Gardens

Past and

Present

DEPT. OF AGRICU
D1V. OF AGB'L EDVCATI0

Present

K. L. Davidson

Author of " The Unheated Greenhouse

Illustrated from Photographs by
F. Mason Good

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

T. Werner Laurie

Clifford's Inn

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

I. IN THE FAR PAST .... 3

II. OF PHYSIC GARDENS . . . .12

III. RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST . . 23

IV. TREES NATIVE AND NATURALISED . -33
V. MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS . . . 41

VI. THE WISLEY GARDEN . . -5°

PART II

I. OF FORMAL GARDENS . . . .61

II. OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS . . 71

III. OF WILD GARDENS . . . .81

IV. DRY WALLING. . . . .90

V. THE ROSE GARDEN . . . -99
VI. WATER GARDENS . . . .109

V

201917

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VII. THE ROCK GARDEN . . . .119

VIII. THE GARDEN OF A YEAR . . .132

IX. SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES . . .142

X. THE BULB GARDEN . . . . 152

XI. THE BOG GARDEN . . . .164

XII. FERNS ...... 173

XIII. THE GARDEN OF HERBS . . .183

PART III

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR . . .195

INDEX . . . . . * 223

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A ROSE GARDEN OF TO-DAY . . . Frontispiece

WHEN MEN BUILT STATELY HOUSES . To face page 26

AN AVENUE OF PINES . . . ,,,,38

SPIILEA BY THE PATHWAY . . „ ,,56

CLIPPED YEWS AT LEVENS HALL . „ „ 62

HERBACEOUS BORDERS IN JUNE . „ „ 74

IN THE WILD GARDEN, WISLEY . „ ,,84

A WATER-SIDE PATH . . . „ „ Iio

A WATER-LILY POOL . . . „ „ 114

A ROCK GARDEN . . . . „ „ 126

SHRUBS AT WISLEY . . . „ ,,142

A WOODLAND BOG GARDEN . „ ,, 168

FERNS IN A COPPICE RIDE . . „ ,,182

APENNINE ANEMONES IN GRASS . „ „ 2O2

MIDSUMMER IN THE GARDEN 208

PART I

Gardens — Past and Present

PART I

CHAPTER I

IN THE FAR PAST

" That which hath been is that which shall be;
and that which hath been done is that which shall
be done : and there is no new thing under the
sun.

" Is there a thing whereof men say, See, this is
new? it hath been already in the ages which were
before us." — ECCLES. i. 9, 10.

SOME two thousand years ago, speaking in rough
numbers, when Rome was already hastening to
her fall, this England of ours consisted mainly of
huge tracts of forest and morass — mist-laden, dank,
malarious — in the lowlands. It was interspersed,
it is true, in the south with patches of grain hard
won from thicket or dune ; further north with a
few recovered breadths of thin pasture land whence,
in rude fashion, meat and milk and meal were
drawn from the sparse - tilled soil to feed
the fierce and untamed, but scanty tribes
that peopled Britain. There seemed little

4 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

indication in those early days that, centuries
ahead, these islands would become pre-eminently
a land of gardens.

Yet we may gather that even then, Nature-taught
like the Hottentot and the Kaffir of the South
African continent, the ancient Briton had some
practical acquaintance with the uses of herbs. A
remote derivation has even been assigned for the
very name of Britain — from the Celtic " brith,"
or " brit," meaning painted — in which may lie
hidden an allusion to the woad-stained bodies of
its earliest inhabitants, implying in itself a more
than superficial knowledge of the properties of
plants. It is, moreover, on record that noble
youths of Gaul were sent to Britain to perfect their
education under the tuition of the Druids, who
were far-famed, amongst other learning, for their
surpassing attainments in plant lore ; though it
may be a question how much of it these mysterious
teachers would be willing to part with. We are
not greatly concerned, however, to prove the truth
of assertions such as these. It may even be that
all traditions of the kind, with the time-honoured
story of sacred oak, and cult of the consecrated
mistletoe, stand in danger of being relegated to
the dim regions of myth. Yet we may not doubt
that the waking to life, in the springtide, of the
green things of the earth, the soft gleam of prim-
roses in sylvan glades, the blue shimmer of nod-
ding bells and the whispering leaves of the forest,
found answering voices even then in the gentler
human instincts of the time, which were destined
to re-echo for ever and aye.

IN THE FAR PAST 5

Probably there were two sources from whence,
as a people, we may have drawn our earliest con-
ceptions of horticulture.

First in order came the Roman occupation of
Britain.

To lightly-passing thought the connection be-
tween English gardens and that misty period after
the Roman invasion may appear far-fetched
enough. The mere conquest of the British was
no easy task, even for the overlords of the world,
and left little leisure for the intromission of the
gentler graces of life. But when arms failed again
and again to subdue the stubborn tribesmen, the
softer seductions of the city stepped in to weaken
their hitherto unbroken spirit. The name of Julius
Agricola will always be associated with untiring
efforts to introduce, amongst other ameliorations
of their lot, the refinements of civilisation. By
persuasion and, more potent still, by example, the
younger chiefs were enticed to partake of the com-
forts and enervating excitements of urban life.
Intentionally or not, luxury was fast riveting the
fetters of bondage, their hardihood gave way, and,
before long, their subjugation was complete. One
far-reaching benefit, at any rate, remained. Put-
ting on one side the art of war, the Romans con-
sidered agriculture the only occupation worthy of
men. Thus the cultivation of the land was fos-
tered, and under the rule of Agricola and his suc-
cessors, husbandry not only prospered exceedingly,
but received so great an impetus that Britain be-
came in time one of the granaries of the world
of those days.

6 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Even in the matter of trees we are now reaping
the benefit of that bygone invasion.

Next to the oak, and even before the beech, we
are apt, in a hap-hazard way, to place the hedge-
row elm in the forefront as a distinctly British
tree. Yet it is practically certain that it is not
native, but naturalised, and that we are indebted
for this familiar tree to Roman importation. To
begin with, its common English name is evidently
derived from a Latin source. Also, unlike most
trees that are indigenous to the soil, the elm does
not ripen seed in England. It is, therefore, not
quick to spread, and the suckers which cluster
about its roots have to be planted and cared for
to make good increase. Those who are interested
in such research may read in Pliny of the care
recommended to be spent upon the ulmarium, and
the minute directions given for the nursing of the
young trees until the time of transplanting. Nor
is it, indeed, a sociable tree. An elm wood is rare
to find ; where it exists it has been planted of
set purpose. On the contrary, the elm prefers to
stand apart in stately grandeur, in freedom of earth
and sky, unshadowed and unhustled by crowding
companions. To strengthen the evidence, the true
home of the elm is in Essex and those south-eastern
parts of the country which came first and most
completely under the Roman yoke. From thence,
it is true, it advanced westwards ; but as we travel
beyond the midlands, we find that it gradually
gives place to other trees in the landscape. Why
the elm should have been thus specially cultivated
in Italy, and subsequently imported into Britain,

IN THE FAR PAST 7

is not so clear, until we recall the " happy mar-
riage " of vine and elm so often sung of old,
examples of which may be seen to this day in the
hedgerows of fertile Lombardy. For practical
reasons, therefore, it is probable that elm and vine
were introduced hand in hand. With them too,
no doubt, came the sweet chestnut — the " Sardian
nut" valued in southern Europe from earliest
times, and abundant still in the woodlands and
coppices of Sussex and Kent, where it has sur-
vived the vine, more perhaps on account of the
worth of its timber at a certain stage of growth,
than for the produce of nuts which demand more
sunshine than our cool grey skies can give to bring
to any size or perfection.

