has features of its own; a groundwork of grey
_Antennaria_, the soft lilac-pink of the good _Aubrietia Moorheimi_
changing to the left to the fuller pink of _Phlox amœna_, and above
to the type colour of Aubrietia and the newer strong purples such as
the variety Dr. Mules. To the left, towards the oaks, the colouring is
mostly purple, with strong tufts of the Spring Bitter Vetch (_Orobus
vernus_), purple Wallflowers, and, under and behind the nuts, purple
Honesty. Thin streams of white Tulips intermingle with other streams of
pink Tulips that crown the angle and flow down again to the main path
between ridges of double Arabis, white Iberis, and cloudy masses of the
pretty pale yellow _Corydalis ochroleuca_, which spreads into a wide
carpet under the Tree Peonies and Clematis garlands.
Further along, just clear of the nuts, are some patches of _Dielytra
spectabilis_, its graceful growth arching out over the lower stature
of pink Tulips and harmonising charmingly with the pinkish-green
foliage of the Tree Peonies just behind. The pink Tulips are here in
some quantity; they run boldly into pools of pale blue Myosotis, with
more Iberis where the picture demands the strongest, deepest green, and
more Corydalis where the softer, greyer tones will make it better.
The space marked Shade, always in shade from the nuts and oaks, is
planted with rather large patches of the handsome white-flowered
_Dentaria_, the graceful North American _Uvularia grandiflora_, in
habit like a small Solomon's Seal but with yellow flowers much larger
in proportion; with Myrrhis and purple Honesty at the back and sheets
of Sweet Woodruff to the front.
There are Tree Peonies in the long border and the two others. It is
difficult to grow them in my hot, dry, sandy soil, even though I make
them a liberal provision of just such a compost as I think they will
like. I have noticed that they do best when closely overshadowed by
some other growing thing. In the two near beds there are some Mme.
Alfred Carrière Roses that are trained to arch over to the angles,
so to comfort and encourage the Peonies. These beds have an informal
edging of _Stachys lanata_, one of the most useful of plants for grey
effects. Through it come white Tulips in irregular patches.
[Illustration: _"FURTHER ROCK," FROM_ =G= _ON PLAN_.]
[Illustration: _"FURTHER ROCK" FROM_ =H= _ON PLAN: IBERIS, PHLOX
STELLARIA AND PHLOX DIVARICATA, WHITE TULIPS AND BLUE IRIS_.]
The long border has also Tree Peonies planted about two and a half
feet from the edge. Partly to give the bed a sort of backbone, and
partly to shelter the Tree Peonies, it has some bushes of _Veronica
Traversi_ and one or two _Leycesteria formosa_. In the middle of the
length is a clump of _Lilium giganteum_ and a biggish grouping of
_Dielytra spectabilis_. All along the outer border there are patches
and long straggling groups of the pretty dwarf Irises of the _pumila_,
_olbiensis_ and _chamæ-iris_ sections, with others of the same class
of stature and habit. Any bare spaces are filled with Wallflowers and
Honesty in colours that accord with the general arrangement. The narrow
border has mostly small shrubs, Berberis and so on, forming one mass
with the hedge to the left, which consists of a double dry wall about
four feet high, with earth between and a thick growth on the top of
Berberis, _Rosa lucida_ and Scotch Briers. Except the Berberis these
make no show of flower within the blooming time of the spring garden,
but the whole is excellent as a background.
Red primroses are in the narrow border next to the cross-wall; the wall
here is much lower than the longer one on the right. The Primroses
are grouped with the reddish leaved _Heuchera Richardsoni_, the
two together making a rich colour-harmony. Beyond them are scarlet
Tulips. The small shaded rounds in this border and its continuation
across the path into the near end of the main border are stout
larch posts supporting a strong growth of Rose Mme. Alfred Carrière
and _Clematis montana_. These have grown together into a solid
continuously-intermingling mass, the path at C passing under a low arch
of their united branches. The high wall on the right is also covered
with flowering things of the early year, Morella Cherries, _Rubus
deliciosus_ and _Clematis montana_, some of this foaming over from the
other side of the wall.
The wall is a part, about a third of the length, of the high wall that
protects the large border of summer and autumn flowers from the north,
and that forms the dividing-line between the pleasure garden proper and
the working garden beyond.
On the plan are letters with arrows referring to the illustrations.
The letter is at the spot where the camera stood; the arrow points to
the middle of the picture. Thus the one taken from D shows two-thirds
of the longest path with the end of the big wall and the Yew hedge
that prolongs its line on the right and the Nut-trees on the left. The
colouring on the right is of pale purple Aubrietia and double white
Arabis, with pale Daffodils, and, at the back, groups of sulphur Crown
Imperial.
The more distant colouring is of brown Wallflower and red Tulip and
the bright mahogany-coloured Crown Imperial. The picture from E is
done from among the reds and strong yellows and looks to point C, and
further, through the arch of Rose and Clematis, to the Peony garden
beyond. The other illustrations show groups of colouring more in
detail. The one from F looks at Near Rock from one side. Over the grey
Stachys and its milk-white Tulips is seen the flowery mass of pale and
deep lilac, and pinkish lilac with grey foliage, crowned with pink and
white Tulips near the foot of the Nuts. The picture from G looks at
the bit of bank called Further Rock with its big piece of sandstone
that looks as if it came naturally out of the ground. Here is a mass
of dead-white Iberis with Tulips of a softer white, then the lilac
white of _Phlox stellaria_ and the bluish lilac of _Phlox divaricata_.
The picture from H was done a few days later. It shows the further mass
of _Phlox divaricata_ more fully in bloom, and, among the white Tulips
above, a pretty pale lilac-blue hybrid Iris and some taller stems of
the common Blue Flag Iris just coming into blossom. This picture shows
the value of the dark Yew hedge as a background to the flowers. Just
at the back of the flowery bank are Hollies, and then the hedge. This
has not yet come to its full height and the top still shows a ragged
outline, but in two years' time it will have grown into shape.
[Illustration: _"NEAR ROCK" FROM_ =F= _ON PLAN: AUBRIETIAS, PHLOX AMŒNA
AND WHITE AND PINK TULIP._]
[Illustration: _THE PRIMROSE GARDEN._]
The Primrose garden is in a separate place among Oaks and Hazels. It
is for my special strain of large yellow and white bunch Primroses,
now arrived at a state of fine quality and development by a system of
careful seed-selection that has been carried on for more than thirty
years.
CHAPTER IV
BETWEEN SPRING AND SUMMER
When the Spring flowers are done, and before the full June days come
with the great Flag Irises and the perennial Lupines, there is a kind
of mid-season. If it can be given a space of ground it will be well
bestowed. I have a place that I call the Hidden Garden, because it is
in a corner that might so easily be overlooked if one did not know
where to find it. No important path leads into it, though two pass
within ten yards of it on either side. It is in a sort of clearing
among Ilex and Holly, and the three small ways into it are devious and
scarcely noticeable from the outside. The most important of these,
marked 1 on the plan, passes between some clumps of overarching Bamboo
and through a short curved tunnel of Yew and Ilex. Another, marked 2,
is only just traceable among Berberis under a large Birch, and comes
sharply round a tall Monterey Cypress. The third turns out of one of
the shady woodland glades and comes into the little garden by some
rough stone steps.
The plan shows the simple arrangement; the paths following the most
natural lines that the place suggests. The main path goes down some
shallow, rough stone steps with a sunny bank to the left and a rocky
mound to the right. The mound is crowned with small shrubs, Alpine
Rhododendrons and Andromeda. Both this and the left-hand bank have a
few courses of rough dry-walling next the path on its lowest level. A
little cross-path curves into the main one from the right.
[Illustration: _STEPS TO THE HIDDEN GARDEN AT_ =3= _ON PLAN._]
[Illustration: _PHLOX DIVARICATA AND ARENARIA MONTANA._]
The path leaves the garden again by a repetition of the rough stone
steps. The mossy growth of _Arenaria balearica_ clings closely to the
stones on their cooler faces, and the frond-like growths of Solomon's
Seal hang out on either side as a fitting prelude to the dim mysteries
of the wide green wood-path beyond.
It is a garden for the last days of May and the first fortnight of June.
Passing through the Yew tunnel, the little place bursts on the sight
with good effect. What is most striking is the beauty of the blue-lilac
_Phlox divaricata_ and that of two clumps of Tree Peony--the rosy
Baronne d'Alès and the pale salmon-pink Comtesse de Tuder. The little
garden, with its quiet environment of dark foliage, forbids the use
of strong colouring, or perhaps one should say that it suggested a
restriction of the scheme of colouring to the tenderer tones. There
seemed to be no place here for the gorgeous Oriental Poppies, although
they too are finest in partial shade, or for any strong yellows, their
character needing wider spaces and clearer sunlight.
The Tree Peonies are in two groups of the two kinds only; it seemed
enough for the limited space. In front of Comtesse de Tuder is a group
of _Funkia Sieboldi_, its bluish leaves harmonising delightfully with
the leaf-colour of the Peonies; next to them is a corner of glistening
deep green Asarum. No other flowers of any size are near, but there
are sheets of the tender yellow bloom and pale foliage of _Corydalis
ochroleuca_, of the white-bloomed Woodruff, and the pale green leafage
of Epimedium; and among them tufts of Lent Hellebores, also in fresh
young leaf, and a backing of the feathery fronds of Lady Fern and of
the large Solomon's Seal; with drooping garlands of _Clematis montana_
hanging informally from some rough branching posts. Yew-trees are at
the back, and then Beeches in tender young leaf.
The foot of the near mound is a pink cloud of London Pride. Shooting up
among it and just beyond is the white St. Bruno's Lily. More of this
lovely little lily-like Anthericum is again a few feet further along,
grouped with _Iris Cengialti_, one of the bluest of the Irises. The
back of the mound has some of the tenderly tinted Caparne hybrid Irises
two feet high, of pale lilac colouring, rising from among dark-leaved,
white-bloomed Iberis, and next the path a pretty, large-flowered tufted
Pansy that nearly matches the Iris.
But the glory of the mound is the long stretch of blue-lilac _Phlox
divaricata_, whose colour is again repeated by a little of the same on
the sunny bank to the left. Here it is grouped with pale pink Scotch
Brier, more pale yellow Corydalis and _Arenaria montana_ smothered
in its masses of white bloom. At the end of the bank the colour of
the _Phlox divaricata_ is deepened by sheaves of _Camassia esculenta_
that spear up through it. The whole back of this bank has a free
planting of graceful pale-coloured Columbines with long spurs,
garden kinds that come easily from seed and that were originally
derived from some North American species. They are pale yellow and warm
white; some have the outer portion of the flower of a faint purple,
much like that of some of the patches in an old, much-washed, cotton
patchwork quilt.
[Illustration: _MALE FERN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _EXOCHORDA GRANDIFLORA._]
[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE HIDDEN GARDEN._]
The dark trees on the right have rambling Roses growing into
them--Paul's Carmine Pillar and the Himalayan _R. Brunonis_. The red
Rose does not flower so freely here as on a pillar in sunlight, but its
fewer stems clamber high into the Holly and the bloom shows in thin
natural wreaths that are even more pleasing to an artist's eye than the
more ordered abundance of the flowery post. At the foot of the Hollies
hardy Ferns grow luxuriantly in the constant shade. A little later a
few clumps of Lilies will spring up from among them; the lovely pink
_rubellum_, the fine yellow _szovitzianum_, and the buff _testaceum_.
On the left-hand side, behind the sunny bank, a Garland Rose comes
through and tumbles out of a Yew, and some sprays of an old bush of
the single _R. polyantha_, that has spread to a circumference of one
hundred and fifty feet, have pushed their way through the Ilex.
The Hollies and Ilexes all round are growing fast, and before many
years are over the little garden will become too shady for the
well-being of the flowers that now occupy it. It will then change its
character and become a Fern garden.
All gardening involves constant change. It is even more so in woodland.
A young bit of wood such as mine is for ever changing. Happily, each
new development reveals new beauty of aspect or new possibility of good
treatment, such as, rightly apprehended and then guided, tends to a
better state than before.
Meanwhile the little tree-embowered garden has a quiet charm of its
own. It seems to delight in its character of a Hidden Garden, and in
the pleasant surprise that its sudden discovery provokes. For between
it and its owner there is always a pretty little play of pretending
that there is no garden there, and of being much surprised and
delighted at finding, not only that there is one, but quite a pretty
one.
The Hidden Garden is so small in extent, and its boundaries are already
so well grown, that there is no room for many of the beautiful things
of the time of year. For May is the time for the blooming of the most
important of our well-known flowering shrubs--Lilac, Guelder Rose,
White Broom, Laburnum, and _Pyrus Malus floribunda_. But one shrub, as
beautiful as any of these and as easily grown, seems to be forgotten.
This is _Exochorda grandiflora_--related to the Spiræas. Its pearl-like
buds have earned it the name of Pearl Bush, but its whole lovely bloom
should before now have secured it a place in every good garden.
Every one knows the Guelder Rose, with its round white flower-balls,
but the wild shrub of which this is a garden variety is also a valuable
ornamental bush and should not be neglected. It is a native plant,
growing in damp places, such as the hedges of water-meadows and the
sides of streams. The English name is Water Elder. Its merit as a
garden shrub does not lie, as in the Guelder Rose, in its bloom, but in
its singularly beautiful fruit. This, in autumn, lights up the whole
shrub with a ruddy radiance. Grown on drier ground than that of its
natural habitat, it takes a closer, more compact form.
[Illustration: _EUPHORBIA WULFENII._]
[Illustration: _IRISES AND LUPINES IN THE JUNE GARDEN._]
White Broom is in flower from the middle of May to the second week of
June. There is a fine Flag Iris of a rich purple colour called "Purple
King." It is well to grow it just in front of some young bushes of
White Broom. Then, if one of the hybrid Irises of pale lilac colour
is there as well, and a bush of _Rosa altaica_, the colour-effect
will be surprisingly beautiful. This Rose is the bolder-growing,
Asiatic equivalent of our Burnet Rose (_R. spinosissima_), with the
same lemon-white flowers. When any such group containing White Broom
is planted, it should be remembered that the tendency of the Broom is
to grow tall and leggy. It bears pruning, but it is a good plan to
plant some extra ones behind the others. After a couple of years, if
the front plants have grown out of bounds, the back ones can be bent
down and fastened to sticks, so that their heads come in the required
places. It is one of the many ways in which a pretty garden picture may
be maintained from year to year by the exercise of a little thought and
ingenuity. The undergrowth of such a group may be of Solomon's Seal at
the back, and, if the bank or border is in sun, of a lower groundwork
of Iberis and _Corydalis ochroleuca_, or, if it is shaded, of Tiarella,
Woodruff or _Anemone sylvestris_. With these, for the sake of their
tender green foliage, there may well be _Uvularia grandiflora_ and
_Epimedium pinnatum_.
A wonderful plant of May is the great _Euphorbia Wulfenii_. It adapts
itself to many ways of use, for, though the immense yellow-green
heads of bloom are at their best in May, they are still of pictorial
value in June and July, while the deep-toned, grey-blue foliage is in
full beauty throughout the greater part of the year. It is valuable
in boldly arranged flower borders, and holds its own among shrubs of
moderate size, but I always think its best use would be in the boldest
kind of rock-work.
One of my desires that can never be fulfilled is to have a rocky
hillside in full sun, so steep as to be almost precipitous, with walls
of bare rock only broken by ledges that can be planted. I would have
great groups of Yucca standing up against the sky and others in the
rock-face, and some bushes of this great _Euphorbia_ and only a few
other plants, all of rather large grey effect; _Phlomis_, Lavender,
Rosemary and Cistus, with _Othonna_ hanging down in long sheets
over the bare face of the warm rock. It would be a rock-garden on
an immense scale, planted as Nature plants, with not many different
things at a time. The restriction to a few kinds of plants would give
the impression of spontaneous growth; of that large, free, natural
effect that is so rarely achieved in artificial planting. Besides
natural hillsides, there must be old quarries within or near the
pleasure-grounds of many places in our islands where such a scheme of
planting could worthily be carried out.
[Illustration: _PART OF THE GARLAND ROSE AT THE ANGLE._]
CHAPTER V
THE JUNE GARDEN
Beyond the lawn and a belt of Spanish Chestnut I have a little cottage
that is known as the Hut. I lived in it for two years while my house
was building, and may possibly live in it again for the sake of
replenishing an over-drained exchequer, if the ideal well-to-do invalid
flower-lover or some such very quiet summer tenant, to whom alone I
could consent to surrender my dear home for a few weeks, should be
presented by a kind Providence. Meanwhile it is always in good use for
various purposes, such as seed-drying, _pot-pourri_ preparing, and the
like.
The garden in front and at the back is mainly a June garden. It has
Peonies, Irises, Lupines, and others of the best flowers of the season,
and a few for later blooming. The entrance to the Hut is through Yews
that arch overhead. Close to the right is a tall Holly with a _Clematis
montana_ growing into it and tumbling out at the top. The space of
garden to the left, being of too deep a shape to be easily got at
from the path on the one side and the stone paving on the other, has
a kind of dividing backbone made of a double row of Rose hoops or
low arches, rising from good greenery of Male Fern and the fern-like
Sweet Cicely. This handsome plant (_Myrrhis odorata_) is of great
use in many ways. It will grow anywhere, and has the unusual merit of
making a good show of foliage quite early in the year. It takes two
years to get to a good size, sending its large, fleshy, aromatic roots
deep down into the soil. By the end of May, when the bloom is over and
the leaves are full grown, they can be cut right down, when the plant
will at once form a new set of leaves that remain fresh for the rest
of the summer. Its chief use is as a good foliage accompaniment or
background to flowers, and no plant is better for filling up at the
bases of shrubs that look a little leggy near the ground, or for any
furnishing of waste or empty spaces, especially in shade. From among
the Ferns and Myrrhis at the back of this bit of eastern border rise
white Foxgloves, the great white Columbine, and the tall stems of white
Peach-leaved Campanula. Nearer to the front are clumps of Peonies. But,
as one of the most frequented paths passes along this eastern border,
it was thought best not to confine it to June flowers only, but to have
something also for the later months. All vacant places are therefore
filled with Pentstemons and Snapdragons, which make a show throughout
the summer; while for the early days of July there are clumps of the
old garden Roses--Damask and Provence. The whole south-western angle is
occupied by a well-grown Garland Rose that every summer is loaded with
its graceful wreaths of bloom. It has never been trained or staked,
but grows as a natural fountain; the branches are neither pruned nor
shortened. The only attention it receives is that every three or four
years the internal mass of old dead wood is cut right out, when the
bush seems to spring into new life.
Passing this angle and going along the path leading to the studio door
in the little stone-paved court, there is a seat under an arbour formed
by the Yews; the front of it has a Dundee Rambler Rose supported by a
rough wooden framework. On the right, next the paving, are two large
standard Roses with heads three and four feet through. They are old
garden Roses, worked in cottage fashion on a common Dog-rose stock. One
is Celeste, of loveliest tender rose colour, its broad bluish leaves
showing its near relationship to _Rosa alba_; the other the white
Mme. Plantier. This old Rose, with its abundant bunches of pure white
flowers, always seems to me to be one of the most charming of the older
garden kinds. It will grow in almost any way, and is delightful in all;
as a pillar, as a hedge, as a bush, as a big cottage standard, or in
the border tumbling about among early summer flowers. Like the Blush
Gallica, which just precedes it in time of blooming, it is one of the
old picture Roses. Both should be in quantity in every garden, and yet
they are but rarely seen.