Again, on the coast of Sussex a rich and shel-
tered belt of land crops out from the prevailing
chalk of the district, and here, at the present time,
numerous fig orchards in favourable seasons pro-
duce abundance of their luscious fruit. The fig
was the most popular fruit of ancient Rome, and
so it has remained to this day. No less than
twenty-six named varieties are on record as having
been cultivated in very early times. Now tradition
has it that the fig-trees of that Sussex district date
their existence from the time of the Roman rule.
Certainly there is no reason why they should not
be the descendants of trees so introduced, for their
origin is unmistakably ancient. It may be only
right to add, however, that there are other
claimants for the honour. One story relates how
Thomas a Becket, returning from a pilgrimage to
Rome, planted at Tarring the first fig-tree that

8 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

ever grew on British soil. Another, earlier still,
that an illustrious Abbe de Fecamp in the days
of the Norman kings, who was some while domi-
ciled at Sompting in the same locality — a village
still bearing the name of Sompting Abbots — was
the originator of Sussex fig culture. At this dis-
tance of time, the question of priority can scarcely
be settled beyond dispute; but we may not be
far wrong in giving some credence to the Roman
theory. Survivals as remarkable are not unknown
in the annals of horticulture.

There is, however, no doubt at all about the
introduction of the vine. It is well authenticated
that in the third century Britain was one of the
Roman colonies in which the privilege of vine-
growing, not by any means granted to all her
provinces, was permitted by edict. England, it
is true, is no longer a wine-making country, though
one vineyard, belonging to the Marquis of Bute,
still exists near Cardiff which produces excellent
claret ; but for hundreds of years there were vine-
yards in many parts of the kingdom. The memory
of these, if not the reality, still lingers in the
names of plots of ground in Surrey and Kent
and Devon, and as far north as Staffordshire ; and
it is even stated that as late as 1763 there were
sixty pipes of home-grown Burgundy in the cellars
of Arundel Castle.

Thus the elm-tree and the chestnut, the fig-tree
and the vine, may not unreasonably carry our
thoughts back to the days when Rome set her
indelible stamp upon Britain.

To turn to a less remote source, we must look

IN THE FAR PAST 9

back to the establishment of religious houses for
the early fostering of the gardening art.

From the very nature of its circumstances, the
monastery became the focus of arts and crafts as
well as of learning; and the mother-art of all
others is the art of husbandry. In the first days
of all, gentle hearts, and too often, alas ! maimed
bodies, wearied, sickened, and unfit to cope with
the fierce clash of arms and rapine and cruel blood-
shed of that savage age, longing for the peace and
rest denied by the world, fled to the only refuge
that was then open to them, donned the monk's
habit, and settled down in company with a few
kindred spirits to a life of rule and prayer, and
this, not seldom, in such poor dwellings as their
own efforts enabled them to construct. Here, in
the days before prosperity laid its withering finger
upon such communities, the best and holiest of
the brotherhood, in a daily round of prayer and
manual labour, looked upwards, and not in vain,
for the vision of God. In what better way could
men of this turn of mind employ their hours of
leisure than in making the barren acres which
fenced about their sanctuary to yield some fruits
of increase, while they endeavoured to instruct the
untutored churls in their vicinage, whose huts
clustered about the minster foot, in the tillage of
their land, and the softening of their rude manners.
By slow degrees, orchards took the place of tangled
brake and noisome marsh. Vineyards crept up
the sunniest slopes. Within the precincts of the
monastery itself, no longer by that time built of
wattle and daub as erstwhile, but solidly walled

io GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

and secure from all assault of foes, there was a
garden.

The very word garden, which has a close affinity
with the Anglo-Saxon " geard," or yard, suggests
an enclosure within walls ; and in those earliest
days, when Britain had as yet scarce begun to
emerge from the thraldom of the dark ages, the
arches of the cloister shut in a "garth," a quiet
rood of grass, where the inmates of the monastery
found a safe and sheltered pacing ground, and,
in some cases, a final resting-place for feet that
would pace no more. Beyond, again, a plot of
ground was set apart for esculent and medicinal
herbs whose properties were well understood for
the mingling of healing drinks and ointments for
the sick, who asked for no better physicians than
the monks. There, too, not a few simple flowers
found their home. At first there would be merely
primroses from the woodland glade, scented violets
from the hollow in some steep chalk cliff, meadow-
sweet from the brook side, or pink-blossomed rush
to grace the reedy bank of the fish pool. These,
transplanted from their native haunts by some
brother who loved and carefully tended them, soon
outshone the wildings left behind in thicket or
field. But other flowers than these followed later
on — blossoms rare and strange, of gorgeous colour-
ing and passing fair. Anemones, purple and scar-
let, from the land of the Holy Cross, pure white
lilies and legendary crown-imperials, painted tulips
and scented jacinth, borne over sea and plain in
the wallets of wandering pilgrims, and gladly
offered in gratitude for hospitality freely bestowed,

IN THE FAR PAST n

began in time to make a monastery garden, here
and there, an oasis of delight in the midst of rough
and ready surroundings. Ay, and were, some-
times, even the innocent cause of upbraiding on
account of the soft luxuriousness they were sup-
posed to encourage and betray. The indignant
outburst of the Grand Master of the Knights Tem-
plars in " Ivanhoe " comes to mind : " This very
garden, filled as it is with curious herbs and trees
sent from the eastern climes, better becomes the
harem of an unbelieving Emir than the plot which
Christian monks should devote to raise their pot
herbs!"

Ah ! well, grant as we may that little is known
of centuries so far away, is it not well sometimes
to carry the thoughts back to those fevered days —
sketch them lightly as we may with faint, uncer-
tain touch — when doing and daring carried all
before them, while, all unnoticed, the beneficence
of silent ceaseless working, from such feeble begin-
nings as these, stealthily transformed the face of
this little island, which we are now proud to call
GREAT BRITAIN?