The border next the paving has clumps of the old garden Peonies (_P.
officinalis_). By the time these are over, towards the end of June,
groups of the earlier orange Herring Lilies are in bloom. A thick and
rather high Box edging neatly trims these borders, and favours the
cottage-garden sentiment that is fostered in this region. At the back
of the Yews that form the arbour is one end of the Hidden Garden.
Going along the path, past the projection on the block-plan of the Hut,
which represents the large ingle of the studio, we come to the other
bit of June garden behind the little cottage. Here again, the space
being over-wide, it is divided in the middle by a double border of
Rosemary that is kept clipped and is not allowed to rise high enough to
prevent access to the border on each side.
On the side next the Hut the flowers are mostly of lilac and purple
colouring with white. Pale lilac Irises, including the fine _I. pallida
dalmatica_ and the rosy lilac variety, Queen of the May, perennial
Lupines, white, bluish lilac and purple--one of a conspicuous and
rare deep red-purple of extreme richness without the slightest taint
of a rank quality--a colour I can only call a strong wine-purple;
then a clump of the feathery, ivory-white _Spiræa Aruncus_, the large
Meadowsweet that is so fine by the side of alpine torrents. There
are also some flesh-pink Albiflora Peonies and lower growths of
Catmint, and of the grand blue-purple Cranesbill, _Geranium ibericum
platyphyllum_; with white and pale yellow Spanish Irises in generous
tufts springing up between. At the blunt angle nearly opposite the
dovecote is a pink cloud of London Pride; beyond it pale yellow Violas
with more white Spanish Iris, leading to a happy combination of the
blue _Iris Cengialti_ and the bushy Aster _Olearia Gunni_, smothered in
its white starry bloom. An early flowering Flag Iris, named Chamæleon,
nearly matches the colour of _I. Cengialti_; it is the bluest that
I know of the Flag Irises, and is planted between and around the
Olearias to form part of the colour-picture.
[Illustration: _ROSE BLUSH GALLICA PLANTED ON THE TOP OF DRY WALLING._]
[Illustration: _SPANISH IRIS._]
Beyond this group, and only separated from it by some pale yellow
Irises, are two plants of the Dropmore Anchusa, marked A on the plan,
of pure pale blue, and another clump of _Spiræa Aruncus_, marked S, and
one of a good pure white Lupine, with some tall clear yellow Irises and
white Foxgloves. Now the colouring changes, passing through a group or
two of the rich half-tones of Irises of the _squalens_ section to the
perennial Poppies; _P. rupifragum_ nearest the path and, next to it,
_P. pilosum_; both of a rich apricot colour. Backing these is a group
of the larger hybrid that nearly always occurs in gardens where there
are both _P. rupifragum_ and _P. orientale_. In appearance it is a
small _orientale_ with a strong look of _rupifragum_ about the foliage.
As a garden plant it has the advantages of being of an intermediate
size and of having a long season of bloom, a quality no doubt inherited
from _rupifragum_, which will flower more or less throughout the summer
if the seed-pods are removed. A plant of Oriental Poppy of the tone of
orange-scarlet that I know as red-lead colour, and some deep orange
Lilies complete this strongly coloured group.
In the north-western clump, where there are some Thorn-trees and
two Thuyas, the dominant feature is the great bush of an old garden
rambling Rose that looks as if its parentage was somewhere between
_sempervirens_ and _arvensis_. I can neither remember how I came by it
nor match it with any nursery kind. It stands nearly opposite the Hut
kitchen window, and when in full bloom actually sheds light into the
room. I know it as the Kitchen Rose. The diameter of the bush is even
greater than the plan shows, for it overwhelms the nearest Thuya and
rushes through the Thorn, and many of its shoots are within hand-reach
of the back path. The rest of this clump is occupied by plants of tall
habit--the great Mullein (_Verbascum orientale_), the Giant Cow-Parsnip
(_Heracleum_), and white Foxgloves.
The plan shows how the border of early bulbs, described in a former
chapter (now a mass of hardy Ferns, as shown at p. 7), lies in relation
to this part of the garden. There is also a grand mass of Oriental
Poppy and Orange Lilies in half-shade on the other side of the path,
where it turns and is bordered with Berberis. This makes a fine distant
effect of strong colour looking north-west from the southern end of the
bulb-border.
I greatly wish I could have some other June borders for the still
better use of the Flag Irises, but not only have I quite as much
dressed ground as I can afford to keep up, but the only space where
such borders could be made has to be nursery-ground of plants for sale.
But though I am denied this pleasure myself, I should like to suggest
it to others, and therefore give plans of two borders of different
colourings. There would be no great harm if they came opposite each
other, though perhaps, as colour-schemes, they would be rather better
seen singly and quite detached from each other.
[Illustration: _THE JUNE GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _IRIS AND LUPINE BORDERS._]
It must be remembered, as in all cases of planting flower borders,
that they cannot be expected to show their full beauty the year after
planting. Irises will give a few blooms the first season, but are not
in strength till their second and third years. China Roses must have
time to grow. Tree Lupines must be planted young, and, though they make
rapid growth, they also do not fill their spaces till the third year.
Lupine Somerset is a desirable hybrid, not quite a true Tree Lupine,
though it has a half-woody growth. Its best colour is a clear, lively
light yellow, but it readily varies from seed to whitish or washy
purplish tints. As the seedlings often show bloom the first season in
the seed-bed, the colours should be noted and marked, for some of the
light purples are pretty things, with more refinement of character
than the same colourings in the old Tree Lupines. Both the tree and
hybrid kinds may have their lives much prolonged--for if they are not
specially treated they are short-lived things--by judicious pruning.
After flowering, each branch should be cut well back. It is not enough
to cut away the flowers, but every branch should be shortened about
two-thirds as soon as the bloom is over and the seed-pods begin to form.
The plans show the two schemes of colouring. The upper is of white,
lilac, purple and pink, with grey foliage; the lower of white, yellow,
bronze-yellow and, for the most part, rich green foliage. They will
show mainly as Iris and Lupine borders, and are intended to display
the beauty of these two grand plants of early summer. The kinds of
Iris are carefully considered for their height, time of blooming, and
colour-value. In the yellow border is one patch of clear, pale pure
blue, the Dropmore Anchusa, grouped with pale yellows and white.
In the purple border are some important front-edge patches of the
beautiful Catmint (_Nepeta Mussini_), a plant that can hardly be
over-praised. The illustration shows it in a part of a border-front
that is to be for August. For a good three weeks in June it makes this
border a pretty place, although the Catmint is its only flower. But
with the white-grey woolly patches of Stachys and the half-grown bushes
of Gypsophila, and the Lavender and other plants of greyish foliage,
the picture is by no means incomplete. Its flowery masses, seen against
the warm yellow of the sandy path, give the impression of remarkably
strong and yet delightfully soft colouring. The colour itself is a
midway purple, between light and dark, of just the most pleasing
quality. As soon as the best of the bloom is done it is carefully cut
over; then the lateral shoots just below the main flower-spike that has
been taken out will gain strength and bloom again at the border's best
show-time in August. In another double flower border that is mostly for
the September-blooming Michaelmas Daisies the Catmint is cut back a
little later.
* * * * *
One of the joys of June is the beauty of the Scotch Briers. On the
south side of the house there are Figs and Vines, Rosemary and China
Roses; a path and then some easy stone steps leading up to the strip
of lawn some fifty feet wide that skirts the wood. To right and left
of the steps, for a length equal to that of the house-front, is a hedge
of these charming little Roses. They are mostly double white, but some
are rosy and some yellow. When it is not in flower the mass of small
foliage is pleasant to see, and even in winter leaflessness the tangle
of close-locked branches has an appearance of warm brown comfort that
makes it good to have near a house.
[Illustration: _WHITE TREE LUPINE._]
[Illustration: _CATMINT IN JUNE IN THE GREY AUGUST BORDER._]
June is also the time of some of the best of the climbing plants
and slightly tender shrubs that we have against walls and treat as
climbers, such as _Solamum crispum_ and _Abutilon vitifolium_ and the
hardy _Clematis montana_; but some notes on these will be offered in a
further chapter.
One is always watching and trying for good combinations of colour that
occur or that may be composed. Besides such as are shown in the plans,
the following have been noted for June:
In rock-work the tiny China Rose Pompon de Paris, also the tender pink
Fairy Rose, with pale lilac tufted Pansy and _Achillea umbellata_.
The pretty pale pink dwarf Rose Mignonette, with the lilac of Catmint
(_Nepeta Mussini_) and the grey-white foliage of Stachys and _Cineraria
maritima_.
In a cool, retired place in a shrubbery margin, away from other
flowers, the misty red-grey-purple of _Thalictrum purpureum_ with the
warm white foam-colour of _Spiræa Aruncus_.
On bold rock-work, a mass of a fine-coloured strain of Valerian
(_Centranthus_) with a deep scarlet-crimson Snapdragon. This is a
success of reciprocally becoming texture as well as colour; the texture
having that satisfying quality that one recognises in the relation of
the cut and uncut portions of the fine old Italian cut-velvets.
[Illustration: _SCOTCH BRIARS._]
[Illustration: _GERANIUM IBERICUM PLATYPHYLLUM; THE BEST OF THE
CRANEBILLS._ (_See page 42._)]
CHAPTER VI
THE MAIN HARDY FLOWER BORDER
The big flower border is about two hundred feet long and fourteen feet
wide. It is sheltered from the north by a solid sandstone wall about
eleven feet high clothed for the most part with evergreen shrubs--Bay
and Laurustinus, Choisya, Cistus and Loquat. These show as a handsome
background to the flowering plants. They are in a three-foot-wide
border at the foot of the wall; then there is a narrow alley, not seen
from the front, but convenient for access to the wall shrubs and for
working the back of the border.
As it is impossible to keep any one flower border fully dressed for
the whole summer, and as it suits me that it should be at its best in
the late summer, there is no attempt to have it full of flowers as
early as June. Another region belongs to June; so that at that time the
big border has only some incidents of good bloom, though the ground
is rapidly covering with the strong patches, most of them from three
to five years old, of the later blooming perennials. But early in the
month there are some clumps of the beautiful _Iris Pallida dalmatica_
in the regions of grey foliage, and of the splendid blue-purple bloom
of _Geranium ibericum platyphyllum_, the best of the large Cranesbills,
and the slow-growing _Dictamnus Fraxinella_ (the white variety), and
Meadowsweets white and pink, Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells, and to
the front some long-established sheets of _Iberis sempervirens_ that
have grown right on to the path. The large Yuccas, _Y. gloriosa_ and
_Y. recurva_ are throwing up their massive spikes, though it will be
July before they actually flower, and the blooms on some bushes of
the great _Euphorbia Wulfenii_, although they were flowers of May and
their almost yellow colour is turning greener, are still conspicuous
and ornamental. Then the plants in the middle of the wall, _Choisya
ternata_ and _Clematis montana_ are still full of white bloom and the
Guelder Rose is hanging out its great white balls. I like to plant the
Guelder Rose and _Clematis montana_ together. Nothing does better on
north or east walls, and it is pleasant to see the way the Clematis
flings its graceful garlands over and through the stiff branches of the
Viburnum.
The more brilliant patches of colour in the big border in June are
of Oriental Poppies intergrouped with Gypsophila, which will cover
their space when they have died down, and the earlier forms of _Lilium
croceum_ of that dark orange colour that almost approaches scarlet.
During the first week of June any bare spaces of the border are filled
up with half-hardy annuals, and some of what we are accustomed to
call bedding-plants--such as Geranium, Salvia, Calceolaria, Begonia,
Gazania and Verbena. The half-hardy annuals are African Marigold, deep
orange and pale sulphur, pure white single Petunia, tall Ageratum,
tall striped Maize, white Cosmos, sulphur Sunflower, _Phlox
Drummondi_, Nasturtiums, and _Trachelium cœruleum_. Dahlias were
planted out in May, and earlier still the Hollyhocks, quite young
plants that are to bloom in August and September; the autumn-planted
ones flowering earlier. The ground was well cleaned of weeds before
these were planted, and, soon after, the whole border had a good mulch
of a mixture of half-rotted leaves and old hotbed stuff. This serves
the double purpose of keeping the soil cool and of affording gradual
nutriment when water is given.
[Illustration: _THE FLOWER BORDER IN LATE SUMMER: YUCCA, HYDRANGEA,
SNAPDRAGON, LILIUM AURATUM AND EARLY ASTERS, WITH GREY FOLIAGE OF
CINERARIA MARITIMA, SANTOLINA AND ELYMUS._]
[Illustration: _THE CROSS WALK DIVIDING THE FLOWER BORDER: YUCCA,
HYDRANGEA, MEGASEA AND STACHYS._]
* * * * *
The planting of the border is designed to show a distinct scheme of
colour-arrangement. At the two ends there is a groundwork of grey and
glaucous foliage--Stachys, Santolina, _Cineraria maritima_, Sea Kale
and Lyme Grass, with darker foliage, also of grey quality, of Yucca,
_Clematis recta_ and Rue. With this, at the near or western end, there
are flowers of pure blue, grey-blue, white, palest yellow and palest
pink; each colour partly in distinct masses and partly intergrouped.
The colouring then passes through stronger yellows to orange and red.
By the time the middle space of the border is reached the colour is
strong and gorgeous, but, as it is in good harmonies, it is never
garish. Then the colour-strength recedes in an inverse sequence through
orange and deep yellow to pale yellow, white and palest pink, with the
blue-grey foliage. But at this, the eastern end, instead of the pure
blues we have purples and lilacs.
Looked at from a little way forward, for a wide space of grass allows
this point of view, the whole border can be seen as one picture, the
cool colouring at the ends enhancing the brilliant warmth of the
middle. Then, passing along the wide path next the border the value of
the colour-arrangement is still more strongly felt. Each portion now
becomes a picture in itself, and every one is of such a colouring that
it best prepares the eye, in accordance with natural law, for what
is to follow. Standing for a few moments before the end-most region
of grey and blue, and saturating the eye to its utmost capacity with
these colours, it passes with extraordinary avidity to the succeeding
yellows. These intermingle in a pleasant harmony with the reds and
scarlets, blood-reds and clarets, and then lead again to yellows. Now
the eye has again become saturated, this time with the rich colouring,
and has therefore, by the law of complementary colour, acquired a
strong appetite for the greys and purples. These therefore assume an
appearance of brilliancy that they would not have had without the
preparation provided by their recently received complementary colour.
There are well-known scientific toys illustrating this law. A short
word, printed in large red letters, is looked at for half a minute. The
eyes are shut and an image of the same word appears, but the lettering
is green. Many such experiments may be made in the open garden. The
brilliant orange African Marigold has leaves of a rather dull green
colour. But look steadily at the flowers for thirty seconds in sunshine
and then look at the leaves. The leaves appear to be bright blue!
[Illustration: _THE EAST END OF THE FLOWER BORDER: LILIUM LONGIFLORUM,
ECHINOPS, PURPLE CLEMATIS, CAMPANULAS PYRAMIDALIS AND LOCHIFLORA,
FOLIAGE OF SEAKALE, SANTOLINA AND CINERARIA._]
[Illustration: _ELEVATION: HEIGHT-LINE OF BACK PLANTS._]
[Illustration: _PLAN OF THE MAIN FLOWER BORDER._]
Even when a flower border is devoted to a special season, as mine is
given to the time from mid-July to October, it cannot be kept fully
furnished without resorting to various contrivances. One of these is
the planting of certain things that will follow in season of bloom
and that can be trained to take each other's places. Thus, each plant
of _Gypsophila paniculata_ when full grown covers a space a good four
feet wide. On each side of it, within reasonable distance of the root,
I plant Oriental Poppies. These make their leaf and flower growth in
early summer when the Gypsophila is still in a young state. The Poppies
will have died down by the time the Gypsophila is full grown and has
covered them. After this has bloomed the seed-pods turn brown, and
though a little of this colouring is not harmful in the autumn border,
yet it is not wanted in such large patches. We therefore grow at its
foot, or within easy reach, some of the trailing Nasturtiums and lead
them up so that they cover the greater part of the brown seed-spray.
Delphiniums, which are indispensable for July, leave bare stems
with quickly yellowing leafage when the flowers are over. We plant
behind them the white Everlasting Pea, and again behind that Clematis
Jackmanni. When the Delphiniums are over, the rapidly forming seed-pods
are removed, the stems are cut down to just the right height, and
the white Peas are trained over them. When the Peas go out of bloom
in the middle of August, the Clematis is brought over. It takes some
years for these two plants to become established; in the case of those
I am describing the Pea has been four or five years planted and
the Clematis seven. They cannot be hurried, indeed in my garden it
is difficult to get the Clematis to grow at all. But good gardening
means patience and dogged determination. There must be many failures
and losses, but by always pushing on there will also be the reward
of success. Those who do not know are apt to think that hardy flower
gardening of the best kind is easy. It is not easy at all. It has taken
me half a lifetime merely to find out what is best worth doing, and a
good slice out of another half to puzzle out the ways of doing it.
In addition to these three plants that I grow over one another I am now
adding a fourth--the September-blooming _Clematis Flammula_. It must
not be supposed that they are just lumped one over another so that the
under ones have their leafy growths smothered. They are always being
watched, and, bit by bit, the earlier growths are removed as soon as
their respective plants are better without them.
Then there is the way of pulling down tall plants whose natural growth
is upright. At the back of the yellow part of the border are some
plants of a form of _Helianthus orgyalis_, trained down, as described
later at p. 69. But other plants can be treated in the same way; the
tall Rudbeckia Golden Glow, and Dahlias and Michaelmas Daisies. The
tall Snapdragons can also be pulled down and made to cover a surprising
space of bare ground with flowering side-shoots.
[Illustration: _GOOD STAKING--CAMPANULA PERSICIFOLIA._]
[Illustration: _CAREFUL STAKING--THE LATER MICHAELMAS DAISIES._]
As it is still impossible to prevent the occurrence of a blank here and
there, or as the scene, viewed as a picture, may want some special
accentuation or colouring, there is the way of keeping a reserve of
plants in pots and dropping them in where they may be wanted. The thing
that matters is that, in its season, the border shall be kept full
and beautiful; by what means does not matter in the least. For this
sort of work some of the most useful plants are Hydrangeas, _Lilium
longiflorum_, _candidum_ and _auratum_, and _Campanula pyramidalis_,
both white and blue, and, for foliage, _Funkia grandiflora_, _F.
Sieboldi_ and hardy Ferns.
An important matter is that of staking and supporting. The rule, as I
venture to lay it down, is that sticks and stakes must never show. They
must be so arranged that they give the needful support, while allowing
the plant its natural freedom; but they must remain invisible. The only
time when they are tolerated is for the week or two when they have been
put in for Dahlias, when the plants have not yet grown up to cover them.
Michaelmas Daisies we stake with great care in June, putting in some
stiff branching spray of oak or chestnut among the growths and under
their fronts. At the end of June we also nip the tops of some of the
forward growths of the plants so as to vary the outline.