CHAPTER II

OF PHYSIC GARDENS

THROUGHOUT Anglo-Saxon times, and well on-
wards to the Middle Ages, these monasteries of
Britain remained the storehouses of much of the
herb-lore of which the world could then boast ;
but the art of gardening made little progress, for
the times were turbulent. As the centuries drew
on, the piety of the older age grew less and less
simple and fervent. To this day there are extant
in black-letter volumes of the fifteenth century,
preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and
elsewhere, strange prescriptions, quaintly worded,
and intermingled with directions for many religious
rites, which are superstitious enough, and show
the trend of the times. One of these orders for
a "fiend-sick" man that the concoction should
be drunk out of a church bell ; and others savour
still more strongly of magic incantations; but
their ingredients include such plant-names as yar-
row and betony, garlic, lupin, and others no less
familiar.

In times beyond all memory, the art of healing
was almost wholly wrapped up in the study of
plants. The doctrine of signatures had early im-
pressed the minds of the thoughtful, and it was

12

OF PHYSIC GARDENS 13

imagined that certain definite signs and marks on
leaves and roots had been divinely stamped for the
express purpose of pointing out their restorative
powers. Evidences of this belief can be traced in
the names of well-known European plants, e.g.
hepatica (liverwort) and pulmonaria (lungwort).
Inherent qualities of such occult nature, half-hinted
at and made as mysterious as ban or benison could
make them, served to whet the popular craving for
the marvellous ; and no doubt many, if not most
of the herbarists of olden time, drove a thriving
trade by preying on the superstitious fears of their
more ignorant clients. Plenty of fables of the kind
— over and above the circumstantially related mar-
vel of the barnacle-goose tree — are to be found in the
pages of the best-known of all English writings on
simples, the curious old " Herball " of John Gerard
—a man of no great cultivation, as may be gathered
from internal evidence, no less than from the carp-
ing allusions continually made to his shortcomings
by Thomas Johnson, the editor of a later issue of the
" Herball " after Gerard's death, but possessed of
intense ambition to take high rank amongst the
learned of his time, to which end he devoted in-
credible labour, intermingled with no small craft.
Perhaps he is not to be judged too severely, for
is it not written, " How hard and vncertaine it is
to describe in words the true proportion of plants
. . . they best know who have deepliest waded in
this sea of simples " ? All the same, the planting
of a "rare peionie on a conny berry" in Kent,
where the old herbarist afterwards pretended to find
it growing wild, ought not to be condoned I

14 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Another well-known treatise which appeared
about the same time as this second edition of Ger-
ard's "Herball," the " Paradisus Terrestris " of
John Parkinson, is a more genuine work, and may
take rank as the first English gardening book ever
published. The full extent of the influence on the
gardening of their own day of these famous writ-
ings, and of their wondrously faithful illustrations,
can hardly be estimated at this distant date. Before
these, and one or two others of like character, were
published, any real knowledge of plants, much
less of their properties and affinities, had been at
a standstill in England for centuries. It was not,
indeed, until the great awakening of the Middle
Ages that botanical science, among other learning,
received any serious impetus in Europe. The
reason for going back to these early times is be-
cause it was certainly, first of all, to the revival
of medicinal plant-lore, and later on to the botani-
cal collections fostered by that new learning, rather
than to any inherent love for the cultivation of the
beautiful, that we may trace back the real initia-
tive of all our modern proficiency in the art of
gardening.

Strangely enough, besides, as must occur to any
impartial student in respect of this national taste
of ours, we English have never been an originat-
ing, though we have undoubtedly been a receptive
people, and having once grasped a new idea, in
true British bull-dog fashion we hold it fast. This
much may be added, however, that while adopting
the conceptions of other nations, we have contrived
in many ways to put into them our own interpre-

OF PHYSIC GARDENS 15

tation, so that now it has come to pass that the
tables are turned, and the English fashion in gar-
dening leads the way.

It was in the fifteenth century that public
" physic gardens," as they used to be called, were
first founded in Europe, the earliest being estab-
lished at Padua in 1545, followed by Pisa, and
with little delay by the University of Leiden, and
others in France and Germany. It was to these
famous centres of learning that our English physi-
cians travelled in those days for the completion of
their medical course, and for the study of simples.
So slow were we, as a nation, to follow their
lead, that nearly a century passed before our own
University of Oxford was endowed, and that
through private munificence, with a physic gar-
den of her own. Cambridge fell far behind Ox-
ford in this matter, for while a feeble effort was
made in 1696 to establish a botanic garden in con-
nection with that university, nothing was accom-
plished until 1760, when the site of a former
monastery of Austin Friars was acquired for the
purpose. Within that very period when so much
activity was astir throughout Europe, it was pos-
sible for an Englishman, one Dr William Turner,
to bring this accusation against his Alma Mater;
" Being yet a student of Pembroke Hall, whereas
I could learn never one Greke, neither Latin, nor
English name, even amongst the physicians, of
any herbe or tree, such was the ignorance of that
time, and as yet there was no English " Herball,"
but one full of cacographies and falsely naming of
herbes." Upon this plea he rests his apology

16 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

for taking in hand the first reputable English
" Herball," which appeared nearly fifty years
before Gerard 's more ambitious work.

It was not until 1632, when Charles I. was king,
that a plot of land near the bridge which crosses
the Cherwell, and lying between the water walks
of Magdalen College and the Christ Church
meadows, was given and endowed by the Earl of
Danby of that day, for the purposes of a physic
garden at Oxford. Those five acres were even
then historic ground, for they had been the site
of an old Jewish cemetery, not improbably secured
by the charter of Henry II., which gave rights
of burial to all Jews outside the walls of any
town where they might be permitted to congre-
gate ; and it is recorded that in Oxford itself there
once existed not only a ghetto, but a Jewish medi-
cal school, which no doubt at that time mainly
busied itself with the study of medicinal plants
brought over sea from the East. On this spot a
house was built for the keeper, with greenhouses
and stoves and all such appliances as were then
considered needful to the "excellent art of simp-
ling," as Gerard puts it. Sixteen years later a
catalogue was published of the sixteen hundred
plants, British and exotic, which had by that time
found a home in this, the first English physic
garden ; and here, no doubt, amongst the simples,
were grown rhubarb, a rare drug from Turkey,
and asarabacca and liquorice, with lavender and
rosemary, herb of grace, and peppermint and many
another comforting and medicinal plant. Before
that time no great excursions seem to have been

OF PHYSIC GARDENS 17

made into any knowledge of our native flora; and
the special business, even from the beginning, of
the physic garden had apparently less to do with
the discovery of the properties of plants than of
their varied genera and species.

The annals of the old garden are very pleasant
reading — more particularly, perhaps, to the botan-
ist, but also to any garden lover.* Many private
gardens, more or less renowned, were by that
time in existence, especially in London and its
outskirts, where great collections of plants were
being brought together. Gerard himself had been
in charge of Lord Burleigh's London botanic gar-
den ; Dr Grindall, while Bishop of London, had
begun, and his successor Dr Sheldon had added
to the fine collection of trees at Fulham. Myrtles,
a great rarity, were " nourished in a gentlewoman's
garden in the village of Westminster," and green
fields occupied what is now the heart of London.
Memories of some of these once famous gardeners
linger about the Oxford garden, which became
necessarily in those days the focus of the most
trustworthy scientific knowledge of plants. Chief
amongst these, perhaps, was Dr William Sherard,
who bequeathed his collections of plants living
and dried, which were renowned throughout
Europe, to the physic garden, and whose memory
is perpetuated in the Sherardian Professorship of
Botany which he endowed. The first name which
modern plant-lovers will recognise is that of John
Tradescant, gardener to the king, whose own gar-
den at Lambeth was of good repute, and who was

* See Druce's "Flora of Oxfordshire " (Clarenden Press, 1886).
B

i8 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

to have been one of the first keepers of the new
physic garden, but for his death just after his
appointment to the post. His name survives in
the hardy spiderwort of our perennial borders as
well as in Tradescantia zebrina, of which the hand-
some varieties now common in our greenhouses
would then have been beyond imagination.

Amongst other visitors came John Evelyn, then
eager about his own collection, to study trees and
attend the botanical lectures, lately initiated; and
we may find it on record that on his first visit
in 1654, tne sensitive plant, familiar enough now
to most intelligent schoolboys, was shown as one
of the living wonders of the physic garden.

But Linnseus was probably the most illustrious
pilgrim of them all, for during that memorable
sojourn in England when the great Swedish botan-
ist knelt on the sod to give thanks for the beauty
of the golden gorse, he found his way, naturally
enough, to Oxford. Dillenius, another celebrity
of the time, and a German by birth, was then
Sherardian Professor of Botany. It might be
wished — but this by the way — that a stronger ele-
ment of English learning had pervaded the earlier
years of the physic garden. It is curious, though
strongly indicative of the indifference to the sub-
ject which had hitherto prevailed, to note the re-
currence of foreign names amongst its first keepers
and professors. Linnaeus, though still a young
man, had already thought out and made known
his new system of classification of plants, which
did not at once meet with unreserved approval
from older botanists, perhaps on account of its

OF PHYSIC GARDENS 19

being far in advance of their own theories. How
often in turning over the pages of scientific works
of that date such petty jealousies are brought to
light, often sharply acrimonious in spite of the
thin veiling of studied politeness in which they find
expression ! The story of the meeting of Dillenius
with his younger fellow-labourer in the fields of
science is a case in point, though it had a happier
ending than mutual suspicions and animosities
often have. " This is the young man who would
confound the whole of Botany," Dillenius re-
marked in an undertone to the mutual friend who
had brought Linnaeus to the physic garden to
be introduced. The Swede was not an English
scholar, yet he was not slow to catch the drift
of the words, and was conscious that his presence
was not altogether welcome. How easy it is even
now, after the lapse of so many years — the site
being the same and the general outline less altered
than might be expected — to follow the group as
they wandered amongst the rarities of the garden,
feeling all the while mighty uncomfortable and ill
at ease, bristling at all points as they were with
thorny subjects of dispute. Presently there came
a pause before a wall mantled with the ivy-leaved
toad-flax, the structure and relations of which
were distracting the learned of the day. One can
scarcely come across the familiar little "Oxford
weed" without being reminded of the occasion;
for here Linnaeus was craftily pressed to give his
view of the matter, whereupon, far from being
posed, according to expectation, he gave so clear
and convincing an exposition of the difficulty that,

20 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

after a few more tests of like kind, from which
he emerged equally triumphant, the stiffness began
to melt, the heart of the old professor grew sud-
denly soft, and a friendship sprang up then and
there which only ended with life. In fact, it is
recorded in Linnaeus' Diary that Dillenius pressed
him to remain with him altogether, and even went
so far as to offer to share his salary with him,
which, he declared, would suffice for them both.
The offer was not accepted, and Linnaeus before
his departure slyly took occasion to hope that he
had wrought no " confusion " in Oxford, and
received a frank apology — a generous trait of cha-
racter pleasant to keep in mind. We are proud
nowadays if we can succeed in growing the little
Scandinavian plant Linncea borealis, which recalls
the memory of the great botanist, who at least
cleared the way for still greater discoveries, even
though his own system is now superseded.

A curious instance of the errors into which even
learned people may be entrapped, can still be seen
in one of the herbaria of this period preserved at
Oxford — a leaf of wood anemone with a fungoid
growth on its back which caused Dillenius, him-
self a special student of cryptogamic botany, to
mistake it for a new species of fern ! The
fungus is now well known as a common " trencher
friend" of the anemone (Puccinea anemones);
but a correction in Latin by a later writer
appears on the margin of the work to this
effect: "This fern is no other than the leaf of
Anemone nemorosa decorated on the underside
with dots, occasioned by an insect laying its eggs

OF PHYSIC GARDENS 21

there " — the " eggs " being in reality the fungoid
growths. The amendment stands as an amusing
case of " even master don't know much."

We are tempted to linger in the old physic gar-
den, with its gateway sentinelled by two ancient
yews which once were clipped into semblance of
guardian giants, its locust trees and its planes, its
alien plants cultivated at first in the garden borders,
but which afterwards betook themselves of their
own accord to more congenial crevices of the walls,
where some of them, naturalised like the Oxford
ragwort, are still to be found. We can even now
sympathise heartily with Dillenius in his dilemma
and lament in a letter to Linnasus that " the situ-
ation of Oxford is low and watery, the neigh-
bouring meadows being overflowed close to the
garden, and heavy morning fogs will scarcely
allow the plants of hot climates to attain perfec-
tion." We may wonder, too, why these old
worthies of a former day forgot to mention the
fritillaries, so familiar for generations past in the
Oxford meadows, so that no record was made of
them for more than a hundred years after the
foundation of the garden, though they surely must
have been there. We can only be thankful that,
among the sundry and manifold changes and
chances of this mortal life, the first English physic
garden has been permitted to remain with all its
old-world associations so far unobliterated, except
indeed that it has been shorn of its time-honoured
title.

The physic garden at Chelsea, which was of
later establishment, and presented by Sir Hans

22 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Sloane to the Apothecaries Company towards the
end of the seventeenth century, is perhaps the only
other English garden of the kind which still re-
mains on its original site, and it is good to think
that it has not been removed to make way for
modern London improvements.

Let us not think scorn of the work done by
these old gardens of simples, with their collec-
tions of plants which may seem to us now so
poor and meagre, for they form a very considerable
part of the early foundations, laid strong and deep,
of the grand superstructure of English gardening
which after-generations have built upon them.

CHAPTER III

RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST

" MEN come to build stately sooner than to gar-
den finely, as if gardening were the greater per-
fection." When those words were written, there
was lack neither of stately buildings nor of fine
gardens in England — amongst the wealthy. The
small farmers, the tillers of the soil, and those
in their employ, had long been and still were,
even in Francis Bacon's time, in very different
case.