There are two borders of Michaelmas Daisies, one for the earlier sorts
that flower in September and the other for the October kinds. They are
in places that need not often be visited except in the blooming season,
therefore we allow the supporting spray to be seen while the plants are
growing. But early in August, in the case of the September border, and
early in September in the case of the one for October, we go round and
regulate the plants, settling them among the sticks in their definite
positions. When this is done every atom of projecting spray is cut away
with the _sécateur_.
I hold that nothing unsightly should be seen in the garden. The shed
for sticks and stakes is a lean-to at one end of the barn, showing to
the garden. The roof had to be made at a very low pitch, and there was
no roofing material suitable but galvanized iron. But a depth of four
inches of peaty earth was put over the iron, and now it is a garden
of Stonecrops and other plants that flourish in shallow soil in a hot
exposure.
To prevent undue disappointment, those who wish for beautiful
flower-borders and whose enthusiasm is greater than their knowledge
should be reminded that if a border is to be planted for pictorial
effect, it is impossible to maintain that effect and to have the space
well filled for any period longer than three months, and that even
for such a time there will have to be contrivances such as have been
described.
It should also be borne in mind that a good hardy flower border cannot
be made all at once. Many of the most indispensable perennials take
two, three or even more years to come to their strength and beauty.
The best way is to plant the border by a definite plan, placing each
group of plants as it shall be when fully developed. Then for the first
year or two a greater number of half-hardy annuals and biennials than
will eventually be needed should be used to fill the spaces that have
not yet been taken up by the permanent plants. The best of these are
Pentstemons and Snapdragons, the Snapdragons grown both as annuals and
biennials, for so an extended season of bloom is secured. Then there
should be African and French Marigolds, the smaller annual Sunflowers,
Zinnias, Plume Celosias, China Asters, Stocks, Foxgloves, Mulleins,
Ageratum, Phlox Drummondi and Indian Pinks; also hardy annuals--Lupines
of several kinds, _Chrysanthemum coronarium_, the fine pink Mallows,
Love-in-a-Mist, Nasturtiums or any others that are liked.
CHAPTER VII
THE FLOWER BORDER IN JULY
Towards the end of July the large flower border begins to show its
scheme. Until then, although it has been well filled with growing
plants, there has been no attempt to show its whole intention. But now
this is becoming apparent. The two ends, as already described, are of
grey foliage, with, at the near end, flowers of pale blue, white and
lightest yellow. The tall spikes of pale blue Delphinium are over, and
now there are the graceful grey-blue flowers of _Campanula lactiflora_
that stand just in front of the great Larkspurs. At the back is a white
Everlasting Pea, four years planted and now growing tall and strong.
The overblown flowers of the Delphinium have been removed, but their
stems have been left just the right height for supporting the growth of
the white Pea, which is now trained over them and comes forward to meet
the pale blue-white Campanula. In front of this there is a drift of Rue
giving a beautiful effect of dim grey colour and softened shadow; it
is crowned by its spreading corymbs of pale yellow bloom that all rise
nearly to a level. Again in front is the grand glaucous foliage of Sea
Kale. A little further along, and towards the back, is a bush of Golden
Privet, taking up and continuing the pale yellow of the Rue blossom,
and forming a kind of groundwork to a group of the fine Mullein
_Verbascum phlomoides_ now fully out. Just below this is a clump of the
Double Meadowsweet, a mass of warm white flower-foam. Intergrouped are
tall Snapdragons, white and palest yellow. Then forward are the pale
blue-green sword-blades of _Iris pallida dalmatica_ that flowered in
June. This is one of the few Irises admitted to the border, but it is
here because it has the quality, rare among its kind, of maintaining
its great leaves in beauty to near the end of the year. Quite to the
front are lower growing plants of purest blue--the Cape Daisy (_Agathea
cœlestis_) and blue Lobelia.
Now we pass to a rather large group of _Eryngium oliverianum_, the
fine kind that is commonly but wrongly called _E. amethystinum_. It
is a deep-rooting perennial that takes three to four years to become
strongly established. In front of this are some pale and darker blue
Spiderworts (_Tradescantia virginica_), showing best in cloudy weather.
At the back is _Thalictrum flavum_, whose bloom is a little overpast,
though it still shows some of its foamy-feathery pale yellow. Next we
come to stronger yellows, with a middle mass of a good home-grown form
of _Coreopsis lanceolata_. This is fronted by a stretch of _Helenium
pumilum_. Behind the Coreopsis are _Achillea Eupatorium_ and yellow
Cannas.
Now the colour strengthens with the Scarlet Balm or Bergamot,
intergrouped with _Senecio artemisiæfolius_, a plant little known but
excellent in the flower border. A few belated Orange Lilies have their
colour nearly repeated by the Gazanias next to the path. The strong
colour is now carried on by _Lychnis Chalcedonica_, scarlet Salvia,
_Lychnis haageana_ (a fine plant that is much neglected), and some of
the dwarf Tropæolums of brightest scarlet. After this we gradually
return to the grey-blues, whites and pale yellows, with another large
patch of _Eryngium oliverianum_, white Everlasting Pea, Calceolaria,
and the splendid leaf-mass of a wide and high plant of _Euphorbia
Wulfenii_, which, with the accompanying Yuccas, rises to a height
far above my head. Passing between a clump of Yuccas on either side
is the cross-walk leading by an arched gateway through the wall. The
border beyond this is a shorter length, and has a whole ground of grey
foliage--Stachys, Santolina, Elymus, _Cineraria maritima_, and Sea
Kale. Then another group of Rue, with grey-blue foliage and pale yellow
bloom, shows near the extreme end against the full green of the young
summer foliage of the Yew arbour that comes at the end of the border.
Again at this end is the tall _Campanula lactiflora_. In the nearer
middle a large mass of purple Clematis is trained upon stiff, branching
spray, and is beginning to show its splendid colour, while behind, and
looking their best in the subdued light of the cloudy morning on which
these notes are written, are some plants of _Verbascum phlomoides_, ten
feet high, showing a great cloud of pure pale yellow. They owe their
vigour to being self-sown seedlings, never transplanted. Instead of
having merely a blooming spike, as is the usual way of those that
are planted, these have abundant side branches. They dislike bright
sunshine, only expanding fully in shade or when the day is cloudy and
inclined to be rainy. Close to them, rising to the wall's whole eleven
feet of height, is a _Cistus cyprius_, bearing a quantity of large
white bloom with a deep red spot at the base of each petal.
[Illustration: _WHITE ROSE LA GUIRLANDE; GREY BORDERS BEYOND._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS RECTA._]
Though there is as yet but little bloom in this end of the border the
picture is complete and satisfying. Each one of the few flower-groups
tells to the utmost, while the intervening masses of leafage are in
themselves beautiful and have the effect of being relatively well
disposed. There is also such rich promise of flower-beauty to come that
the mind is filled with glad anticipation, besides feeling content
for the time being with what it has before it. There is one item of
colouring that strikes the trained eye as specially delightful. It is
a bushy mass of _Clematis recta_, now out of bloom. It occurs between
the overhanging purple Clematis and the nearer groups of _Cineraria
maritima_ and Santolina. The leaves are much deeper in tone than these
and have a leaden sort of blueness, but the colouring, both of the
parts in light and even more of the mysterious shadows, is in the
highest degree satisfactory and makes me long for the appreciative
presence of the rare few friends who are artists both on canvas and in
their gardens, and most of all for that of one who is now dead[1] but
to whom I owe, with deepest thankfulness, a precious memory of forty
years of helpful and sympathetic guidance and encouragement in the
observation and study of colour-beauty.
[1] The late H. B. Brabazon.
* * * * *
One cannot write of the garden in July without a word of the Roses.
Besides the bushy garden Roses, and the kinds of special charm, such as
Damask, Provence, Moss and China, those that most nearly concern the
garden for beauty and pictorial effect are the rambling and climbing
Roses that flower in clusters.
In "Roses for English Gardens" I dealt at some length with the many
ways of using them; here I must only touch upon one or two of these
ways. But I wish to remind my readers of the great value of these
free Roses for running up through such trees as Yews or Hollies in
regions where garden joins hands with woodland, and also of their great
usefulness for forming lines of arch and garland as an enclosure to
some definite space. I have them like this forming the boundary on two
sides of a garden of long beds, whose other two sides are a seven-foot
wall and the back of a stable and loft. Just beyond the arch in the
picture (p. 60), and dividing the little garden in two, is the short
piece of double border that is devoted to August.
[Illustration: _DELPHINIUM BELLADONNA._]
[Illustration: _CANTERBURY BELLS._]
The other long beds in this region are for special combinations, some
of them of July flowers. Orange Lilies are with the beautiful _Clematis
recta_, a plant but little known though it is easy to grow and is one
of the best of summer flowers. One bed is for blue colouring with grey
foliage. Here is the lovely Delphinium Belladonna, with flowers of
a blue purer than that of any others of its beautiful kind. It never
grows tall, nor has it the strong, robust aspect of the larger ones,
but what it lacks in vigour is more than made up for by the charming
refinement of the whole plant. In the same bed are the other pure
blues of the rare double Siberian Larkspur, and the single allied kind
_Delphinium grandiflorum_, of _Salvia patens_ and of the Cape Daisy
_Agathea cœlestis_. Between the clumps of Belladonna are bushes of
white Lavender, and the whole is carpeted and edged with the white
foliage of _Artemisia stelleriana_, the quite hardy plant that is such
a good substitute for the tenderer _Cineraria maritima_.
Among the best flowers of July that have a place in this garden are
the Pentstemons planted last year. We grow them afresh from cuttings
every autumn, planting them out in April. They are not quite hardy,
and a bad winter may destroy all the last year's plants. But if these
can be saved they bloom in July, whereas those planted in the spring
of the year do not flower till later. So we protect the older plants
with fir-boughs and generally succeed in saving them. Old plants of
Snapdragon are also now in flower. They too are a little tender in the
open, although they are safe in dry-walling with the roots out of the
way of frost and the crowns kept dry among the stones.
Much use is made of a dwarf kind of Lavender, that is also among
the best of the July flowers. The whole size of the plant is about
one-third that of the ordinary kind; the flowers are darker in colour
and the time of blooming a good month earlier. It has a different use
in gardening, as the flowers, being more crowded and of a deeper tint,
make a distinct colour-effect. Besides its border use it is a plant for
dry banks, tops of rock-work and dry-walling.
[Illustration: _ROSE THE GARLAND IN A SILVER HOLLY._]
[Illustration: _ERYNGIUM OLIVERIANUM._]
CHAPTER VIII
THE FLOWER BORDER IN AUGUST
By the second week of August the large flower border is coming to
its best. The western grey end, with its main planting of hoary and
glaucous foliage--Yucca, Sea Kale, _Cineraria maritima_, Rue, Elymus,
Santolina, Stachys, &c.--now has _Yucca flaccida_ in flower. This neat,
small Yucca, one of the varieties or near relatives of _filamentosa_,
is a grand plant for late summer. A well-established clump throws up
a quantity of flower-spikes of that highly ornamental character that
makes the best of these fine plants so valuable. White Everlasting Pea,
planted about three feet from the back, is trained on stout pea-sticks
over the space occupied earlier by the Delphiniums and the Spiræas.
A little of it runs into a bush of Golden Privet. This Golden Privet
is one of the few shrubs that has a place in the flower border. Its
clean, cheerful, bright yellow gives a note of just the right colour
all through the summer. It has also a solidity of aspect that enhances
by contrast the graceful lines of the foliage of a clump of the great
Japanese striped grass _Eulalia_, which stands within a few feet of
it, seven feet high, shooting upright, but with the ends of the leaves
recurved.
Snapdragons, tall white and tall yellow, spire up five feet high,
following the earlier Foxgloves. At the back is the pretty pink Dahlia
Asia, with sulphur and pale pink Hollyhocks. A little further along,
and staked out so as to take the place of the clumps of _Verbascum
Chaixii_ that were so fine in the end of June, is Dahlia Mrs.
Hawkins--palest yellow with a slight pink flush. Forward is a group of
a Pentstemon of palest pink colouring named Spitzberg, that I had from
Messrs. Barr's nursery, then a patch or two of palest blue Spiderwort,
and, quite to the front, in any spaces there may be among the grey
foliage, Lobelia "Cobalt Blue," the taller _Lobelia tenuior_, and the
pretty little blue-flowered Cape Daisy, _Agathea cœlestis_.
The whole border is backed by a stone wall eleven feet high, now
fully clothed with shrubs and plants that take their place in the
colour-scheme, either for tint of bloom or mass of foliage. Thus the
red-leaved Claret Vine shows as background to the rich red region and
_Robinia hispida_ stands where its pink clusters will tell rightly;
Choisya and _Cistus cyprius_ where their dark foliage and white bloom
will be of value; the greyish foliage and abundant pale lilac blossom
of _Abutilon vitifolium_ in the grey and purple region, and the pale
green foliage of the deciduous _Magnolia conspicua_ showing as a
background to the tender blue of a charming pale Delphinium.
The shrubs and plants on the wall are not all there because they are
things rare and precious or absolutely needing the shelter of the
wall, though some of them are glad of it, but because they give a
background that either harmonises in detail with what is in front or
will help to enrich or give general cohesion to the picture. The front
of the border has some important foliage giving a distinctly blue
effect; prominent among it Sea Kale. The flower-stems are cut hard back
in the earlier summer, and it is now in handsome fresh leaf. Further
back is the fine blue foliage of Lyme Grass (_Elymus arenarius_), a
plant of our sea-shores, but of much value for blue effects in the
garden.
[Illustration: _TALL CAMPANULAS PYRAMIDALIS AND LACTIFLORA IN A GREY
BORDER._]
Now is the time to begin to use our reserve of plants in pots. Of these
the most useful are the Hydrangeas. They are dropped into any vacant
spaces, more or less in groups, in the two ends of the border where
there is grey foliage, their pale pink colouring agreeing with these
places. Their own leafage is a rather bright green, but we get them so
well bloomed that but few leaves are seen, and we arrange as cleverly
as we can that the rest shall be more or less hidden by the surrounding
bluish foliage. I stand a few paces off, directing the formation of the
groups; considering their shape in relation to the border as a whole. I
say to the gardener that I want a Hydrangea in such a place; and tell
him to find the nearest place where it can be dropped in. Sometimes
this dropping in, for the pots have to be partly sunk, comes in the
way of some established plant. If it is a deep-rooted perennial that
takes three or four years to come to its strength, like an Eryngium or
a Dictamnus, of course I avoid encroaching on its root-room. But if it
is anything that blooms the season after it is planted, and of which
I have plenty in reserve, such as an Anthemis, a Tradescantia, or a
Helenium, I sacrifice a portion of the plant-group, knowing that it can
easily be replaced. But then by August many of the plants have spread
widely above and there is space below. _Lilium longiflorum_ in pots is
used in the same way, and for the most part in this blue end of the
border, though there are also some at the further, purple end, and just
a flash of their white beauty in the middle region of strong reds.
In order to use both blue and purple in the flower border, this cool,
western, grey-foliaged end has the blues, and the further, eastern end
the purples. For although I like to use colour as a general rule in
harmonies rather than contrasts, I have a dislike to bringing together
blues and purples. At this end, therefore, there are flowers of pure
blue--Delphinium, Anchusa, Salvia, Blue Cape Daisy and Lobelia, and
it is only when the main mass of blue, of Delphiniums and Anchusas,
is over that even the presence of the pale grey-blue of _Campanula
lactiflora_ could be tolerated. Near the front is another pale
grey-blue, that of _Clematis davidiana_, just showing a few blooms, but
not yet fully out.
Now, giving a pleasant rest and refreshment to the eye after the blues
and greys, is a well-shaped drift of the pale sulphur African Marigold.
It was meant to be the dwarf variety, but, as it grows two and a half
feet high, it has been pulled down as it grew. Some of it has been
brought down some way over the edge of the path, where it breaks the
general front line pleasantly and shows off its good soft colouring.
We grow only this pale colour and a good form of the splendid orange.
The intermediate one, the full yellow African Marigold, has, to my eye,
a raw quality that I am glad to avoid, and I have other plants that
give the strong yellow colour better. Now at the back are some plants
of the single Hollyhock _Hibiscus ficifolius_, white and pale yellow,
recalling, as we merge into the stronger yellows, the colouring of the
region just left. They are partly intergrouped with that excellent
plant Rudbeckia Golden Glow, brilliant, long-lasting, and capable of
varied kinds of useful treatment.
Now we come to a group of the perennial Sunflowers; a good form of
the double _Helianthus multiflorus_ in front, and behind it the large
single kind of the same plant. By the side of these is a rather large
group of a garden form of _H. orgyalis_. This is one of the perennial
Sunflowers that is usually considered not good enough for careful
gardening. It grows very tall, and bears a smallish bunch of yellow
flowers at the top. If this were all it could do it would not be in my
flower border. But in front of it grows a patch of the fine Tansy-like
_Achillea Eupatorium_, and in front of this again a wide-spreading
group of _Eryngium oliverianum_--beautiful all through July. When
the bloom of these is done the tall Sunflower is trained down over
them--this pulling down, as in the case of so many plants, causing it
to throw up flower-stalks from the axils of every pair of leaves; so
that in September the whole thing is a sheet of bloom. Thus the plant
that was hardly worth a place in the border becomes, at its flowering
time, one of the brightest ornaments of the garden. Other plants that
are in front of the Sunflower, that have also passed out of bloom, are
the Scarlet Bee-balm (_Monarda_) and the very useful alpine Groundsel
(_Senecio artemisiæfolius_).
Next we have an important group of a large-leaved Canna, the handsomest
foliage in the border; good to see when the sun is behind and the
light comes through the leaves. Here also, at the back, is a patch of
Hollyhocks--one very dark, almost a claret-red, and a fine, full red
inclining to blood-colour. They tower up together, and close to them
are Dahlias, the dark red Lady Ardilaun, deep scarlet Cochineal, bright
scarlet Fire King, and its variety Orange Fire King, now the most
brilliant piece of colouring in the garden. These lead on to a gorgeous
company--Phlox Coquelicot, scarlet Pentstemon, orange African Marigold,
scarlet Gladiolus, and, to the front, a brilliant dwarf scarlet Salvia;
_Helenium pumilum_ and scarlet and orange dwarf Nasturtium. Here and
there within this mass of bright colouring there is a patch of the fine
deep yellow _Coreopsis lanceolata_, a plant of long-enduring bloom, or
rather of long succession, for, if the dead flowers are removed it will
be brightly blossomed for a good three months.
As this gorgeous mass occupies a large space in the flower border, I
have thought well to subdue it here and there with the cloudy masses of
_Gypsophila paniculata_. Five-year-old plants of this form masses of
the pretty mist-like bloom four feet across and as much high. This bold
introduction of grey among the colour-masses has considerable pictorial
value. As the grey changes, towards the end of the month, to a brownish
tone, some of the tall Nasturtiums are allowed to grow over the bushes
of Gypsophila.
[Illustration: _YUCCA FILAMENTOSA VAR. FLACCIDA._]
[Illustration: _THE GREY BORDERS: STACHYS, GYPSOPHILA, LILY, ACHILLEA
PEARL AND PINK HOLLYHOCK._]
Now we have got beyond the middle of the length of the border, and the
colour changes again to the clear and pale yellows, and then again to
the grey foliage as at the beginning. Where this occurs, at a little
more than two-thirds of the way along the border, it is crossed by the
path, leading, through an archway in the wall closed by a door, to the
garden beyond. This cross-path is flanked by groups of Yuccas, slightly
raised, as will be seen in some of the illustrations. (_See_ pp. 51,
102.) Yuccas all like a raised mound and some good loam to grow in. I
have them here as well as at the two extreme ends of the border. No
plants make a handsomer full-stop to any definite garden scheme. The
grey treatment comprises the two Yucca mounds to right and left of the
cross-path; the other grey plants are as before--_Cineraria maritima_,
Santolina, Stachys, Elymus and Rue--but at this end, besides some
plants with white, pink and palest yellow colouring, the other flowers
are not blues but purples, light and dark. Among these a very useful
thing is Ageratum; not the dwarf Ageratum, though this is good too in
its place, but the ordinary _Ageratum mexicanum_, a plant that grows
about two feet high. This is also the place for some of the earliest
Michaelmas Daisies that will bloom in September, such as _Aster acris_
and _A. Shortii_. At the back there are Dahlias, white and pale yellow,
with white and sulphur Hollyhocks, and, in the middle spaces, pale pink
Gladiolus, double _Saponaria officinalis_, and pale pink Pentstemon. At
the back, also, there is a clump of Globe Thistle (_Echinops_) and a
grand growth of Clematis Jackmanni, following in season of bloom, and
partly led over, a white Everlasting Pea, that in the earlier summer
was trained to conceal the dying stems of the red-orange Lilies that
bloomed in June.
* * * * *
There is also a short length of double border specially devoted to
August, of the same character, though not so fully developed, as what
will be described in a further chapter as the Grey Garden. Here, the
space being small, it has been given specially to the more restricted
season. The scheme of colouring has a ground of grey foliage, with
flowers of pink, white and light and dark purple.
Next the path is the silvery white of Stachys, _Cineraria maritima_,
and _Artemisia stelleriana_, with the grey foliage and faint purple
of the second bloom of Catmint. Then bushy masses of Lavender and
Gypsophila, and between them _Lilium longiflorum_, Godetia Double Rose,
and white Snapdragons. Behind and among these are groups of the clear
white Achillea, The Pearl, and the round purple heads of Globe Thistle.
Here and there, pushing to the front, is a Silver Thistle (_Eryngium
giganteum_). At the back shoot up Pink Hollyhocks, the kind being one
of home growth known as Pink Beauty. The deep green of a Fig-tree that
covers the upper part of the landing and outside stone steps to a loft
is an excellent background to the tender greys of these August borders.
Unfortunately, the main group of pink Hollyhock, that should have stood
up straight and tall and shown well against the window and silvery grey
weather-boarding of the loft, failed altogether last season; in fact,
all the Hollyhocks were poor and stunted, so that an important part of
the intended effect was lost.
* * * * *
Of Lavender hedges there are several, of varying ages, in different
parts of the garden. Lavender for cutting should be from plants not
more than four to five years old, but for pictorial effect the bushes
may be much older. When they are growing old it is a good plan to plant
white and purple Clematises so that they can be trained freely through
and over them.
There are comparatively few shrubs that flower in autumn, so that it
is quite a pleasant surprise to come upon a group of them all in bloom
together. The picture shows the satisfactory effect of a group of
_Æsculus macrostachya_ and _Olearia Haastii_. It would have been all
the better for some plants of the beautiful blue-flowered _Perowskya
atriplicifolia_ and for _Caryopteris mastacanthus_ in front, but at the
time of planting I did not think of the _Caryopteris_ and did not know
the _Perowskya_. (_See_ p. 75.)
August is the month of China Asters. I find many people are shy
of these capital plants, perhaps because the mixtures, such as are
commonly grown, contain rather harsh and discordant colours; also
perhaps because a good many of the kinds, having been purposely dwarfed
in order to fit them for pot-culture and bedding, are too stiff to look
pretty in general gardening. Such kinds will always have their uses,
but what is wanted now in the best gardening is more freedom of habit.
I have a little space that I give entirely to China Asters. I have
often had the pleasure of showing it to some person who professed a
dislike to them, and with great satisfaction have heard them say, with
true admiration: "Oh! but I had no idea that China Asters could be so
beautiful."
[Illustration: _A LAVENDER HEDGE._]
[Illustration: _ÆSCULUS MACROSTACHYA AND OLEARIA HAASTII._]
It is only a question of selection, for the kinds are now so many and
the colourings so various that there are China Asters to suit all
tastes and uses. My own liking is for those of the pure violet-purple
and lavender colours, with whites; and to plants with these clear,
clean tints my Aster garden is restricted. In other places I grow some
of the tenderer pinks, a good blood-red, and a clear pale yellow; but
these are kept quite away from the purples. The kinds chosen are within
the Giant Comet, Ostrich Plume and Victoria classes--all plants with
long-stalked bloom and a rather free habit of growth. For some years I
was much hindered from getting the colours I wanted from the inaccurate
way in which they are described in seed-lists. Finally I paid a visit
to the trial-grounds of one of our premier seed-houses, and saw all the
kinds and the colourings and made my own notes. I cannot but think
that a correct description of the colours, instead of a fanciful one,
would help both customer and seed-merchant. As it is, the customer, in
order to get the desired flowers, has to _learn a code_. I have often
observed, in comparing French and English seed-lists, that the French
do their best to describe colours accurately, but that the English use
some wording which does not describe the colour, but appears to be
intended as a complimentary euphemism. Thus, if I want a Giant Comet
of that beautiful pale silvery lavender, perhaps the loveliest colour
of which a China Aster is capable, I have to ask for "azure blue." If
I want a full lilac, I must order "blue"; if a full purple it is "dark
blue." If I want a strong, rich violet-purple, I must beware of asking
for purple, for I shall get a terrible magenta such as one year spoilt
the whole colour-scheme of my Aster garden. It is not as if the right
colour-words were wanting, for the language is rich in them--violet,
lavender, lilac, mauve, purple;--these, with slight additions, will
serve to describe the whole of the colourings falsely called blue. The
word blue should not be used at all in connexion with these flowers.
There are no blue China Asters.
The diagram shows a simple arrangement for a little garden of China
Asters of the purple and white colourings. The seed-list names are
used in order to identify the sorts recommended. A Lavender hedge
surrounds the whole; the paths are edged with _Stachys lanata_. Taking
Messrs. Sutton's list and translating into colour-words as usually
understood, the tints are:
Azure blue Tender pale lavender-lilac.
Blue Light purple.
Dark blue Rich dark purple.
I am very glad to learn that Messrs. Sutton have in contemplation a
revision of some of these puzzling colour-names.
[Illustration: _PLAN OF A SMALL GARDEN OF CHINA ASTERS._]
CHAPTER IX
THE FLOWER BORDERS IN SEPTEMBER
The main flower border shows in September much the same aspect as in
August. But early in the month the middle mass of strong colouring,
enhanced by Tritomas and the fuller bloom of Dahlias, is at its
brightest. The bold masses of Canna foliage have also grown up and
show their intended effect. They form one of the highest points in the
border. No attempt is made to keep all the back-row plants standing
high; on the contrary, many that would be the tallest are pulled down
to do colour-work of medium height. The effect is much more pictorial
when the plants at the back rise only here and there to a height
of nine or ten feet; mounting gradually and by no means at equal
distances, but somewhat as the forms of greater altitude rise in the
ridge of a mountain range. The diagram shows how it comes in the case
of my own border in September. (_See_ p. 52.)
Rather near the front, the bushy masses of Gypsophila, that a month
ago were silvery grey, have now turned to a brownish colour. They are
partly covered with trailing Nasturtiums, but the portions of brown
cloud that remain tone well with the rich reds that are near them. In
the back of this region dark claret and blood-red Hollyhocks still
show colour, and scarlet Dahlias are a mass of gorgeous bloom. Their
nearest neighbours are tall flaming Tritomas with, in front of them,
one of the dwarfer Tritomas that is crowded with its orange-scarlet
flowers of a rather softer tone. Then come scarlet Gladiolus, a wide
group of a splendid red Pentstemon, and, to the front, an edging
and partly carpeting mass of a good, short-growing form of _Salvia
splendens_.
[Illustration: _SOME OF THE EARLY ASTERS._]
[Illustration: _THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN._]
After these strong reds comes a drift of the brilliant orange African
Marigold, one of the most telling plants of the time of year. Coming
to the yellows of middle strength, there are some of the perennial
Sunflowers, among them the one that seems to be a form of _Helianthus
orgyalis_, described in the last chapter. This and some others are
trained down to cover plants now out of bloom. The fine double
Rudbeckia called Golden Glow is treated in the same way. Intergrouped
with it is a useful pale form of _Helianthus lætiflorus_ that takes up
the colour when the Rudbeckia is failing.
In the near end region of blue-grey foliage the bloom of _Clematis
davidiana_, also of a greyish blue, but of a colour-quality that
is almost exclusively its own, tones delightfully with its nearest
neighbours of leaf and bloom. About here some pots of _Plumbago
capensis_ are dropped in; their wide-ranging branches, instead of
being stiffly tied, are trained over some bushy plants of leaden
blue-foliaged Rue. Near this, and partly shooting up through some of
the same setting, are the spikes of a beautiful Gladiolus of pale,
cool pink colour, the much-prized gift of an American garden-loving
friend. Tall white Snapdragons, five feet high, show finely among the
gracefully recurved leaves of the blue Lyme Grass. Beyond is a group of
_Lilium auratum_, and in the more distant front, pale sulphur African
Marigold, just now at its best.
The further end of the border that also has grey foliage is bright with
pink Hydrangeas, white and pink Snapdragons, white Dahlias, purple
Clematis, _Lilium auratum_ and _Aster acris_. _Yucca flaccida_ is still
in beauty.
* * * * *
There is another range of double border for the month of September
alone. It passes down through the middle of the kitchen garden and
is approached by an arch of Laburnum. It is backed on each side by a
Hornbeam hedge some five and a half feet high. This border is mainly
for the earlier Michaelmas Daisies; those that bloom in the first three
weeks of the month. Grey foliage in plenty is to the front. Running in
between the groups is _Artemisia stelleriana_, the quite hardy plant
that so well imitates _Cineraria maritima_; there is also Stachys and
White Pink. Further back among the flowers are drifts of the grey-blue
Lyme Grass, some grey bushes of Phlomis and a silvery leaved Willow,
kept to a suitable size by careful pruning.
[Illustration: _THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN: LOWER END._]
[Illustration: _THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN: UPPER END._]
[Illustration: _BEGONIAS IN A SETTING OF MEGASEA FOLIAGE._]
[Illustration: _EARLY ASTERS AND PYRETHRUM ULIGINOSUM._]
[Illustration: _THE SEPTEMBER BORDER OF EARLY MICHAELMAS DAISIES._]
The scheme of colouring consists of this groundwork of grey foliage,
with white, lilac, purple and pale pink flowers; and, breaking into
this colouring in two or three distinct places, flowers of pale yellow
and yellowish white with suitable accompanying leafage. There is also,
in quite another part of the garden, a later border of other Michaelmas
Daisies that will follow this in time of blooming. But the September
borders have a very different appearance because of their flowers of
pink and yellow, colours which are absent in those of the later season.
The yellow flowers are the pale sulphur African Marigold and pale
yellow and whitish yellow tall Snapdragons, with bordering masses of
variegated Coltsfoot, and the Golden Feather Feverfew allowed to bloom.
The pink colourings are the wide-headed _Sedum spectabile_, pink Japan
Anemone and a few pale pink Gladioli. The whites are Dahlias Constance
and Henry Patrick, _Pyrethrum uliginosum_, the charming perennial Aster
Colerette Blanche, a taller white or yellowish white Aster with rough
stems and harsh-feeling foliage that I know as _A. umbellatus_. Here
also are white Japan Anemones, white Snapdragons and white China Asters
of the large, long-stemmed late-blooming kind that were formerly known
as Vick's, but are now called Mammoth. Among the grey bordering plants
are groups of dwarf Ageratum, one of the best of the tender plants of
September and quite excellent with the accompanying grey foliage. The
grey bordering is not merely an edging but a general front groundwork,
running here and there a yard deep into the border.
* * * * *
Begonias are at their best throughout the month of September. Beds
of Begonias alone never seem to me quite satisfactory. Here there is
no opportunity for growing them in beds, but I have them in a bit
of narrow border that is backed by shrubs, but is kept constantly
enriched. A groundwork of the large-leaved form of _Megasea cordifolia_
is planted so as to surround variously sized groups of Begonias--groups
of from five to nine plants. The setting of the more solid leaves
gives the Begonias a better appearance and makes their bright bloom
tell more vividly. They follow in this sequence of colouring: yellow,
white, palest pink, full pink, rose, deep red, deep rose, salmon-rose,
red-lead colour or orange-scarlet, scarlet, red-lead and orange.
It is a matter of great regret that the best kind of Dahlias for garden
effect have lost favour with nurserymen, so that it is now difficult,
if not impossible, to obtain from them the most desirable kinds. These
are a selection of those that were first called Cactus Dahlias, much
more free in form than the old show Dahlias, but with the petals not
attenuated and pointed as they are in the modern Cactus kinds. The
greater number of these, pretty though their individual blooms are on
the show-table, are but of little use in the garden, whereas the old
sorts, King of the Cactus, Cochineal, Lady Ardilaun, Fire King and
Orange Fire King are among the most gorgeous of our September flowers.
In the same class are: Mrs. Hawkins, palest lemon flushed with pink;
William Pearse, bright yellow; Lady M. Marsham, bright copper; J. W.
Standling, orange, (the two last about four feet high); and the two
good whites, Constance and Henry Patrick. Of these, all in my opinion
indispensable kinds, only Fire King, as far as I am aware, survives in
contemporary trade lists.
CHAPTER X
WOOD AND SHRUBBERY EDGES
Opportunities for good gardening are so often overlooked that it may
be well to draw attention to some of those that are most commonly
neglected.
When woodland joins garden ground there is too often a sudden jolt;
the wood ends with a hard line, sometimes with a path along it,
accentuating the defect. When the wood is of Scotch Fir of some age
there is a monotonous emptiness of naked trunk and bare ground. In
wild moorland this is characteristic and has its own beauty; it may
even pleasantly accompany the garden when there is only a view into it
here and there; but when the path passes along, furlong after furlong,
with no attempt to bring the wood into harmony with the garden, then
the monotony becomes oppressive and the sudden jolt is unpleasantly
perceived. There is the well-stocked garden and there is the hollow
wood with no cohesion between the two--no sort of effort to make them
join hands.
It would have been better if from the first the garden had not been
brought quite so close to the wood, then the space between, anything
from twenty-five to forty feet, might have been planted so as to bring
them into unison. In such a case the path would go, not next the trees
but along the middle of the neutral ground and would be so planted as
to belong equally to garden and wood. The trees would then take their
place as the bounding and sheltering feature. It is better to plan it
like this at first than to gain the space by felling the outer trees,
because the trees at the natural wood edge are better furnished with
side branches. Such ground on the shady side of the Scotch Firs would
be the best possible site for a Rhododendron walk, and for Azaleas and
Kalmias, kept distinct from the Rhododendrons. Then the Scotch Fir
indicates the presence of a light peaty soil; the very thing for that
excellent but much-neglected undershrub _Gaultheria Shallon_. This
is one of the few things that will grow actually under the Firs, not
perhaps in the densest part of an old wood, but anywhere about its
edges, or where any light comes in at a clearing or along a cart-way.
When once established it spreads with a steady abundance of increase,
creeping underground and gradually clothing more and more of the floor
of the wood. The flower and fruit have already been shown at pp. 18-19.
[Illustration: _GARLAND ROSE, WHERE GARDEN JOINS WOOD._]
[Illustration: _POLYGONUM COMPACTUM AND MEGASEA AT A WOOD EDGE._]
[Illustration: _LILIES AND FUNKIAS AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
[Illustration: _OLEARIA GUNNI, FERN AND FUNKIA AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
Rhododendrons are usually planted much too close together. This is
a great mistake; they should not be nearer than eight to ten feet,
or even further, apart, especially in the case of _ponticum_ and
some of the larger growing kinds. It is a common practice to fill
up the edges of their prepared places with a collection of Heaths.
The soil will no doubt suit Heaths, but I never do it or recommend
it because I feel that the right place for Heaths is quite open
ground, and there are other plants that I think look better with the
young Rhododendrons. For my own liking the best of these are hardy
Ferns--Male Fern, Lady Fern and Dilated Shield Fern, with groups of
Lilies: _L. longiflorum_ and the lovely rosy _L. rubellum_ towards
the front, and _L. auratum_ further back. Some of the Andromedas,
especially _Catesbæi_ and _axillaris_ of the _Leucothoë_[ section are
capital plants for this use. Besides Lilies, a few other flowering
plants suitable for the Rhododendron walk are: white Foxgloves, white
Columbine, white _Epilobium angustifolium_, _Trillium_, _Epimedium
pinnatum_, _Uvularia grandiflora_, _Dentaria diphylla_ and _Gentiana
asclepiadea_. In the same region, and also partly as edgings to
the Rhododendron clumps, suitable small bushes are _Rhododendron
myrtifolium_, the Alpenrose (_R. ferruginium_) and the sweet-leaved
_Ledum palustre_.
* * * * *
When the garden comes on the sunny side of the wood the planting would
be quite different. Here is the place for Cistuses; for the bolder
groups the best are _C. laurifolius_ and _C. cyprius_, backed by
plantings of Tamarisk, Arbutus and White Broom, with here and there a
free-growing Rose of the wilder sort, such as the type _polyantha_ and
_Brunonis_. If the fir-boughs come down within reach, the wild Clematis
(_C. Vitalba_) can be led into them; it will soon ramble up the tree,
filling it with its pretty foliage and abundance of August bloom.
The Cistuses delight in a groundwork of Heath; the wild Calluna looks
as well as any, but if cultivated kinds are used they should be in good
quantities of one sort at a time, and never as hard edgings, but as
free carpeting masses.
For the edges of other kinds of woodland the free Roses are always
beautiful; where a Holly comes to the front, a Rose such as Dundee
Rambler or the Garland will grow up it, supported by its outer branches
in the most delightful way. The wild Clematis is in place here too,
also the shade-loving plants already named. In deciduous woodland
there is probably some undergrowth of Hazel, or of Bramble and wild
Honeysuckle. White Foxgloves should be planted at the edge and a little
way back, Daffodils for the time when the leaves are not yet there, and
Lily of the Valley, whose charming bloom and brilliant foliage come
with the young leaves of May.
Where the wood comes nearest the house with only lawn between, it is
well to have a grouping of hardy Ferns and Lilies; where it is giving
place to garden ground and there is a shrubby background, the smaller
Polygonums, such as _P. compactum_, are in place.