The beauty of the rustic cottage, bowered in
roses and woodbine, has now for many a genera-
tion been the pride of England. Its praises have
been sung by foreigners visiting our shores, who
are never weary of discoursing on the charms of
the country garden and the flower-begirt homes
of a contented and happy peasantry, even when
they find our country a trifle dull on other accounts.
It is no less true that when we go abroad ourselves,
we find French and Swiss and Netherlanders work-
ing hard indeed in gardens and fields, toiling at
husbandry with far greater industry than we as a
people ever display; but the soil as a rule is
too precious to be wasted on flowers unless for
some purpose of gain. We miss the charm of

23

24 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

the little forecourt bright with roses and lilies
and hollyhocks which is an adjunct so ordinary of
rural English homes, however lowly. Some win-
dow plants, or a flower-pot set in the loop of an
iron rod and hung up against the wall of a chalet,
perhaps an oleander or fuchsia in a tub that can
be housed in winter in some safe corner of the
rough stable, secure from the attention of cow
or goat, may often be noticed — a pathetic tribute
to the human hunger for flowers. In Norway only,
overcoming every difficulty, are the peasants so
clever as to make gardens of their housetops, by
covering the roofs with sods and sowing gay an-
nuals upon them.

But we may safely conclude that the village
homes of England were not always flower-decked.
We have only to take down an English history
from our book-shelves to read, if we will, of the
miserable hovels of the poor, the hardships under
which they writhed, and the social discontent which
led to continual outbreaks of revolt. " A life so
wretched," cries out Sir Thomas More in his
"Utopia," "that even a beast's life seems envi-
able." It was not then the Merrie England,
surely, of which so many tales are told !

So long as serfdom existed, the churl was, as-
suredly, the slave of his overlord; but his food,
if rough and coarse, was plentiful — there was no
lack of meat or meal — but when the churl became
a freed-man, he was the slave of bodily needs, and
had much ado to provide for himself and his family
the common necessaries of life. The farmer was
but little better off. We find his picture painted

RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 25

thus in the complaint of Piers Plowman in the
fourteenth century : " I have no penny, pullets for
to buy nor neither geese nor pigs, but two green
cheeses, a few curds and cream, and an oaten cake,
and two loaves of beans and bran baken for my
children. I have no salt bacon nor no cooked
meat, collops for to make, but I have parsley and
leeks and many cabbage plants and eke a cow and
a calf, and a cart-mare to draw afield my dung
while the drought lasteth, and by this livelihood
we must all live till Lammas-tide, and by that I
hope to have harvest in my croft."

The labourer did not even avail himself of the
opportunities to better his condition that he might,
for even the simple gardening that could provide
beans and leeks and cabbage plants became a lost
art. In the reign of Henry VIII. it is recorded
that, because such dainties were not to be pro-
cured within the kingdom, the queen's table had
to be supplied with ordinary vegetables and " sal-
lets " brought over from the Low Countries. The
skippers of Dutch sloops and pinks were only too
glad to deliver the cargoes of onions and cabbages
at Hull, which sold for fabulous prices — six cab-
bages and a few carrots are stated to have been
purchased there at a cost equal to twenty shillings
of our current coin for a nobleman's table — yet
these the English peasant was too wretched or too
ignorant to cultivate even for profit.

But in course of years the hardships gradually
grew less, revolts and revolutions worked out their
good and ill, the times became more prosperous.
In the reign of Elizabeth a wondrous change came

26 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

over the land. It was then that the era of build-
ing stately houses set in, as Hardwick and Audley
End and many another ancestral Elizabethan hall
bears witness; and the amendment filtered down
by slow degrees to the masses. The wealthy mer-
chants began to set up their luxurious town man-
sions with spacious grounds about them; the
smaller landowners and country squires had their
comfortable manor houses, the farmers their roomy
homesteads; and very gradually the improvement
reached to the humble dwellings of the ploughman
and the hind. Round the great houses picturesque
surroundings naturally grew up — gardens of a style
borrowed from Italy, with fountains and statuary
and stately terraces. Avenues of exotic trees were
planted, not so much for the present enjoyment
of the planter as for posterity. The squire of the
country manor must follow in the wake of the lord
of the great house, and lay out the sheltered bowl-
ing green within its wall of yew — the pleached
alley for shade in sultry weather. The farmer and
even the thrifty labourer, taking example, must
needs have, besides the rood or two of kailyard
which belonged to their different degrees, their
knots of flowers and clipped peacock or green arch-
way over the cottage gate. Beneath it all was the
innate love of flowers which lies hidden away in
the nature of every true-born Briton, be he gentle
or simple, kindled, it may be, by the soft gleam
of primroses in the mossy woodland, the sweet
breath of violets, the wreaths of June roses or
trailing clematis in the autumn hedgerow — those
wildings that are never more lovely than in that

RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 27

England which, with all our grumblings, we love
so well. We may well believe it is to that inborn
love of flowers that England owes the cottage
gardens which are now no less her glory than
her grand ancestral homes, and which has
saved for the English people some sense of
artistic beauty which otherwise, in poor and
often squalid surroundings, must altogether have
perished.

But here again, perhaps, we may underrate, or
are hardly aware of the debt of gratitude English
cottage gardening owes to oversea influence. The
day came when those same Flemish cloth-workers
who, aforetime, had so willingly sent their ship-
loads of " sallets " and cabbages and onions to
Hull, were driven by stress of cruel war and per-
secution from their own peaceful homes. Natu-
rally they sought and found a harbour of refuge
in the land which had in earlier times asked their
help, and to whose prosperity they had so largely
contributed by setting up their looms in north
and east and west. We have but meagre records
to tell of any influence other than with regard to
the manufacture of wool that may have been ex-
erted by those earliest emigrants, except that again
and again references are to be met with to Nor-
wich, a central point of settlement, as "a place
very much addicted to the flowry part." It is an
established fact, however, that the Walloon re-
fugees of the sixteenth century, who were welcomed
by the Cinque Ports, and who settled in conside-
rable numbers in Sussex and Kent, left a very
distinct mark on our horticulture. First of all,

28 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

for their own simple wants and in such little plots
of ground as they were able to obtain, they grew
the vegetables for the midday pottage — the salads
which to them were a necessity of daily existence;
but they were not slow to find out as well that
for these comestibles a ready market was waiting
at their very doors, while they could teach besides
new ways of using them. As Parkinson, who evi-
dently had a pretty taste in cookery as well as
in gardening, wrote about that time: "Spinach
is an herbe fit for sallets. . . . Many English that
have learned it of the Dutch people, doe stew the
herbe in a pot or pipkin without any moisture then
its owne, and after the moisture is a trifle pressed
from it they put butter and a little spice unto it
and make therewith a dish that many delight to
eate of." The celery of Sandwich long held the
reputation which it acquired in those days. In-
sular prejudice has always been strong, yet the
more enlightened amongst the neighbours of these
frugal industrious people, taking heart of grace,
found out that they too could better their con-
dition by like means, and began to cultivate vege-
tables on their own account. By and by, some of
the cloth-workers, finding that their horticultural
fame had reached even to London itself, forsook
their looms, and wandering farther afield, set up
vegetable gardens on a more extensive scale at
Battersea and Bermondsey and elsewhere, in what
were then the outlying fields of the city, and thus
laid the foundation of the vast market-garden
industry which exists round London in our own
day. The hop gardens of Kent are supposed

RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 29

to have had a like origin. As says the old
couplet,

" Hops, Reformation, Bayes and Beere
Came into England, all in one yeare."