[Illustration: _FERNS AND LILIES AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE NEXT THE WOOD._]
[Illustration: _GYPSOPHILA AND MEGASEA AT A SHRUBBERY EDGE._]
The spaces more or less wide between large shrubs and turf are full
of opportunities for ingenious treatment; they are just the places
most often neglected, or at any rate not well enough considered. I
have always taken delight in working out satisfactory ways of treating
them. It seems desirable to have, next the grass, some foliage of
rather distinct and important size or form. For this use the Megaseas
are invaluable; the one most generally useful being the large variety
of _M. cordifolia_. Funkias are also beautiful, but as their leaves
come late and go with the first frosts or even earlier, whereas
the Megaseas persist the whole year round, the latter are the most
generally desirable. These shrub-edge spaces occur for the most part in
bays, giving an inducement to invent a separate treatment for each bay.
The two illustrations with the front planting of _Funkia Sieboldi_ are
two adjoining bays; one showing the charming shrubby Aster _Olearia
Gunni_ in the middle of June, the other some groups of _Lilium
longiflorum_, planted in November of the year before, and in bloom in
early August.
Sometimes a single plant of _Gypsophila paniculata_ will fill the whole
of one of the recesses or bays between the larger shrubs; _Hydrangea
paniculata_ is another good filling plant, and the hardy Fuchsias; both
of these, though really woody shrubs, being cut down every winter and
treated as herbaceous plants.
There is a small growing perennial Aster--I will not venture on its
specific name, but have seen it figured in an American book of wild
flowers as _divaricata_, and provisionally know it by that name. I
find it, in conjunction with Megasea, one of the most useful of these
filling plants for edge spaces that just want some pretty trimming
but are not wide enough for anything larger. The same group was
photographed two years running. The first year the bloom was a little
thicker below, but the second I thought it still better when it had
partly rambled up into the lower branches of the Weigela that stood
behind it. The little thin starry flower is white and is borne in
branching heads; the leaves are lance-shaped and sharply pointed; but
when the plant is examined in the hand its most distinct character is
the small fine wire-like stem, smooth and nearly black, that branches
about in an angular way of its own.
These are only a very few examples of what may also be done in a number
of other ways, but if they serve to draw attention to those generally
neglected shrub edges, it may be to the benefit of many gardens. Where
there is room for a good group of plants they should be of some size
or solidity of character such as Tree Lupine, Peony, Acanthus, _Spiræa
Aruncus_, the larger hardy Ferns, _Rubus nutkanus_ or plants of some
such size and character. The low-growing _Bambusa tessellata_ is a
capital shrub-edge plant.
[Illustration: _LILIES AND FERNS AT THE WOOD EDGE NEAR THE LAWN._]
[Illustration: _SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER AT SHRUB EDGE. SECOND YEAR
AFTER PLANTING._]
[Illustration: _SMALL WIRE-STEMMED ASTER AT SHRUB EDGE. THIRD YEAR
AFTER PLANTING._]
[Illustration: _STOBÆA PURPUREA, A GREY GARDEN WALL PLANT FOR A SUNNY
PLACE._]
CHAPTER XI
GARDENS OF SPECIAL COLOURING
It is extremely interesting to work out gardens in which some special
colouring predominates, and to those who, by natural endowment or
careful eye-cultivation, possess or have acquired what artists
understand by an eye for colour, it opens out a whole new range of
garden delights.
Arrangements of this kind are sometimes attempted, for occasionally I
hear of a garden for blue plants, or a white garden, but I think such
ideas are but rarely worked out with the best aims. I have in mind a
whole series of gardens of restricted colouring, though I have not,
alas, either room or means enough to work them out for myself, and have
to be satisfied with an all-too-short length of double border for a
grey scheme. But, besides my small grey garden I badly want others, and
especially a gold garden, a blue garden, and a green garden; though the
number of these desires might easily be multiplied.
It is a curious thing that people will sometimes spoil some garden
project for the sake of a word. For instance, a blue garden, for
beauty's sake, may be hungering for a group of white Lilies, or for
something of palest lemon-yellow, but it is not allowed to have it
because it is called the blue garden, and there must be no flowers in
it but blue flowers. I can see no sense in this; it seems to me like
fetters foolishly self-imposed. Surely the business of the blue garden
is to be beautiful as well as to be blue. My own idea is that it should
be beautiful first, and then just as blue as may be consistent with its
best possible beauty. Moreover, any experienced colourist knows that
the blues will be more telling--more purely blue--by the juxtaposition
of rightly placed complementary colour. How it may be done is shown in
the plan, for, as I cannot have these gardens myself, it will be some
consolation to suggest to those who may be in sympathy with my views,
how they may be made.
* * * * *
The Grey garden is so called because most of its plants have grey
foliage, and all the carpeting and bordering plants are grey or
whitish. The flowers are white, lilac, purple, and pink. It is a garden
mostly for August, because August is the time when the greater number
of suitable plants are in bloom, but a Grey garden could also be made
for September, or even October, because of the number of Michaelmas
Daisies that can be brought into use.
A plan is given of a connected series of gardens of special colouring.
For the sake of clearness they are shown in as simple a form as
possible, but the same colour-scheme could be adapted to others of more
important design and larger extent.
The Gold garden is chosen for the middle, partly because it contains
the greater number of permanent shrubs and is bright and cheerful
all the year round, and partly because it is the best preparation,
according to natural colour-law, for the enjoyment of the compartments
on either side. It is supposed that the house is a little way away to
the north, with such a garden-scheme close to it as may best suit its
style and calibre. Then I would have a plantation of shrubs and trees.
The shade and solidity of this would rest and refresh the eye and
mind, making them the more ready to enjoy the colour garden. Suddenly
entering the Gold garden, even on the dullest day, will be like coming
into sunshine. Through the shrub-wood there is also a path to right
and left parallel to the long axis of the colour garden, with paths
turning south at its two ends, joining the ends of the colour-garden
paths. This has been taken into account in arranging the sequence of
the compartments.
The hedges that back the borders and form the partitions are for the
most part of Yew, grown and clipped to a height of seven feet. But in
the case of the Gold garden, where the form is larger and more free
than in the others, there is no definite hedge, but a planting of
unclipped larger gold Hollies, and the beautiful Golden Plane, so cut
back and regulated as to keep within the desired bounds. This absence
of a stiff hedge gives more freedom of aspect and a better cohesion
with the shrub-wood.
In the case of the Grey garden the hedge is of Tamarisk (_Tamarix
gallica_), whose feathery grey-green is in delightful harmony with the
other foliage greys. It will be seen on the plan that where this joins
the Gold garden the hedge is double, for it must be of gold Holly on
one side and of Tamarisk on the other. At the entrances and partition
where the path passes, the hedge shrubs are allowed to grow higher, and
are eventually trained to form arches over the path.
In the Gold and Green gardens, the shrubs, which form the chief part
of the planting, are shown as they will be after some years' growth.
It is best to have them so from the first. If, in order to fill the
space at once, several are planted where one only should eventually
stand, the extra ones being removed later, the one left probably does
not stand quite right. I strongly counsel the placing of them singly at
first, and that until they have grown the space should be filled with
temporary plants. Of these, in the Gold garden, the most useful will
be _Œnothera lamarckiana_, _Verbascum olympicum_, and _V. phlomoides_,
with more Spanish Broom than the plan shows till the gold Hollies
are grown; and yellow-flowered annuals, such as the several kinds of
_Chrysanthemum coronarium_, both single and double, and _Coreopsis
Drummondi_; also a larger quantity of African Marigolds, the pale
primrose and the lemon-coloured. The fine tall yellow Snapdragons will
also be invaluable. Flowers of a deep orange colour, such as the orange
African Marigold, so excellent for their own use, are here out of
place, only those of pale and middle yellow being suitable.
In such a garden it will be best to have, next the path, either a whole
edging of dwarf, gold-variegated Box-bushes about eighteen inches
to two feet high, or a mixed planting of these and small bushes of
gold-variegated Euonymus clipped down to not much over two feet. The
edge next the path would be kept trimmed to a line.
[Illustration: _THE GREY BORDERS: GYPSOPHILA, ECHINOPS, PINK HOLLYHOCK,
HELIOTROPE AND SILVER THISTLE._]
[Illustration: _OCTOBER BORDERS OF MICHAELMAS DAISIES._]
[Illustration: _A SEPTEMBER GREY GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _THE GREY BORDER: PINK HOLLYHOCK, ECHINOPS, ACHILLEA
PEARL, GYPSOPHILA, STACHYS, etc._]
[Illustration: _SPECIAL COLOUR GARDEN--GENERAL PLAN._]
[Illustration: _A QUARTER OF THE GOLD GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _THE ORANGE GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _THE GREY GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _THE BLUE GARDEN._]
[Illustration: _THE GREEN GARDEN._]
The strength of colour and degree of variation is so great that it is
well worth going to a nursery to pick out all these gold-variegated
plants. It is not enough to tell the gardener to get them. There should
be fervour on the part of the garden's owner such as will take him on
a gold-plant pilgrimage to all good nurseries within reach, or even
to some rather out of reach. No good gardening comes of not taking
pains. All good gardening is the reward of well-directed and strongly
sustained effort.
Where, in the Gold garden, the paths meet and swing round in a circle,
there may be some accentuating ornament--a sundial, a stone vase for
flowers, or a tank for a yellow Water-lily. If a sundial, and there
should be some incised lettering, do not have the letters gilt because
it is the Gold garden; the colour and texture of gilding are quite out
of place. If there is a tank, do not have goldfish; their colour is
quite wrong. Never hurt the garden for the sake of the tempting word.
The word "gold" in itself is, of course, an absurdity; no growing leaf
or flower has the least resemblance to the colour of gold. But the word
may be used because it has passed into the language with a commonly
accepted meaning.
I have always felt a certain hesitation in using the free-growing
perennial Sunflowers. For one thing, the kinds with the running roots
are difficult to keep in check, and their yearly transplantation among
other established perennials is likely to cause disturbance and injury
to their neighbours. Then, in so many neglected gardens they have been
let run wild, surviving when other plants have been choked, that, half
unconsciously, one has come to hold them cheap and unworthy of the best
use. I take it that my own impression is not mine alone, for often when
I have been desired to do planting-plans for flower borders, I have
been asked not to put in any of these Sunflowers because "they are so
common."
But nothing is "common" in the sense of base or unworthy if it is
rightly used, and it seems to me that this Gold garden is just the
place where these bright autumn flowers may be employed to great
advantage. I have therefore shown _Helianthus rigidus_ and its
tall-growing variety _Miss Mellish_, although the colour of both is
quite the deepest I should care to advise; the paler yellow of _H.
lætiflorus_ being better, especially the capital pale form of this
Sunflower, and of one that I know as a variety of _H. orgyalis_,
described at p. 69.
The golden Planes, where the path comes in from the north, are of
course deciduous, and it might be well to have gold Hollies again at
the back of these, or gold Yews, to help the winter effect.
In some places in the plan the word "gold" has been omitted, but
the yellow-leaved or yellow-variegated form of the shrub is always
intended. There is a graceful cut-leaved Golden Elder that is
desirable, as well as the common one.
[Illustration: _A DETAIL OF THE GREY SEPTEMBER GARDEN. PERENNIAL ASTERS
AND WHITE CHINA ASTER MAMMOTH IN FRONT._]
Perhaps the Grey garden is seen at its best by reaching it through the
orange borders. Here the eye becomes filled and saturated with the
strong red and yellow colouring. D on the plan stands for Dahlia; the
other plant names are written in full. This filling with the strong,
rich colouring has the natural effect of making the eye eagerly
desirous for the complementary colour, so that, standing by the inner
Yew arch and suddenly turning to look into the Grey garden, the effect
is surprisingly--quite astonishingly--luminous and refreshing. One
never knew before how vividly bright Ageratum could be, or Lavender or
Nepeta; even the grey-purple of Echinops appears to have more positive
colour than one's expectation would assign to it. The purple of the
Clematises of the Jackmanii class becomes piercingly brilliant, while
the grey and glaucous foliage looks strangely cool and clear.
The plan shows the disposition of the plants, with grey-white edging
of _Cineraria maritima_, Stachys and Santolina. There are groups of
Lavender with large-flowered Clematises (C in the plan) placed so that
they may be trained close to them and partly over them. There are the
monumental forms of the taller Yuccas, _Y. gloriosa_ and its variety
_recurva_ towards the far angles, and, nearer the front (marked Yucca
in plan), the free-blooming _Yucca filamentosa_ of smaller size. The
flower-colouring is of purple, pink and white. Besides the Yuccas, the
other white flowers are _Lilium longiflorum_ and _Lilium candidum_ (L C
on plan), the clear white Achillea The Pearl and the grey-white clouds
of _Gypsophila paniculata_. The pink flowers are Sutton's Godetia
Double Rose, sown in place early in May, the beautiful clear pink
Hollyhock Pink Beauty, and the pale pink Double Soapwort. Clematis and
white Everlasting Pea are planted so that they can be trained to cover
the Gypsophila when its bloom is done and the seed-pods are turning
brown. As soon as it loses its grey colouring the flowering tops are
cut off, and the Pea and Clematis, already brought near, are trained
over. When the Gypsophila is making its strong growth in May, the
shoots are regulated and supported by some stiff branching spray that
is stuck among it. A little later this is quite hidden, but it remains
as a firm sub-structure when the top of the Gypsophila is cut back and
the other plants are brought over.
Elymus is the blue-green Lyme Grass, a garden form of the handsome
blue-leaved grass that grows on the seaward edges of many of our
sea-shore sandhills. The Soapwort next to it is the double form of
_Saponaria officinalis_, found wild in many places.
Of Ageratum, two kinds are used--a brightly coloured one of the dwarf
kinds for places near the front, where it tells as a close mass of
colour, and the tall _A. mexicanum_ for filling up further back in the
border, where it shows as a diffuse purple cloud. The Nepeta is the
good garden Catmint (_N. Mussini_). Its normal flowering time is June,
but it is cut half back, removing the first bloom, by the middle of the
month, when it at once makes new flowering shoots.
[Illustration: _YUCCAS AND GREY FOLIAGE._]
[Illustration: _A FRONT EDGE OF GREY FOLIAGE._]
Now, after the grey plants, the Gold garden looks extremely bright and
sunny. A few minutes suffice to fill the eye with the yellow influence,
and then we pass to the Blue garden, where there is another delightful
shock of eye-pleasure. The brilliancy and purity of colour are almost
incredible. Surely no blue flowers were ever so blue before! That is
the impression received. For one thing, all the blue flowers used, with
the exception of Eryngium and _Clematis davidiana_, are quite pure
blues; these two are grey-blues. There are no purple-blues, such as the
bluest of the Campanulas and the perennial Lupines; they would not be
admissible. With the blues are a few white and palest yellow flowers;
the foam-white _Clematis recta_, a delightful foil to Delphinium
Belladonna; white perennial Lupine with an almond-like softness of
white; _Spiræa Aruncus_, another foam-coloured flower. Then milk-white
Tree Lupine, in its carefully decreed place near the bluish foliage
of Rue and Yucca. Then there is the tender citron of Lupine Somerset
and the full canary of the tall yellow Snapdragon, the diffused pale
yellow of the soft plumy Thalictrum and the strong canary of _Lilium
szovitzianum_, with white Everlasting Pea and white Hollyhock at the
back. White-striped Maize grows up to cover the space left empty by the
Delphiniums when their bloom is over, and pots of _Plumbago capense_
are dropped in to fill empty spaces. One group of this is trained over
the bluish-leaved _Clematis recta_, which goes out of flower with the
third week of July.
Yuccas, both of the large and small kinds, are also used in the
Blue garden, and white Lilies, _candidum_ and _longiflorum_. There
is foliage both of glaucous and of bright green colour, besides an
occasional patch of the silvery _Eryngium giganteum_. At the front
edge are the two best Funkias, _F. grandiflora_, with leaves of bright
yellow-green, and _F. Sieboldi_, whose leaves are glaucous. The
variegated Coltsfoot is a valuable edge-plant where the yellowish white
of its bold parti-colouring is in place, and I find good use for the
variegated form of the handsome Grass _Glyceria_ or _Poa aquatica_.
Though this is a plant whose proper place is in wet ground, it will
accommodate itself to the flower border, but it is well to keep it
on the side away from the sun. It harmonises well in colour with the
Coltsfoot; as a garden plant it is of the same class as the old Ribbon
Grass, but is very much better. The great white-striped Japanese grass,
_Eulalia japonica striata_ (EU on the plan), is planted behind the
Delphiniums at the angles, and groups well with the Maize just in front.
From the Blue garden, passing eastward, we come to the Green garden.
Shrubs of bright and deep green colouring and polished leaf-surface
predominate. Here are green Aucubas and Skimmias, with _Ruscus
racemosus_, the beautiful Alexandrian or Victory Laurel, and more
polished foliage of _Acanthus_, _Funkia_, _Asarum_, _Lilium candidum_
and _longiflorum_, and _Iris fœtidissima_. Then feathery masses of
paler green, Male Fern and Lady Fern and _Myrrhis odorata_, the
handsome fern-like Sweet Cicely of old English gardens. In the angles
are again Eulalias, but these are the variety _zebrina_ with the leaves
barred across with yellow.
In the Green garden the flowers are fewer and nearly all
white--Campanulas _latifolia_ and _persicifolia_, Lilies, Tulips,
Foxgloves, Snapdragons, Peonies, Hellebores--giving just a little
bloom for each season to accompany the general scheme of polished and
fern-like foliage. A little bloom of palest yellow shows in the front
in May and June, with the flowers of Uvularia and Epimedium. But the
Green garden, for proper development, should be on a much larger scale.
CHAPTER XII
CLIMBING PLANTS
When one sees climbing plants or any of the shrubs that are so often
used as climbers, planted in the usual way on a house or wall, about
four feet apart and with no attempt at arrangement, it gives one
that feeling of regret for opportunities lost or misused that is the
sentiment most often aroused in the mind of the garden critic in the
great number of pleasure-grounds that are planted without thought or
discernment. Not infrequently in passing along a country road, with
eye alert to note the beauties that are so often presented by little
wayside cottage gardens, something is seen that may well serve as a
lesson in better planting. The lesson is generally one that teaches
greater simplicity--the doing of one thing at a time; the avoidance
of overmuch detail. One such cottage has under the parlour window an
old bush of _Pyrus japonica_. It had been kept well spurred back and
must have been a mass of gorgeous bloom in early spring. The rest of
the cottage was embowered in an old Grape Vine, perhaps of all wall
plants the most beautiful, and, I always think, the most harmonious
with cottages or small houses of the cottage class. It would seem to
be least in place on the walls of houses of classical type, though
such houses are often unsuitable for any wall plants. Still there are
occasions where the noble polished foliage of Magnolia comes admirably
on their larger spaces, and the clear-cut refinement of Myrtle on their
lesser areas of wall-surface.
[Illustration: _HARDY GRAPE VINE ON SOUTH SIDE OF HOUSE._]
[Illustration: _HARDY GRAPE VINE ON HOUSE WALL._]
It is, like all other matters of garden planning, a question
of knowledge and good taste. The kind of wall or house and its
neighbouring forms are taken into account and a careful choice is made
of the most suitable plants. For my own part I like to give a house,
whatever its size or style, some dominant note in wall-planting. In my
own home, which is a house of the large cottage class, the prevailing
wall-growths are Vines and Figs in the south and west, and, in a shady
northward facing court between two projecting wings, _Clematis montana_
on the two cooler sides, and again a Vine upon the other. At one angle
on the warmer side of the house where the height to the eaves is not
great, China Roses have been trained up, and Rosemary, which clothes
the whole foot of the wall, is here encouraged to rise with it. The
colour of the China Rose bloom and the dusky green of the Rosemary are
always to me one of the most charming combinations. In remembrance
of the cottage example lately quoted there is _Pyrus japonica_ under
the long sitting-room window. I remember another cottage that had a
porch covered with the golden balls of _Kerria japonica_, and China
Roses reaching up the greater part of the low walls of half timber
and plastering; the pink Roses seeming to ask one which of them were
the loveliest in colour; whether it was those that came against the
silver-grey of the old oak or those that rested on the warm-white
plaster. It should be remembered that of all Roses the pink China is
the one that is more constantly in bloom than any other, for its first
flowers are perfected before the end of May, and in sheltered places
the later ones last till Christmas.