In the end, England repaid the Flemish in some
degree for their good deeds by introducing the
potato into the Low Countries. Taking into ac-
count that of all culinary tubers and roots, the
potato is now the most indispensable to rich and
poor alike, and that it was certainly brought into
this country by Sir Walter Raleigh about 1585, it
is not a little remarkable, not only that the Flemish
themselves should have overlooked its good quali-
ties, but that nearly two hundred years should pass
by before it found general favour. Gerard men-
tions, with his wonted self-complacency, that he
grew potatoes in his own garden, where they suc-
ceeded as well as in their native Peru, but he
esteemed them as a delicacy only to be tasted on
rare occasions. Evelyn evidently thought but little
of them, for he writes: "Plant potatoes in your
worst ground. Take them up in November for
winter spending, there will enough remain for a
stock though ever so exactly gathered." The
gentry, in fact, did not take kindly to the potato,
and no wonder, when it was recommended in this
fashion: "The root is very near the nature of
the Jerusalem artichoke, although not so good
and wholesome, but that it may prove good for
swine!"

Lancashire was the first English county where
it was both cultivated and properly cooked. By

30 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

a happy inspiration some Lancashire lad or lass
thrust a potato into the glowing embers. Like
Charles Lamb's roast pig, from that time forth
baked potato became a delectable article of food.
It early made some way into the goodwill of the
Irish, but it took the famine year of 1742 to over-
come the prejudices of the Scotch farmers. Neces-
sity compelled a trial, and in the following season
the field plantations succeeded so well that the
future of the potato in Scotland was assured, and
by the end of the century the value of the crop
was universally acknowledged. The episode sug-
gests a curious little comment on the strength of
prejudice.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century a
larger influx still of foreign refugees for religion's
sake streamed into England from the opposite shore
of the Channel. Forty thousand Huguenots, slip-
ping away by stealth and connivance from the
terrors that too surely awaited them in the land
of their birth, took sanctuary on free English soil,
and were everywhere received with the open arms
of sympathy. They brought with them simple
God-fearing manners of life, and hands capable of
various industries, but chiefly silk-weaving. They
brought with them as well an intense love of horti-
culture ; and it proved for them, as it has done
for thousands of others before and since, a con-
solation and anodyne to the bitterness of affliction
and exile. In innocent rivalry with each other and
in pure love of flowers, they tended their pot plants
and set up horticultural clubs and meetings where
interesting points of practice could be discussed,

RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 31

and the products of their loving labours exhibited.
The first floricultural society in England was estab-
lished, it is said, in Spitalfields, at that time the
headquarters in London of the silk-weaving in-
dustry; and it became the source and spring of
all the horticultural efforts, which have gone on
increasing with ever new enthusiasm to this very
day. Wherever they went — Dublin or Manchester
or Macclesfield — they carried with them this same
love of cultivating flowers, and in the north, by
force of precept and example, it gathered as years
went on even greater impetus than in the south.

Not many years ago, though most of them may
have disappeared before this date, there were houses
in that quarter of London where the long low rooms
with windows the length of their sides in which
the silk looms were set still existed, and where on
wide ledges pot plants could conveniently be placed.
In one such old-world room I have myself seen
a weaver at his work on some rich silken fabric,
which it seemed hardly possible to believe could
be fashioned under such conditions or in a hand-
loom so simple. On the broad window bench stood
an immense bush of oak-leaf pelargonium, the vete-
ran of many an East-End Flower Show, and the
joy and pride of the hard-working couple who were
occupants of the room. For the taste still lingers,
in spite of smoke and fog and grimy surroundings ;
and there are, or used to be, few windows in that
district without a flower pot or two.

The opinion may be taken for what it is worth
that it has been mainly owing to Flemish and
Huguenot influence of a former day that a real

32 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

taste for horticulture, as distinct from the natural
love of flowers, was instilled and fostered both in
town and country, until it leavened the mass of the
English people, overcoming in some degree the
lurking distaste for works of supererogation which
is not far to seek in the national temperament.

CHAPTER IV

TREES NATIVE AND NATURALISED

" TIMBER of every kind which is found in Gaul
also grows in Britain, except the beech and the
silver fir." But Julius Caesar was in all prob-
ability mistaken in this pronouncement, for there
is little doubt that we may reckon the beech
amongst the natives, more especially of the South
Downs. The trees that are strictly indigenous to
British soil are more easy to count than might be
supposed. When miles upon miles of Britain were
still wrapt in silver mists of silence and solitude,
oak, ash, and thorn were trees for Puck of Pook's
Hill to conjure by, as we may learn from the
charming old English legends of Mr Rudyard Kip-
ling; and these, not leaving out the beech, were
in truth the main deciduous trees of the English
woodland. Ivy, no doubt, crept up some of the
rugged stems of ash and oak, clasping them in
her sheltering arms and clothing them with her
green winter mantle, as she does still ; for ivy
is not the cruel jade she was once thought to be,
who smothered while she kissed. But there were
native evergreens besides, chief and foremost
amongst them the yew and the holly, both closely
entwined with all old-time English memories ; but

c 33

34 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

also juniper and box, which shared with the beech
the chalk ridges and hollows of the south. The
stern northern mountains produced the hardy pine,
and the spruce may have found its way across the
sea and settled itself in the moister lowlands ; but
the birch feared nor cold nor storm, and clung to
bleak hillsides. Besides these, few other native
trees of importance can be called to mind which
furnished the huge tracts of forest of those early
days. As before said, there is every reason to
believe that elm and fruiting chestnut were not
indigenous, though they were naturalised within
the first two or three centuries of our history.
Tangled thickets abounded, where lesser trees
found place — wild crab and pear and hazel, with
field maple and white beam on the chalk ; while
sallows and alders and poplars of more than one
kind marked the course of the larger rivers as
well as of the streams and brooklets which had
forced a channel through the ooze of ever-present
swamps. From very early times, and onwards
for hundreds of years, vast stretches of forest and
moor were given up to herds of fallow deer, which
roamed at will and, if truth were told, devastated
the country while they fattened on the crops of
the hardly won fields. A park, to the modern
mind, suggests the stately surrounding of a stately
mansion, with sheltering plantations and groups
and clumps of fine trees, natural and exotic, planted
for shade and ornament — a feature of the English
countryside which could ill be spared. But the
grievances of the early centuries were very great
and culminated at length in the sixteenth when

TREES NATIVE AND NATURALISED 35

the complaints of the deer parks became loud and
deep. It was monstrous that " a twentieth part of
the realm was employed upon deer and coneys,"
that " there should be more parks in England than
in all Europe beside." All this came, practically,
to an end in the troublous times of civil war ; the
greater number of such parks were demolished, the
fences overthrown, the deer driven off ; and their
owners found a new and quite harmless pastime in
the stocking and ordering of their gardens and
pleasaunces.

As may be seen in the plates and designs of that
period, long straight lines, varied by oblongs and
squares, with plantations of trees set out in formal
quincunx, expressed the highest excellence in gar-
den art. In point of fact, the greater energy was
at first expended not so much on the plan of plant-
ing ; the important matter then was to collect
the largest number of new and foreign trees where-
with to plant. Thus it came about that the intro-
duction of many of our most familiar trees dates
from this time.

It is scarcely to be wondered at that the Oriental
plane should have been one of the earliest — 1548
being the year assigned — for as an ornamental tree
it held an unparalleled place amongst the ancients.
Tradition tells of a historic tree of the kind which
was all but worshipped with incredible honours and
gifts by Xerxes, who camped about it with his
army in full march, thereby delaying his warlike
operations for many days, ordering that it should
be nourished with libations of wine. To this day
the plane is almost venerated in the East; but

36 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

perhaps we Westerns scarcely prize it as we ought,
for we see it more often shorn and dismembered,
with its roots cramped under paving stones, than
in the grandeur of its natural form. It is one of
the noblest of trees, however, and revels in a site
by the water side, as many a fine specimen in the
Thames valley bears witness.

The almond and the pomegranate, also of eastern
origin, belong to the same period of English his-
tory. " The natural place of the almond is in hot
regions," says Gerard; "yet we have them in
London gardens and orchards in plenty." The
pomegranate, apparently, did not take so kindly
to English soil, for of it he makes this remark,
" I have recovered divers yong trees hereof, by
sowing seeds of graines, of three or four cubits
high, attending God's leisure for floures and
fruit."

The walnut was the next tree of importance to
be planted in quantity. Acres of wralnut trees
flourished in different parts of Surrey and brought
a fair revenue to their owners. According to the
annals of the time they grew " in the fields neere
the common high-wayes."

The horse-chestnut followed quickly on the steps
of the eastern plane, and is said to have been
brought from the mountains of Tibet in 1550. Not
much could have been known of it in Parkinson's
time, who ventures upon the statement that the
nuts of the horse-chestnut " are of as good use
for the fruit " as the sweet chestnut. It has always
maintained its place in British affections ; and
Londoners, as long as the old trees last, will never

TREES NATIVE AND NATURALISED 37

tire of an annual pilgrimage to Bushey Park, to
see the horse-chestnuts in bloom.

Italy, no doubt, sent us the ilex, but it took
some time to win its way into favour. Indeed, it
is a moot point whether it can even now be said
to be popular, though it is to be seen often enough.
There are fine old ilexes at Kew, but in Evelyn's
day it was still very rare, though he mentions in
one of his letters that he had himself reared seed-
lings from the acorns of an English-grown tree,
but adds : " I have now but few of them remaining,
through the negligence of my gardiner, for they
require care at the first raising till they are accus-
tom'd to the cold, and then no rigour impeaches
them."

The custom of planting avenues of limes came
into fashion in the reign of Charles II., and was
borrowed from France. For this purpose Evelyn
recommends the lime as "of all others, the most
proper and beautiful for walks, as producing an
upright body, smooth and even bark, ample leaf,
sweet blossom the delight of bees, and a goodly
shade at a distance of eighteen to twenty-five feet."
He has also great praise for the park at Hampton
Court, " now planted with sweete rows of lime
trees." For the great maple, i.e. the sycamore,
on the contrary, he had not a good word to say.
" It would by my consent be banished from all
curious gardens and avenues."

One of the grandest of all the trees introduced
about that period is the cedar of Lebanon ; but
though it was known from Biblical times, there
seems to be no very authentic date given for its

38 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

arrival in England. Probably it was contemporary
in this country with the ilex. There is a popular
impression, though a greatly exaggerated one, that
the cedar of Lebanon is both difficult to grow and
out of ordinary reach on account of the untold
number of years it takes to come to maturity. It
may be because no tree carries a more venerable
mien or gives a greater sense of mystery by the
vague depth of its shadows, that it has taken to
itself this character. In reality it is not remarkable
for either of these traits. After it has passed the
early stages of its seedling life, during which, like
most other foreign trees, it does require some care,
it becomes strong and hardy, well able to make
shift for itself, and not unusually slow in growth.
It is true that it has the character of not coming to
the fruiting age till about fifty years old • but even
if this be so, it arrives at great perfection of beauty
long before it reaches maturity. A tree in the
Chelsea physic garden, supposed to have been one
of the first planted in England, produced cones
in 1766, and from the seed of these cones, which
were distributed far and wide, it is thought that
a large proportion of the full-grown cedars now in
the country have sprung. If so, a great many of
them must have been raised in Essex, where, in
some districts, the number of fine cedars is very
noteworthy. Perhaps in this twentieth century a
new development will encourage the planting of this
magnificent tree in other ways than as an isolated
specimen on a lawn — a plan which has hitherto
been almost universally adopted. It might then,
in time, take the place in English wood-scenery

TREES NATIVE AND NATURALISED 39

of the grandest cone-bearer of the forest, for which,
by natural conditions, it is well fitted.

Not many conifers were grown in early days,
though arbor-vita? was general enough, and both
the Italian stone pine and the eastern cypress were
planted on estates whose owners in their travels
had fallen in love with Italian styles of gardening.
The silver fir and the larch were of somewhat later
importation than the stone pine and the cypress.
The larch in Parkinson's day was " noursed vp
but with a few, and those onely louers of rarities."

Many of our flowering trees were planted in the
gardens of the sixteenth century. To name one
or two, there was the Judas-tree, still far from
well known, the buck's-horn sumach, and the very
ornamental tulip-tree, which may have been intro-
duced a little later than the others. Like the al-
mond, most of these are still to be found in London
or its immediate neighbourhood in considerable
numbers, having strayed in the first instance from
one or other of the famous collections of those
far-off days. It is needless to prolong the list,
for few present-day gardeners perhaps care to ran-
sack the old-time records for such details with the
same keen interest and goodwill as the writer.
It is seemly and fitting, nevertheless, that the
memories of those who have been garden pioneers
and benefactors should be recalled by the many,
and not only by the few who are students, and
their good deeds retold once in a while. The
names of some of these are well known to us all,
and are quoted again and again, for they were
famous in their own day and generation, and even

40 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

more so now — Burleigh, Francis Bacon, Sir Wil-
liam Temple, John Evelyn, whose long and useful
life was passed in six reigns and the upheaval
of the Commonwealth, the "worshipful chirur-
geons " Turner and Gerard and Parkinson and the
rest — a goodly procession. Many more were not
famous, but only humble and nameless individuals,
and perhaps the little deed they may have done
which became a public benefit has died forgotten
— some sailor lad who brought home the seed pod
of a rare tree from distant parts ; some poor lackey
in the train of an ambassador or noble of other
days who charged himself with the care of precious
roots or grafts for the lowly garden plot at home.
There have been many like the obscure French
traveller who actually shared his scanty measure
of water on a perilous voyage with the seedling
cedar he was bringing back from Lebanon itself,
which afterwards flourished in the Jardin des
Plantes of Paris for a hundred years, until a rail-
way had to be cut directly over its site, and the
long-cherished tree was done to death. Shall not
such as these, as well as the great ones of the
earth, be remembered with gratitude as we rest
under the shadow of the chestnut or plane or tulip
tree planted long years ago ?