The _Clematis montana_ in the court riots over the wall facing east
and up over the edge of the roof. At least it appears to riot, but is
really trained and regulated; the training favouring its natural way of
throwing down streamers and garlands of its long bloom-laden cordage.
At one point it runs through and over a Guelder Rose that is its only
wall companion. Then it turns to the left and is trained in garlands
along a moulded oak beam that forms the base of a timbered wall with
plastered panels.
But this is only one way of using this lovely climbing plant. Placed at
the foot of any ragged tree--old worn-out Apple or branching Thorn--or
a rough brake of Bramble and other wild bushes, it will soon fill or
cover it with its graceful growth and bounteous bloom. It will rush
up a tall Holly or clothe an old hedgerow where thorns have run up
and become thin and gappy, or cover any unsightly sheds or any kind
of outbuilding. All Clematises prefer a chalky soil, but _montana_
does not insist on this, and in my pictures they are growing in sandy
ground. In the end of May it comes into bloom, and is at its best in
the early days of June. When the flowers are going over and the white
petals show that slightly shrivelled surface that comes before they
fall, they give off a sweet scent like vanilla. This cannot always be
smelt from the actual flowers, but is carried by the air blowing over
the flowering mass; it is a thing that is often a puzzle to owners of
gardens some time in the second week of June.
[Illustration: _VINE AND FIG AT DOOR OF MUSHROOM HOUSE._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS MONTANA AT ANGLE OF COURT._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS MONTANA OVER WORKSHOP WINDOW._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS MONTANA TRAINED AS GARLANDS._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS FLAMMULA AND SPIRÆA LINDLEYANA ON A WALL._]
[Illustration: _ABUTILON VITIFOLIUM._]
[Illustration: _IPOMŒA "HEAVENLY BLUE" AND CHASSELAS VINE._]
[Illustration: _SOLANUM JASMINOIDES._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON ANGLE OF COTTAGE._]
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON COTTAGE._]
Another of these Clematises, that, like the _montana_ of gardens, is
very near the wild species and is good for all the same purposes, is
_C. Flammula_, blooming in September. Very slightly trained it takes
the form of flowery clouds. The illustrations show it used in various
ways, on a cottage, on an oak-paled fence and on a wall combined with
the feathery foliage of _Spiræa Lindleyana_. I do not think there is
any incident in my garden that has been more favourably noticed than
the happy growth of these two plants together. The wall faces north
a little west, and every year it is a delight to see not only the
beauty of associated form, but the loveliness of the colouring; for the
Clematis bloom has the warm white of foam and the Spiræa has leaves of
the rather pale green of Lady Fern besides a graceful fern-like form,
and a slight twist or turn also of a fern-like character. But this
Clematis has many other uses, for bowers, arches and pergolas, as well
as for many varied aspects of wild gardening.
A shrub for wall use that is much neglected though of the highest
beauty is _Abutilon vitifolium_. In our northern and midland counties
it may not be hardy, but it does well anywhere south of London. The
flowers, each two and a half inches across, are borne in large, loose
clusters, their tender lavender colour harmonising perfectly with the
greyish, downy foliage.
There is no lovelier or purer blue than that of the newly opened
_Ipomœa rubro-cœrulea_, popularly known as Heavenly Blue and well
deserving the name. It must be raised in heat early in the year and be
put out in June against a warm wall. Here it is in a narrow border at
the foot of a wall facing south-west, where, by the aid of a few short
pea-sticks, it climbs into the lower branches of a Vine. The Vine is
one of the Chasselas kind, with leaves of a rather pale green, almost
yellowish green, colour that make the best possible foil to the pure
blue of the Ipomea. To my eye it is the most enjoyable colour-feast of
the year. _Solanum crispum_, with purple flowers in goodly bunches, is
one of the best of wall shrubs.
Another of the tender plants that is beautiful for walls and for
free rambling over other wall-growths is _Solanum jasminoides_. Its
white clusters come into bloom in middle summer and persist till
latest autumn. In two gardens near me it is of singular beauty; in
the one case on the sunny wall of a sheltered court where it covers a
considerable space, in the other against a high south retaining-wall
where, from the terrace above, the flowers are seen against the misty
woodland of the middle distance and the pure grey-blue of the faraway
hills. Turning round on the very same spot there is the remarkable
growth of the Sweet Verbena that owes its luxuriance to its roots and
main shoots being under shelter. There must be unending opportunities,
where there are verandahs, of having just such bowers of sweetness to
brush against in passing and to waft scented air to the windows of the
rooms above.
[Illustration: _CLEMATIS FLAMMULA ON A WOODEN FENCE._]
[Illustration: _SWEET VERBENA._]
These notes can only touch upon the more careful use of a few of the
many climbing plants and trailing shrubs. One of the many garden
possessions that I ardently desire and can never have is a bit of rocky
hillside; a place partly of sheer scarp and partly of tumbled and
outcropping rock-mass, for the best use of these plants. There would
be the place for the yellow winter Jasmine, for the Honeysuckles both
bushy and rambling, for the trailing Clematises lately described, and
for the native _C. Vitalba_, beautiful both in flower and fruit; for
shrubs like _Forsythia suspensa_ and _Desmodium penduliflorum_ that
like to root high and then throw down cascades of bloom, and for the
wichuraiana Roses, also for Gourds and wild Vines. There should be a
good quarter of a mile of it so that one might plant at perfect ease,
one thing at a time or one or two in combination, in just such sized
and shaped groups as would make the most delightful pictures, and in
just the association that would show the best assortment.
I have seen long stretches of bare chalky banks for year after year
with nothing done to dispel their bald monotony, feeling inward regret
at the wasted opportunity; thinking how beautiful they might be made
with a planting of two common things, _Clematis Vitalba_ and Red Spur
Valerian. But such examples are without end.
CHAPTER XIII
GROUPINGS OF PLANTS IN POTS
It is a common thing in Italian gardens to see a quantity of plants in
pots standing in various parts of the garden, generally in connexion
with paved terraces and steps. This is in addition to the larger pot
plants--Oranges, Lemons, Oleanders, &c., that, in their immense and
often richly decorated earthenware receptacles, form an important
part of the garden design. In our climate we cannot have these unless
there is an Orangery or some such spacious place free from frost for
housing them in winter. But good groupings of smaller plants in pots is
a form of ornament that might be made more use of in our own gardens,
especially where there are paved spaces near a house or in connexion
with a tank or fountain, so that there is convenient access to means of
daily watering. I have such a space in a cool court nearly square in
shape. A middle circle is paved, and all next the house is paved, on
a level of one shallow step higher. It is on the sides of this raised
step that the pot plants are grouped, leaving the middle space free
where there is a wooden seat, and good access to a door to the left.
[Illustration: _POT PLANTS JUST PLACED._]
[Illustration: _PLANTS IN POTS IN THE SHADED COURT: FUNKIA, LILIUM
LONGIFLORUM, FERNS AND ASPIDISTRA._]
[Illustration: _MAIDEN'S WREATH_ (_FRANCOA RAMOSA_).]
[Illustration: _MAIDEN'S WREATH BY TANK._]
The first thing is to secure good greenery. On each side three oblong
Italian terra-cotta pots full of _Funkia grandiflora_ stand on the
lower level. They serve to hide the common flower-pots that are ranged
behind. The picture shows how it looks a day or two after it is first
arranged, early in June when the _Clematis montana_ is still in bloom.
Next above the ornamental pots are common ones also with _Funkia
grandiflora_. On the inner side of the groups, next the house, are pots
of Aspidistra, and, against the wall, of Male Fern, and there are more
Ferns and Funkias for filling spaces between the flowering plants.
Of these the most important are Lilies--_longiflorum_, _candidum_
and _speciosum_--and Hydrangeas, but we also have pots of _Gladiolus
Colvillei_ The Bride, _Campanula persicifolia_ and _C. pyramidalis_ and
white and pink Cup-and-saucer Canterbury Bells. The last are taken up
from the ground and potted only just before they come into bloom.
There are seldom more than two kinds of flowering plants placed here at
a time; the two or three sorts of beautiful foliage are in themselves
delightful to the eye; often there is nothing with them but Lilies, and
one hardly desires to have more. There is an ample filling of the green
plants, so that no pots are seen.
If the place were in the sun the plants chosen would be largely
Geraniums; two-year-old plants in good-sized pots; and, in place of the
Ferns that enjoy shade and the Funkias whose leaves often burn in the
sun, there would be the large leaved _Megasea cordifolia_. Here also
would be Lilies, Hydrangeas and Cannas, and good store of the graceful
Maiden's Wreath (_Francoa ramosa_).
The Geraniums would be very carefully assorted for colour; in one
part of the scheme white and soft pink, in another the rosy scarlets,
and elsewhere the salmon-reds, now so numerous and good. The last two
groups might by degrees tone into the pure scarlets, of which the
best I know and the most delightful in colour is Paul Crampel. The
colour is pure and brilliant but not _cruel_. I can think of no other
word that so well describes some scarlets of a harsh quality that
gives discomfort rather than satisfaction to a sensitive colour-eye.
Henry Jacoby is to me one of the cruel reds and has no place among my
flowers. I have no desire to disparage a plant which is so general a
favourite, but feel sure that its popularity is a good deal owing to
the fact that the main gardening public is inclined rather to accept
what is put before it than to take the trouble to search for something
better. Although the colour of this Geranium is extremely vivid, a
whole bed of it has a heavy appearance and is wanting in pictorial
effect.
I have great pleasure in putting together Omphale, palest salmon-pink;
Mrs. Laurence, a shade deeper; Mrs. Cannell, a salmon-scarlet
approaching the quality of colour of Phlox Coquelicot, and leading
these by degrees to the pure, good scarlet of Paul Crampel. A bed or
clump or border planted with these, or varieties equivalent in colour,
would be seen to have, in comparison with a bed of Henry Jacoby, a
quite remarkable degree of life, brilliancy, beauty and interest. The
colouring would be actually brighter and yet more kind and acceptable
to the eye.
Had I more strength I should visit the nurseries in order to see all
the excellent Geraniums that are now grown, and to group them into
colour-combinations such as could be confidently recommended. As it is,
I have to depend upon the courtesy of my friends in the horticultural
trade, when I have occasion to make such combinations, for sending me
blooms that I can choose from.
For detached vases that stand on pedestals, so that the whole of the
vase and contents becomes warmed by exposure to sunlight, a condition
specially grateful to Geraniums, I know no variety more useful than
King of Denmark. The flowers are in large trusses, half-double, of an
excellent soft salmon-pink colour; the foliage is bold and well marked;
the whole plant massive and handsome. For this and any other outdoor
pot-culture it is best if strong two-year-old plants can be kept.
There are among Geraniums some of a raw magenta-pink that I regret to
see in many gardens and that will certainly never be admitted into mine.
In designing gardens where there are flagged spaces it is well to
remember the good effect of summer flowers in slightly raised beds
with stone edges. Such beds often come happily in conjunction with
steps and paved landings and designs in which fountains occur. Summer
flowers, such as Geraniums, Lilies and Cannas, seem to revel in such
beds and are never seen to better advantage. Owing to the cottage
character of my house I have little scope for such beds--none at all
for the best kind with dwarf walls and curbs of moulded freestone,
but I have one edged with a low wall of local sandstone where there is
a square landing paved with the same stone and short flights of steps
in connexion with a tank and a lower garden level. Here Geraniums and
Cannas luxuriate in shelter and full sunshine.
Maiden's Wreath (_Francoa ramosa_) is a plant for many uses. The
foliage, though sparing in quantity, is distinct and handsome. The long
flower-stems are flung out with a kind of determination of character
that would seem to imply that the plant knows what is expected of it
and intends to fulfil its settled duty and purpose, namely, that of
being a graceful and beautiful ornament. Towards the later summer these
flower-stems become so heavy that there is danger of their weight,
swayed by a little wind, wrenching out whole portions of the plant.
Support should be given with short pieces of hazel stick tied half way
up the stem. In nurseries it is general, and even in private gardens
not unusual, to see the flowers tied straight upright. This should
never be, for it not only forces the plant into a form that is entirely
at variance with its nature, but robs it of its natural grace and
valuable individuality.
There is no end to the uses of Hydrangeas in pots; a well-bloomed plant
will give life and interest to many an uninteresting corner; the bloom
is long-enduring and stands equally well in sun and shade. If the blue
colour, which comes naturally in some soils is desired, it can be had
by mixing pounded slate and iron filings with the compost--alum is
another well-known agent for inducing the blue colour. But I have much
faith in slate, for the bluest I have ever seen came from a garden on a
slaty soil.
[Illustration: _GERANIUMS AND CANNAS IN A STONE-EDGED BED._]
[Illustration: _MAIDEN'S WREATH IN POTS ABOVE TANK._]
[Illustration: _FUNKIA, HYDRANGEA AND LILY IN THE SHADED COURT._]
[Illustration: _FUNKIA AND LILIUM SPECIOSUM._]
A few only of the many plants that can with advantage be used in pots
have been named, but in any case it would be well to bear in mind that
it is best to restrict the number of kinds shown at once and to make
sure of the good groundwork of foliage. I have therefore only dwelt
upon the few that came to mind as the best and easiest to use. But the
pretty red and white single Fuchsias of the Mme. Cornellisson type
should not be forgotten, also that the fine Comet and Ostrich Plume
Asters are capital pot-plants, for, like Canterbury Bells, they bear
lifting from the open ground just before they flower and even in full
bloom.
* * * * *
Plants grown in pots lead naturally to the consideration of those
most suitable for tubs. Of these the most important are permanent
things of shrubby nature--several of the Orange and Lemon family,
Oleander, Pomegranate, Bay, Myrtle, Datura, Sweet Verbena and dwarf
Palm, also Hydrangea, Tree Heliotrope and Agapanthus. The last is of
course a bulbous plant, but from its large, solid foliage and quantity
of long-enduring bloom it is one of the best of plants for tubs. The
greater number of these need housing in winter in an Orangery or
other frost-proof building. Other bushy plants for tub use that are
hardier are some of the Veronicas, such as _Traversi_, _speciosa_ and
_hulkeana_, _Olearia Haastii_ and _O. Gunni_. Tree Peonies, though
rarely so used, are capital tub plants, and, though they are not very
long in flower, their supreme beauty makes them desirable. They should
certainly be grown in places where labour is not restricted and where
there are suitable places for standing such plants away and caring for
them in the off season.
For the same kind of use the Tree Lupines, both white and yellow, would
be excellent. _Funkia Sieboldi_ also makes a handsome tub, while for
summer filling Cannas are admirable and old Geraniums in bush form
always acceptable. I have never seen Acanthus used in this way, but can
see no reason against it. The smaller Bamboos, such as the handsome
broad-leaved _B. tessellata_, are very good in tubs. In speaking
of plants suitable for tubs, I take the word to include the larger
sizes of terra-cotta pots; but Agapanthus should never be planted in
earthenware, as the roots, which remain for many years undisturbed,
have so strong a rending power that they will burst anything less
resisting than iron-hooped wood.
It is rare to see, anywhere in England, plant-tubs painted a pleasant
colour. In nearly every garden they are painted a strong raw green
with the hoops black, whereas any green that is not bright and raw
would be much better. This matter of the colouring of all such garden
accessories as have to be painted deserves more attention than it
commonly receives. Doors in garden walls, trellises, wooden railings
and hand-gates and seats--all these and any other items of woodwork
that stand out in the garden and are seen among its flowers and foliage
should, if painted green, be of such a green as does not for brightness
come into competition with the green of leaves. In the case of tubs
especially, it is the plant that is to be considered first--not the
tub. The bright, harsh green on the woodwork makes the colour of the
foliage look dull and ineffective. It would be desirable, in the
case of solitary tub plants, to study the exact colour that would be
most becoming to the flower and foliage; but as it is needful, to
avoid a patchy appearance, to paint the whole of the tubs in any one
garden-scheme the same colour, a tint should be chosen that is quiet in
itself and that is lower in tone than the dullest of the foliage in any
of the examples. Moreover, there is no reason for painting the hoops
black; it is much better to paint the whole out of one pot.
A good quiet green can be made with black, chrome No. 1 and white
lead; enough white being mixed to give the depth or lightness desired.
A pretty colour of paint is much used in France that approximates to
the colourman's malachite green. This is not the bright colour of
malachite as we know the polished stone, but a pale, opaque bluish
green approaching the turquoise tints. In the bright, clear climate of
France, and in connexion with the higher type of French architecture,
also in more southern countries, the colour looks very well, though it
is not becoming to some foliage; but something quieter and more sober
is better suited for England.
Elsewhere I have written of the deplorable effect in the garden
landscape of the glaring white paint--still worse when tinted
blue--that emphasises the ugliness of the usual greenhouse or
conservatory. This may be mitigated, if the unsightly structure cannot
be concealed, by adding to the white a good deal of black and raw
umber, till the paint is of the quiet warm grey that for some strange
reason is known to house-painters as Portland-stone colour.
[Illustration: _LILIUM AURATUM._]
[Illustration: _A TUB HYDRANGEA._]
[Illustration: _STEPS AND HYDRANGEAS._]
[Illustration: _THE NARROW SOUTH LAWN._]
CHAPTER XIV
SOME GARDEN PICTURES
When the eye is trained to perceive pictorial effect, it is frequently
struck by something--some combination of grouping, lighting and
colour--that is seen to have that complete aspect of unity and beauty
that to the artist's eye forms a picture. Such are the impressions
that the artist-gardener endeavours to produce in every portion of the
garden. Many of these good intentions fail, some come fairly well, a
few reward him by a success that was beyond anticipation. When this is
the case it is probably due to some cause that had been overlooked but
that had chanced to complete his intention, such as the position of
the sun in relation to some wished-for colour-picture. Then there are
some days during the summer when the quality of light seems to tend to
an extraordinary beauty of effect. I have never been able to find out
how the light on these occasions differs from that of ordinary fine
summer days, but, when these days come, I know them and am filled with
gladness.
In the case of my own garden, as far as deliberate intention goes,
what is aimed at is something quite simple and devoid of complication;
generally one thing or a very limited number of flowering things at
a time, but that one, or those few things, carefully placed so as to
avoid fuss, and to please the eye and give ease to the mind. In many
cases the aim has been to show some delightful colour-combination
without regard to the other considerations that go to the making of
a more ambitious picture. It may be a group in a shrub border, or a
combination of border and climbing plants, or some carefully designed
company of plants in the rock garden. I have a little rose that I
call the Fairy Rose. It came to me from a cottage garden, and I have
never seen it elsewhere. It grows about a foot high and has blush-pink
flowers with the colour deepening to the centre. In character the
flower is somewhere between the lovely Blush Boursault at its best and
the little De Meaux. It is an inch and a half across and of beautiful
form, especially in the half-opened bud. Wishing to enjoy its beauty
to the utmost, and to bring it comfortably within sight, I gave it a
shelf in raised rock-work and brought near and under it a clear pale
lilac Viola and a good drift of _Achillea umbellata_. It was worth
doing. Another combination that gives me much pleasure is that of the
pink Pompon Rose Mignonette with Catmint and whitish foliage, such as
Stachys or _Artemisia stelleriana_. I may have mentioned this before,
but it is so pretty that it deserves repetition.
In a shrubbery border the fine _Spiræa Aruncus_ is beautiful with
an interplanting of _Thalictrum purpureum_. At the end of a long
flower-clump there is a yew hedge coming forward at right angles to
the length of the border. Behind the hedge is a stone wall with an
arch, through which the path in front of the border passes. Over
the stone arch and rambling partly over the yews are the vigorous
many-flowered growths of _Clematis Flammula_. In the end of the border
are pale sulphur-coloured Hollyhocks. Both in form and colour this was
a delightful picture; the foam-like masses of the Clematis resting on
the dusky richness of the yew; the straight shafts of the Hollyhock
giving clear colour and agreeing with the upright lines of the sides
of the archway, which showed dimly in the shade. These are only a few
incidents out of numbers that occur or are intentionally arranged.
There is a place near my house where a path leads down through a
nut-walk to the further garden. It is crossed by a shorter path that
ends at a Birch tree with a tall silvered trunk. It seemed desirable
to accentuate the point where the paths cross; I therefore put down
four square platforms of stone "pitching" as a place for the standing
of four Hydrangeas in tubs. Just before the tree is a solid wooden
seat and a shallow wide step done with the same stone pitching. Tree
and seat are surrounded on three sides by a rectangular planting of
yews. The tender greys of the rugged lower bark of the Birch and the
silvering of its upper stem tell finely against the dark velvet-like
richness of the Yew and the leaf-mass of other trees beyond; the pink
flowers and fresh green foliage of the Hydrangeas are also brilliant
against the dusky green. It is just one simple picture that makes one
glad for three months of the later summer and early autumn. The longer
cross-path, which on the right leads in a few yards to steps up to
the paved court on the north side of the house, on the left passes
down the nut-walk as the second illustration shows. The Birch tree and
seat are immediately to the right, just out of the picture. Standing a
little way down the shaded nut-walk and looking back, the Hydrangeas
are seen in another aspect, with the steps and house behind them in
shade, and the sun shining through their pale green leaves. Sitting on
the seat, the eye, passing between the pink Hydrangea flowers, sees a
short straight path bounded by a wall of Tree Box to right and left,
and at the far end one tub of pale blue Hydrangea in shade, backed by a
repetition of the screen of Yews such as enclose the Birch tree.
On the south side of the house there is a narrow border full of
Rosemary, with China Roses and a Vine, as shown in the illustration
opposite p. 106. Here the narrow lawn, backed by woodland, is higher
than the house-level. Shallow steps lead up to it in the middle, and
to right and left is low dry-walling. On the upper edge of this is a
hedge of Scotch Briars, shown in full bloom at p. 48, and in the narrow
border below, a planting of the low-growing _Andromeda (Leucothoë)
axillaris_, a little shrub that is neat throughout the year and in
winter prettily red-tinted.
[Illustration: _HYDRANGEA TUBS AND BIRCH-TREE SEAT._]
[Illustration: _HYDRANGEA TUBS AND NUT WALK._]
[Illustration: _WHITE LILIES._]
[Illustration: _THE STEPS AND THEIR INCIDENTS._]
The beautiful White Lily cannot be grown in the hot sandy soil of my
garden. Even if its place be ever so well prepared with the loam and
lime that it loves, the surrounding soil-influences seem to rob it of
its needful nourishment; it makes a miserable show for one year and
never appears again. The only way to grow it is in pots or tubs sunk
in the soil. For some years I had wished to have an orderly planting
of this lovely Lily in the lower border at the back of the Andromeda
just in front of the Briars. I had no flower-pots deep enough, or wide
enough at the bottom, but was able to make a contrivance with some
short, broad, unglazed drain-pipes, measuring a foot long and of about
the same diameter, by cementing in an artificial bottom made of pieces
of roofing-tile and broken flower-pot, leaving spaces for drainage.
Then three bulbs were put in each pot in a compost that I knew they
would enjoy. When they were half grown the pots were sunk in holes at
nearly even distances among the Andromedas, and in a few weeks my row
of Lilies gave me my reward. Other Lilies (_L. longiflorum_) follow
them a month later, just beyond in the wood edge among tufts of Male
Fern, and a pot of Francoa is to right and left of the shallow steps.
During the last year or two some pretty incidents have occurred about
these same steps; not important enough to call garden pictures, but
charming and interesting and easily enjoyable because they are close to
the open garden door of the sitting-room and because they teach me to
look out for the desirable things that come of themselves. A seedling
of the wild Clematis (_C. Vitalba_) appeared among the Briars to the
left. As it was too strong a plant to let grow over them unchecked,
I pulled it forward towards the steps, training one or two shoots to
run along the hollow of the step and laying on them pieces of stone
invisible among the foliage, to keep them from being dislodged by the
skirts of visitors or the gambols of my cats. At the same time, in a
crack of the stone just below the upper step there came a seedling of
the tall Chimney Campanula (_C. pyramidalis_). The second year this
threw up its tall flower-stem and was well in bloom when it was wrecked
by an early autumn gale, the wind wrenching out the crown and upper
root-stock. But a little shred of rooted life remained and now there is
again the sturdy tuft promising more flower-stems for the coming season.
Close behind the Bell-flower a spreading sheet of Wild Thyme has crept
out of the turf and spread rather widely over the stone. Luckily I just
saved it from the tidying process that threatened it, and as it is now
well established over the stone I still have the pleasure of its bright
rosy bloom when the duties of the mowing-machine rob me of the other
tiny flowers--Hawkweed, Milkwort and Bedstraw--that bloom so bravely in
the intervals between its ruthless but indispensable ministrations.
CHAPTER XV
A BEAUTIFUL FRUIT GARDEN
There is a whole range of possible beautiful treatment in fruit-growing
that is rarely carried out or even attempted. Hitherto but little
has been done to make the fruit garden a place of beauty; we find it
almost flaunting its unloveliness, its white painted orchard-houses
and vineries, its wires and wire nettings. It is not to be denied that
all these are necessary, and that the usual and most obvious way of
working them does not make for beauty. But in designing new gardens or
remodelling old, on a rather large scale, there need be no difficulty
in so arranging that all that is necessarily unbeautiful should be kept
in one department, so hedged or walled around as to be out of sight.
In addition to such a fruit garden for strict utility I have in mind a
walled enclosure of about an acre and a half, longer than wide, laid
out as shown in the plan. I have seen in large places just such spaces,
actually walled but put to no use.
The wall has trained fruit-trees--Peaches spreading their goodly
fans, Pears showing long, level lines, and, including hardy Grape
Vines, giving all the best exposition of the hardy fruit-grower's
art. Next to the wall is a space six feet wide for ample access to
the fruit-trees, their pruning, training and root-management; then a
fourteen-foot plant border, wholly for beauty, and a path eight feet
wide. At a middle point on all four sides the high wall has an arched
doorway corresponding to the grassy way between the fruit-trees in
the middle space. If the wall has some symmetrical building on the
outside of each angle so much the better; the garden can make use
of all. One may be a bothy, with lower extension out of sight; one
a half-underground fruit-store, with bulb-store above; a third a
paint-shop, and a fourth a tea-house.
The middle space is all turf; in the centre a Mulberry, and, both ways
across, double lines of fruit-trees, ending with Bays; the Bays are
at the ends on the plan. In almost any part of the sea-warmed south
of England, below the fifty-first parallel of latitude which passes
through the upper part of Sussex, the rows of fruit-trees on the
green might be standard Figs; elsewhere they would be bush Pears and
Apples. If the soil is calcareous, so much the better for the Figs and
Mulberry, the Vines and indeed nearly all the fruits. The angle-clumps
in the grass are planted with Magnolias, Yuccas and Hydrangeas.
The border all round is for small shrubs and plants of some solidity or
importance; the spaces are too long for an ordinary flower border. It
would have a good bush of _Magnolia stellata_ at each angle, Yuccas,
Tritomas, hardy Fuchsias, Peonies, _Euphorbia Wulfenii_, Hollyhocks,
Dahlias, Hydrangeas, Michaelmas Daisies, Flag Iris, the beautiful
_Olearia Gunni_ and _O. Haastii_, Tree Lupines, Forsythia, Weigela,
the smaller Bush Spiræas, Veronicas, Tamarisk, the large-bloomed
Clematises, bush kinds of garden Roses, Funkias, and so on.
[Illustration: _THE BEAUTIFUL FRUIT GARDEN._]
Surely my fruit garden would be not only a place of beauty, of pleasant
sight and pleasant thought, but of leisurely repose, a repose broken
only faintly and in welcome fashion by its own interests--in July,
August and September a goodly place in which to wander and find
luscious fruits in quantity that can be gathered and eaten straight
from the tree. There is a pleasure in searching for and eating fruit in
this way that is far better than having it picked by the gardener and
brought in and set before one on a dish in a tame room. Is this feeling
an echo of faraway days of savagery when men hunted for their food
and rejoiced to find it, or is it rather the poet's delight of having
direct intercourse with the good gift of the growing thing and seeing
and feeling through all the senses how good and gracious the thing is?
To pass the hand among the leaves of the Fig-tree, noting that they are
a little harsh upon the upper surface and yet soft beneath; to be aware
of their faint, dusky scent; to see the cracking of the coat of the
fruit and the yellowing of the neck where it joins the branch--the two
indications of ripeness--sometimes made clearer by the drop of honeyed
moisture at the eye; then the handling of the fruit itself, which
must needs be gentle because the tender coat is so readily bruised
and torn; at the same time observing the slight greyish bloom and the
colouring--low-toned transitions of purple and green; and finally to
have the enjoyment of the luscious pulp, with the knowledge that it is
one of the most wholesome and sustaining of fruit foods--surely all
this is worthy garden service! Then how delicious are the sun-warmed
Apricots and Peaches, and, later in the year, the Jargonelle Pears,
always best eaten straight from the tree; and the ripe Mulberries of
September. And how pleasant to stroll about the wide grassy ways,
turning from the fruits to the flowers in the clumps and borders, to
the splendid Yuccas and the masses of Hydrangea bloom, and then to the
gorgeous Tritomas and other delights; and to see the dignity of the
stately Bay-trees and the incomparable beauty of their every twig and
leaf.
The beautiful fruit garden would naturally lead to the orchard, a
place that is not so often included in the pleasure-ground as it
deserves. For what is more lovely than the bloom of orchard-trees
in April and May, with the grass below in its strong, young growth;
in itself a garden of Cowslips and Daffodils. In an old orchard how
pictorial are the lines of the low-leaning old Apple-trunks and the
swing and poise of their upper branches, best seen in winter when their
graceful movement of line and wonderful sense of balance can be fully
appreciated. But the younger orchard has its beauty too, of fresh,
young life and wealth of bloom and bounteous bearing.
Then if the place of the orchard suggests a return to nearer
pleasure-ground with yet some space between, how good to make this
into a free garden orchard for the fruits of wilder character; for
wide-spreading Medlars, for Quinces, again some of the most graceful
of small British trees; for Service, Damson, Bullace, Crabs and their
many allies, not fruit-bearing trees except from the birds' and
botanists' points of view, but beautiful both in bloom and berry, such
as the Mountain Ash, Wild Cherry, Blackthorn, and the large-berried
White-thorns, Bird-cherry, White Beam, Holly and Amelanchier. Then all
these might be intergrouped with great brakes of the free-growing Roses
and the wilder kinds of Clematis and Honeysuckle. And right through
it should be a shady path of Filberts or Cobnuts arching overhead and
yielding a bountiful autumn harvest.
CHAPTER XVI
PLANTING FOR WINTER COLOUR
Much cheerful positive colour, other than that given by flowers or
leaves, may be obtained in winter by using a good selection of small
trees with coloured bark. Of these the most useful are the Red Dogwood
and some of the willows. This planting for colour of bright-barked
trees is no new thing, for something like half a century ago the late
Lord Somers, at Eastnor Castle near Malvern, used to "paint his woods,"
as he described it, in this way.
The Cardinal Willow has bright red bark, _Salix britzensis_ orange, and
the Golden Osier bright yellow. The yearly growth has the best-coloured
bark, so that when they are employed for giving colour it is usual to
cut them every winter; moreover, the large quantity of young shoots
that the cutting induces naturally increases the density of the
colour-effect. But if they are planted in a rather large way it is
better that the regular winter cutting should be restricted to those
near the outer edge, and to let a good proportion of those within stand
for two or more years, and to have some in the background that are
never cut at all, but that are allowed to grow to their full size and
to show their natural habit.
It will also be well to avoid planting them exclusively sort by sort,
but to group and intergroup carefully assorted colours, such as the
scarlet Willow with the purple-barked kind, and to let this pass into
the American Willow with the black stem. Such a group should not be too
large, and it should be near the pathway, for it will show best near
at hand. For the sake of the bark-colouring, it would be best to cut
it all every year, although in the larger plantings it is desirable to
have the trees of different ages, or the effect may be too much that of
a mere crop instead of a well-arranged garden grouping.
Some of the garden Roses, both of the free-growing and bush kinds, have
finely coloured bark that can be used in much the same way. They are
specially good in broken ground, such as the banks of an old hollow
cart-way converted to garden use, or the sloping _débris_ of a quarry.
Of the free kinds, the best coloured are _Rosa ferruginea_, whose
leaves are red as well as the stem--it is the _Rosa rubrifolia_ of
nurseries;--and the varieties of Boursault Roses, derived from _Rosa
alpina_. As bushes for giving reddish colouring, _Rosa lucida_ would be
among the best.
By waterside the Great Reedmace--commonly but wrongly called
Bulrush--holds its handsome seed-heads nearly through the winter, and
beds of the Common Reed (_Arundo Phragmites_) stand up winter through
in masses of light, warm colouring that are grateful to the eye and
suggest comfortable harbourage for wildfowl.
Some shrubs have conspicuously green bark, such as the Spindletree;
but the habit of growth is rather too diffuse to let it make a distinct
show of colour. _Leycesteria formosa_ is being tried in mass for winter
colour in some gardens, but I venture to feel a little doubtful of its
success; for though the skin of the half-woody stem is bright green,
the plant has the habit of retaining some of its leaves and the remains
of its flowering tips till January, or even later. After frost these
have the appearance of untidy grey rags, and are distinctly unsightly.
The brightest effect of all green-barked plants is that given by
Whortleberry, a plant that on peaty or sandy soils is one of the most
enjoyable of winter undershrubs.
It would add greatly to the enjoyment of many country places if
some portions were planted with evergreens expressly for winter
effect. Some region on the outskirts of the garden, and between it
and woodland, would be the most desirable. If well done the sense of
wintry discomfort would disappear, for nearly all the growing things
would be at their best, and even in summer, shrubs and plants can do
no more than this. In summer, too, it would be good to see, for the
green things would have such an interplanting of free Roses, Jasmines,
Clematis, Honeysuckles, Forsythia, and so on, as would make charming
incidents of flower-beauty.
The place for this winter walk should be sheltered from the north and
east. I have such a place in my mind's eye, where, beyond the home
garden and partly wooded old shrubbery, there is a valley running up
into a fir-wooded hill. The path goes up the hillside diagonally,
with a very gentle gradient. In the cooler, lower portion there would
be Rhododendrons and Kalmias, with lower growths of Skimmia and
Gaultheria. Close to the path, on the less sunny side, would be Lent
Hellebores and the delightful winter greenery of Epimedium. Then in
full sun _Andromeda japonica_, and on the shadier side _Andromeda
floribunda_. Both of these hard and rather brittle-wooded shrubs
belong to the group properly named _Pieris_, and form dense bushes
four or more feet high. At their foot would be the lower-growing
Andromedas of the _Leucothoē_ section, with lissome branches of a more
willow-like character. These make a handsome ground-carpeting from
one to two feet high, beautiful at all seasons--the leaves in winter
tinted or marbled with red. Portions of the cooler side would also
have fringes of Hartstongue and Polypody, both winter ferns. Then, as
the path rose into more direct sunlight, there would be Cistuses--in
all mild winter days giving off their strong, cordial scent--and the
dwarf Rhododendrons. Behind the Cistuses would be White Broom, finely
green-stemmed in winter. There would even be shrubs in flower; the
thick-set yellowish bloom of Witch Hazel (_Hamamelis_) and the bright
yellow of _Jasminum nudiflorum_. Then groups of Junipers, and all
the ground carpeted with Heath, and so to the upper Fir-wood. Then,
after the comforting greenery of the lower region, the lovely colour
of distant winter landscape would be intensely enjoyable; for the
greys and purples of the leafless woodland of middle distance have
a beauty that no summer landscape can show. In clear weather the
further distances have tints of an extraordinary purity, while the more
frequent days of slightly distant haze have another kind of beautiful
mystery.
The common Laurel is generally seen as a long-suffering garden hack,
put to all sorts of rather ignoble uses. It is so cheap to buy, so
quick of growth, and so useful as an easily made screen that its
better use is, except in rare instances, lost sight of. Planted in
thin woodland and never pruned, it grows into a small tree that takes
curious ways and shapes of trunk and branch of a character that is
remarkably pictorial.
CHAPTER XVII
FORM IN PLANTING
If in the foregoing chapters I have dwelt rather insistently on matters
of colour, it is not that I under-rate the equal importance of form and
proportion, but that I think that the question of colour, as regards
its more careful use, is either more commonly neglected or has had
fewer exponents. As in all matters relating to design in gardening,
the good placing of plants in detail is a matter of knowledge of an
artistic character. The shaping of every group of plants, to have the
best effect, should not only be definitely intended but should be done
with an absolute conviction by the hand that feels the _drawing_ that
the group must have in relation to what is near, or to the whole form
of the clump or border or whatever the nature of the place may be. I
am only too well aware that to many this statement may convey no idea
whatever, nevertheless I venture to insist upon its truth. Moreover,
I am addressing this book to the consideration of those who are in
sympathy with my views of gardening, among whom I know there are many
who, even if they have not made themselves able, by study and long
practice, to show in groundwork and garden design the quality known to
artists as _drawing_--by which is meant a right movement of line and
form and group--can at least recognise its value--indeed its supreme
importance--when it is present, and do not, in its absence, fail to
feel that the thing shown is without life, spirit, or reasonable
justification.
[Illustration: _A WILD HEATH GARDEN._
_Upper Figure: As First Planted._
_Lower Figure: After Alteration._]
Even a proficiency in some branch of fine art does not necessarily
imply ability to lay out ground. I have known, in the intimate
association of half a lifetime, a landscape painter, whose
interpretation of natural beauty was of the most refined and poetical
quality, and who truly loved flowers and beautiful vegetation, but who
was quite incapable of personally arranging a garden; although it is
more usual that an artist should almost unconsciously place plants well.
It is therefore not to be expected that it is enough to buy good
plants and merely to tell the gardener of average ability to plant
them in groups, as is now often done with the very best intention. It
is impossible for the gardener to know what is meant. In all the cases
that have come under my notice, where such indefinite instruction has
been given, the things have been planted in stiff blocks. Quite lately
I came upon such an example in the garden of a friend who is by no
means without a sense of beauty. There was a bank-like space on the
outskirts of the pleasure-ground where it was wished to have a wild
Heath garden. A better place could hardly be, for the soil is light
and sandy and the space lies out in full sunlight. The ground had
been thrown about into ridges and valleys, but without any reference
to its natural form, whereas with half the labour it might have been
guided into slight hollows, ridges, and promontories of good line and
proportion. I found it planted as in the upper plan; the path stiffly
edged with one kind of Heath on one side and another kind on the other;
the back planting in rectangular blocks; near the front bushes of
Veronica at exactly even distances, and between them the same number of
Heaths in each interval quite stiffly planted. Some of the blocks at
the back were of Violets--plants quite unsuited to the place. Yet, only
leaving out the Violets, all the same plants might have been disposed
so as to come quite easily and naturally as shown on the lower plan.
Then a thin sowing of the finer Heath grasses, to include the pathway,
where alone they would be mown, and a clever interplanting of wild
Thyme and the native Wood Sage (_Teucrium Scorodonia_), common on the
neighbouring heaths, would have put the whole thing together and would
have given the impression, so desirable in wild planting, of the thing
having so happened, rather than of its having been artificially made.
In planting or thinning trees also, the whole ultimate good of the
effect will depend on this sense of form and good grouping. If these
qualities are secured, the result in after years will be a poem; if
they are neglected it will be nothing but a crop.
I can imagine nothing more interesting than the guiding and
part-planting of large stretches of natural young woodland with some
hilly ground above and water at the foot. As it is, I have to be
content with my little wood of ten acres; yet I am truly glad to have
even that small space to treat with reverent thankfulness and watchful
care.
INDEX
A
Abutilon vitifolium, 66, 109
Acanthus, 25, 88;
as tub plant, 118
Achillea, The Pearl, 72
Adonis, 25
Æsculus, 73
Agapanthus, 117
Agathea cœlestis, 49, 63
Ageratum, 81, 102
Alexandrian Laurel, 104
Alpenrose, 19, 33, 85
Alyssum, 26
Amelanchier, 12
Anchusa, 43, 46
Andromeda, 13, 19, 33, 85, 124, 136
Anemone sylvestris, 37;
japonica, 81
Annuals, half hardy, 50, 57;
hardy, 57
Apples, 131
Arbutus, 85
Arenaria balearica, 33;
montana, 34
Artemisia stelleriana, 63, 72, 80
Asarum, 16, 34
Asters, China, 74, 81, 117;
perennial, 72, 80, 128
August, Flower-border in, 65
Aubrietia, 27
Aucuba, 104
Azalea, 84
B
Bambusa tessellata, 88;
as tub plant, 118
Bay, 128
Bedding plants, 50
Begonias, 81;
with Megasea, 82
Blue flowers, 63, 68
Blue garden, 90, 103
Briars, Scotch, 46, 124
Broom, white, 36, 37, 136
Bulb-border, 5
C
Camassia, 34
Campanula pyramidalis in steps, 126;
persicifolia, 40, 105;
lactiflora, 58
Campanulas in pots, 113
Canna, 70, 78;
in pots, 113
Canterbury Bells, 50;
in pots, 113
Caryopteris, 73
Catmint, 46, 72, 102
Chalky banks, plants for, 111
China Rose, 107
Choisya ternata, 50
Cineraria maritima, 63, 65, 72, 80
Cistus, 13, 19, 61, 66, 85, 136
Clematis montana, 29, 34, 39, 50, 107
C. davidiana, 68, 79
C. Flammula, 54, 109
C. recta, 62, 103
C. Vitalba, 85, 111
Climbing plants, 106
Colour, in woodland, 1;
scheme of Rhododendrons, 15;
of old Scotch Fir, 17;
tender in spring garden, 24;
strong in spring garden, 25
Colour-combinations, 47, 51, 60, 72, 73, 122
Colour, optical effect of, 52;
gardens of special, 89;
of paint for garden accessories, 119
Colour-planting for winter, 133
Coltsfoot, variegated, 81, 104
Columbines, 35, 40, 85
Coreopsis, 59, 70
Corydalis ochroleuca, 27, 37
Cottage gardens, 106
Cranesbill, 42, 49
Crown Imperial, 25
D
Daffodils, 7, 14
Dahlias, 66, 70, 78, 81, 128;
best kinds for border use, 82
Daphne Mezereon, 2
Delphinium Belladonna, 63, 103;
grandiflorum, 63
Dentaria, 28, 85
Desmodium penduliflorum, 111
Dictamnus, 24, 50
Dielytra spectabilis, 27
Dog-tooth Violet, 2
Drifts in planting, 2, 11, 15, 24
E
Elymus, 65, 67, 102;
in the grey garden, 102
Empty spaces in borders, filling up, 55, 67
Epilobium, 85
Epimedium, 34, 38, 85
Eryngium, 59, 72, 104
Eulalia, 65, 104
Euphorbia Wulfenii, 22, 38, 50, 128
Evergreens for winter effect, 135
Exochorda, 36
F
Fern, Lady, 13, 34;
Osmunda, 13;
Fern, Male, 6, 13, 35, 39, 125;
dilated shield, 13, 22;
Polypody, 13;
hardy Ferns, 85, 88, 104, 136;
Ferns in pots, 113
Fern walk, 15
Feverfew, Golden Feather, 81
Fig, 107, 128
Flower-border, 50
Form in planting, 138
Forsythia suspensa, 4, 111, 130
Foxgloves, 16, 40, 44, 85
Francoa, 113, 116
Fruit garden, beautiful, 127
Fuchsia, 117, 128
Fumaria bulbosa, 6
Funkia, 86, 104, 112;
F. Sieboldi as tub plant, 118
G
Galvanised iron roof, treatment of, 56
Gaultheria, 13, 84, 136
Gentiana asclepiadea, 85
Geranium ibericum, 42
Geraniums (Pelargonium), 113
Gladiolus, 70, 79;
in pots, 113
Godetia, 72
Gold garden, 90;
plants for, 92
Golden Elder, 100
Golden Plane, 91
Goodyera, 16
Gourds, 111
Green-barked shrubs, 135
Green garden, 104
Grey garden, 90, 101;
plants for, 101
Grey plants, 4, 51, 60, 65, 71, 80, 101
Grouping of plants, 140
Guelder Rose, 36, 108
Gypsophila, 53, 70, 72, 87, 102
H
Heath, 19, 20, 85, 136;
path, 19
Helenium pumilum, 70
Helianthus, 69, 79;
in the Gold garden, 100
Hellebores, Lent, 2, 6, 34
Heracleum, 44
Heuchera Richardsoni, 26, 29
Hidden Garden, 32
Hill-side for planting, 38
Hollyhock, 70, 128
Hydrangea, 67, 113, 116, 128;
as tub plants, 123;
H. paniculata, 87
I
Iberis, see Spring-garden, 50
Ipomæa Heavenly Blue, 110
Iris, dwarf, 29;
Cengialti, 34;
flag-leaved, 31, 32, 39, 42, 49, 128;
special borders of, 44
J
Jasminum nudiflorum, 111, 136
July, flower-border, 58
June garden, 39;
climbers in June, 47
Juniper, 136
K
Kalmia, 84
Kerria, 107
L
Laburnum, arch of, 80
Lavender, 72, 73;
dwarf, 63
Laurel, 137
Ledum palustre, 85
Lent Hellebores, 2, 6, 136
Leycesteria formosa, 28, 135
Lilies, 35, 85, 103;
in the grey garden, 101;
in pots, 113
Lilium auratum, 12, 80;
longiflorum, 68, 72, 125;
giganteum, 29;
candidum, 103, 104, 124
Lily of the Valley, 86
Lithospermum, 26
Lobelias, 66
Lupines, 39;
tree lupines, 45, 88, 103, 130;
as tub plants, 118
M
Magnolia, 107;
conspicua, 4, 66;
stellata, 5, 128
Maiden's Wreath, 113, 116
Maize, 103
Marigold, African, 68, 79, 81
May-blooming shrubs, 36
Megasea, 86;
in bulb-border, 6;
in spring garden, 22;
in pots, 113
Mertensia, 25
Mowing-machine, track of, 14
Mulberry, 128
Mulching the flower-border, 51
Mullein, 44
Myosotis, 25
Myrrhis, 22, 104
Myrtle, 107
N
Narcissus, in bulb-border, 7
Nepeta Mussini, with grey plants, 46
Nut-walk, 132
O
Olearia Haastii, 73, 130;
O. Gunni, 128
Orchard, 131;
wild orchard, 132
Orobus vernus, 27
Othonna, 38
P
Paint for tubs, &c., 118
Paths, wood, 13
Papaver rupifragum, 43;
P. pilosum, 43;
P. orientale, 43
Pea, White Everlasting, 53, 65, 72, 103
Pentstemons, 40, 63, 79
Peonies, 39, 41, 88, 128
Peony albiflora, 42
Peony, tree, 26, 33;
as tub plants, 117
Perowskya, 73
Phlomis, 80
Phlox divaricata, 26, 31, 33;
amœna, 26;
stellaria, 31
Pictures, living, 5, 9;
some garden, 121
Planting in drifts, 15, 24
Plumbago capense, 79, 103
Polygonum, 86
Pots, plants in, 112
Primrose Garden, 31
Privet, golden, 65
Pyrus japonica, 4, 106
Pyrus malus floribunda, 36
Q
Quarries, desirable for planting, 111
R
Reed, 134
Reedmace, 134
Rhododendron, 3, 12, 84, 136
Ribbon Grass, 104
Robinia, 66
Rocky hillside, planting for, 111
Rosa altaica, 37;
Burnet Rose, 37;
Fairy Rose, 122
Rosemary, 42, 107
Roses, garden, 40, 41, 130;
with coloured bark, 134
Roses, rambling, 35, 43, 62, 85, 111, 132
Rubus nutkanus, 12, 88;
odoratus, 12;
deliciosus, 29
Rudbeckia Golden Glow, 69, 79
Rue, 65, 79, 103
Ruscus, 104
S
Salvia splendens, 79
Santolina, 65
Scillas, 6
Sea Kale, 51, 58, 65, 67
Sedum spectabile, 81
Senecio artemisiæfolius, 59, 70
September, Flower-border in, 78
Skimmia, 19, 104, 136
Smilacina, 18
Snapdragons, 40, 63, 66, 80, 81, 103
Solanum crispum, 110;
jasminoides, 110
Solomon's Seal, 25, 33
Special colouring, gardens of, 89
Spiræa Aruncus, 42, 88, 103;
Lindleyana, 109
Spring garden, 21
Stachys, 72, 80;
lanata, 28
Staking and supporting, 55
St. Bruno's Lily, 34
Stonecrops on iron roof, 56
Sweet Cicely, 22, 40
Sweet Verbena, 110
T
Tamarisk, 91, 130
Thalictrum, 59, 103
Thyme, wild, 126
Tiarella, 37
Training down tall plants, 54, 69, 79
Training plants one over another, 53, 72, 102
Trientalis, 16
Trillium, 15, 85
Tritoma, 78, 128
Tubs, plants for, 117
Tulips, 24, 25
U
Uvularia, 28, 38, 85
V
Valerian, 111
Veratrum, 22
Verbascum, 44, 66
Veronica Traversi, 28;
Veronicas as tub plants, 117
Vine, Claret, 66;
Vine, 106, 107, 111, 128
W
Wallflower, 25
Wall shrubs, 66
Water Elder, 37
Whortleberry, 17
Wild gardening, 13
Willows, 133
Winter colour, 133
Winter walk, 135
Witch Hazel, 136
Woodland, 8
Wood paths, 13;
wood and shrubbery edges, 83
Woodruff, 34
Y
Yew hedges, 91
Yucca, 25, 50, 65, 101, 103, 128;
raised borders for, 71
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5s. 4d.
THE UNHEATED GREENHOUSE
=By Mrs. K. L. DAVIDSON.= Containing full and clearly-written
instructions as to the management of a cold greenhouse, together with
a list of plants that may be grown therein. 8s. 6d. net; by post, 8s.
10d.
"COUNTRY LIFE" LIBRARY OF SPORT
Edited by HORACE G. HUTCHINSON
A Series devoted to Sport and Pastime, each branch being dealt
with by the most qualified experts on the subjects which they have
made peculiarly their own. A special feature has been made of the
reproduction of old sporting prints.
Illustrated. Demy 8vo, Cloth.
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With over 80 Illustrations taken from the most interesting of the old
Cricketing prints. 12s. 6d. net; by post, 12s. 11d.
SHOOTING
In Two Volumes, 12s. 6d. each net; by post, 12s. 10d. each.
=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"Will prove a welcome and valuable addition
to Standard Sporting Literature.... The subject is treated from
a thoroughly practical and modern standpoint; in its views and
information it is entirely up-to-date."
FISHING
With Coloured Plates of Salmon and Trout Flies. Over 250 Full Page
Illustrations with various diagrams. In Two Volumes, 12s. 6d. each net;
by post, 13s.
=Morning Post.=--"Few books on any sport, and perhaps none on fishing,
have ever deserved better the description 'thorough.' To its title-page
might well have been added the motto of the Royal Agricultural
Society, 'Science with Practice,' and to the title itself, 'The
Angler's Encyclopædia.' From Cornwall to John o' Groats, from Wales
to Norway, from Florida to India and Burma--here you may find what
there is to be caught and how to catch it. And no detail seems to have
been overlooked. Localities, baits, tackle, choice of rods, methods
of casting, likely times--all are fully covered by experts who write
from long experience, and not because they spend odd days of the week
going a-fishing and resolved to write a book about it.... The book is
profusely, delightfully, and usefully illustrated. The salmon flies
are excellent, and so are the prints showing right and wrong methods
of casting, bringing in a fish, and gaffing.... 'Fishing' has fully
achieved its stated object of providing such information as may make a
man an intelligent and a successful angler if he has an average brain
and a love for craft."
BIG GAME SHOOTING
With over 200 Illustrations from Photographs showing Animals in their
actual habitat and natural environment. In Two Volumes, 12s. 6d. each
net; by post, 12s. 11d. each.
=Manchester Courier.=--"Encyclopædic in its scope, the work becomes by
its value and interest a standard authority on the subjects treated."
GOLF GREENS and GREEN KEEPING
10s. 6d. net; by post, 10s. 10d.
=Yorkshire Daily Post.=--"The practical worth of the volume is nearly
equal to the combined worth of all the books that have been written on
the theory and practice of golf."
=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"Each article is written by a man who knows his
subject, and the book is brightened by a number of most admirable and
helpful photographs. It will be useful to secretaries of links already
established, and even more so to gentlemen who are thinking of pegging
out a new course; and we have no hesitation in saying that it should be
on the library shelves of every golf club pavilion in the kingdom as a
valuable practical treatise."
=Irish Times.=--"This is the first book on the subject. It is an
excellent book, and one which every member of every green committee
should read and re-read."
HALF A CENTURY OF SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE
Being Extracts from the shooting journals of =JAMES EDWARD=, second
Earl of Malmesbury, with a prefatory memoir by his great grandson, the
Fifth Earl. Edited by =F. G. AFLALO=. 10s. 6d. net; by post, 10s. 11d.
=Liverpool Daily Courier.=--"The book is of great interest, and an
important contribution to the literature of sport and natural history.
It is charmingly illustrated."
POLO--PAST AND PRESENT
=By T. F. DALE.= 12s. 6d. net; by post, 12s. 11d.
=Scotsman.=--"A work than which there could be no better document of a
man's claim to speak with authority. This treatise is learned in the
ancient history of the game, well informed and exact in its directions
as to how it is played in the various quarters of the globe, and broad
minded in its suggestions of an international code for the furtherance
of its future prosperity. It has many admirable illustrations, and
a delightful chapter of personal reminiscences, discusses all the
practical business of the game with a knowledge which the most expert
will be the readiest to value highly, and brings together into a
well-stocked appendix a collection of rules and regulations and a list
of clubs which materially increase the usefulness of the book for
purposes of reference. The volume promises at once to take rank as a
book of first importance in the literature of its subject."
COUNTRY LIFE
THE JOURNAL FOR ALL INTERESTED IN COUNTRY LIFE AND COUNTRY PURSUITS
Subscription Prices per annum (Post free): Inland, 29s. 2d.; Foreign,
47s. Weekly, Price, 6d.
Country Life is a weekly journal addressed to all interested in country
life and country pursuits. One of its main features is the celebrated
series of COUNTRY HOMES and GARDENS OLD AND NEW; in each number a
country seat, remarkable either for its beauty or something peculiarly
instructive in the architecture of the house, gardens or grounds, is
elaborately illustrated in a manner that has proved of high service to
those engaged in building and laying out or improving their estates.
Other features of rural life are dealt with in an equally thorough
manner. The methods pursued on our most famous estates and farms are
minutely described, and photographs of the finest pedigree stock and
the best machinery are given. All forms of healthy outdoor sport are
described and illustrated in their season. In no case, however, are
the facts set forth dry, as the journal numbers among its contributors
some of the most graceful and accomplished writers of the present day.
New books are also described and discussed by competent critics, so
that altogether the journal is calculated to give the best news and
views on all subjects that are of interest in cultivated circles, and
the wholesomeness and fine open-air feeling that pervades its pages
have almost become proverbial. COUNTRY LIFE has, in fact, become
indispensable.
=Dally Telegraph.=--"'Country Life' is generally admitted to be
the most beautifully produced of all the weeklies. Its process
illustrations are unmatched, and the letterpress is always carefully
selected and good in quality."
=Westminster Gazette.=--"To say of 'Country Life' that it is one of
the best of our illustrated productions is stating only half a fact,
inasmuch as in some of its features it stands alone. Its splendid
gallery of stately mansions, beautiful interiors, and grand old gardens
are incomparable."
=Daily Mail.=--"'Country Life' has established itself as the most
beautifully produced weekly journal in the world."
=Daily News.=--"There is no feature of life in the country that is
untouched, and a bound volume of 'Country Life' is a real joy to
possess and frequently to turn over."
=Spectator.=--"'Country Life' amply fulfils its promise of being 'the
journal for all interested in country life and country pursuits.'"
=Liverpool Daily Courier.=--"There is scarcely a number without one
or more contributions of literary or other interest which will stand
reading, re-reading and study."
LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES OF "COUNTRY LIFE," LTD., TAVISTOCK
ST., COVENT GARDEN; AND BY GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., SOUTHAMPTON ST.,
STRAND, W.C.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Variations in hyphenation have been standardised, but other variations
in spelling, punctuation and accents remain as in the original.
The index entry for Solomon's seal has been corrected from 55. 37 to
25, 33.
The sequence of the table of illustrations has been altered by
exchanging A SEPTEMBER GREY GARDEN and THE GREY BORDERS: GYPSOPHILA,
ECHINOPS, &C. to correspond with the sequence of the illustrations in
the book.
Italics are represented thus _italic_ and bold thus =bold=.
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