CHAPTER V

MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS

THE modern botanic garden differs completely
from its prototype of old in that its object and
intention is national and popular no less than scien-
tific. Let us take one which from beginnings
which had primarily perhaps no grander motive
in view than private gratification has grown in
course of years to be the head and chief of modern
botanic gardens, not in England only, but in the
world. Not many years ago a foolish antagonism
was in some danger of being set up between scien-
tific botanists and the gardening craft. A glimpse
into the past history of Kew, showing something
of its rise and its fluctuations before attaining its
proud position of the great public English garden
of the present day, may serve to show how mis-
taken would be any want of sympathy or rivalry
between those who should work shoulder to shoul-
der in all friendliness for the common weal. The
gardener, in truth, owes more than can ever be
repaid to the botanist.

The village of Kew, with its immediate sur-
roundings, has been classic ground since, and per-
haps long before, the days when Queen Elizabeth
there " knighted a rich gentleman " by name of

42 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Hugh Portman. Records tell that it was he who
owned the land upon which now stands the pic-
turesque but unpretending red-brick house, pro-
bably built during the early years of the Stuart
dynasty, still known as Kew Palace, and which
is now thrown open to the crowds of visitors who
throng the gardens, as an interesting relic of the
past. It was here that Queen Charlotte, in her
widowhood, lived and died. Her love of plants
had always been remarkable, of which we have
the incidental proof that about the year 1788, when
a famous herbarium was sold after the death of
its owner and maker, Dr Lightfoot, one of the
first members of the Linnaean Society, it was pur-
chased by George III. for a hundred guineas as
a present for the queen. This herbarium remained
at Frogmore for many years, and may be in exist-
ence still, for dried plants have a faculty of long
outlasting the fleeting human lives of whose labours
they serve as a memento. To the end Queen
Charlotte retained the keen interest she had always
taken in the exotic trees and plants which in her
time were already becoming famous in the royal
botanic collection.

But we must look back to an earlier day still
for the real beginning of Kew Gardens in their
entirety as we now know them. Kew House, pic-
turesquely situated in grounds of considerable acre-
age, and possessing even then an arboretum which
was supposed to be the first of the kind established
in Europe, had attracted the fancy of Frederick,
Prince of Wales, and here he lived and occupied
himself in extending and laying out the surround-

MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS 43

ing pleasure grounds. The house exists no longer,
but the grounds so laid out remain. Of him, there-
fore, this much can now be said, at any rate, that
to his inception we of the present generation, nearly
two hundred years later, owe in some not incon-
siderable measure, the pride and delight that all
Londoners, no less than many country folk, must
needs feel in the sylvan glades of Kew.

The work which he left unfinished was carried
on and completed by his widow, the mother of
George III., and to this date may be referred the
various ornamental buildings, the familiar pagoda
and the temples of ^Eolus and of the Sun which
indicate the taste of that by-gone day. It is well to
remember, besides, that it was under the auspices
of this same Dowager Princess of Wales that the
collection of foreign plants was first begun. As
has been already said, the making of collections
of plants had been more or less in vogue in Eng-
land since the re-awakening of learning had given
an impetus to botanical science ; but about this
period, or a little earlier, the smouldering embers
of the cult would seem to have been fanned into
brisker flame. John Evelyn at Sayes Court, by
act and pen, had stirred up a mighty enthusiasm
for arboriculture. In the eighteenth century great
folk, like the Duke of Argyle at Hounston and the
Marquis of Bute, were still vying with each other
in planting all manner of foreign trees of new intro-
duction on their estates. The Dowager Duchess
of Portland chose her chaplain, Dr Lightfoot,
for his eminent botanical knowledge no less than
for his courtly manners! Collectors were abroad

44 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

ransacking South Africa, America and the Anti-
podes for flowering shrubs and bulbs. What won-
der if in those unbridled, troublesome times the
leading spirits of the day sought refuge from fac-
tious intrigues and strivings after place and power
to float, for a brief respite from time to time, in
the calm back-water of pursuits so gentle and sooth-
ing? Why should not the austere princess, nar-
row-minded and prejudiced as she was, lay aside
her hardness for a while in the interest of seeing
the new arrivals from abroad which were to make
for the far-fame of her collection ? Why should
not my Lord Bute forget his cares of state and his
consciousness of unpopularity in disbursing mag-
nificently for the advancement of his favourite
science of botany ? or the aged queen of sorrowful
memories find solace and calm in watching the
well-doing of the rare plants sent home from the
southern hemisphere, or in awaiting with interest
the unfolding of the quaint beaked flowers of the
orange Strelitzia named in her honour? There is
something infinitely pathetic as well as significant
in the fact that the chief actors on the stage of
life have, many a time, found the same healing
balsam growing unawares in the earthly paradise
of a garden that the cottar may nourish amidst the
few homely flowers by his cottage door.

During the reign of George III., and for some
time later, Kew remained a favourite royal resi-
dence, and the gardens, which were private pro-
perty, were well kept up, and placed under the
care of competent superintendents. Those who are
acquainted with the beautiful and faithful illustra-

MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS 45

tions of plants published about that period in such
works as The Botanical Register and Botanical
Magazine — which last is continued to this day —
can thoroughly understand the enrichment of
greenhouses and stoves which then took place
through the importation of new and desirable
plants.

But during the succeeding reigns there followed
a time of great depression, and the flame of botani-
cal enthusiasm, which had burnt so brightly,
gradually sunk down flickering, and might have
been altogether extinguished, but for the patient
love and unwearied care of the superintendent
and his able lieutenant. Twenty years later, when
Queen Victoria came to the throne, the royal gar-
dens had fallen from their once high estate, and
it became a serious question whether they should
be given up and dismantled or be raised on a dif-
ferent footing to the status of a great national
garden. Happily the commissioners appointed
took the latter view, the Government of the day
acquiescing ; and how amply their action has been
justified in the wonderful establishment which is
dear to English-speaking people all the world over
by the short but comprehensive name of Kew is no
secret. There have been plenty of ups and downs
since then — how could it be otherwise in the evo-
lution of so vast an enterprise ? But perhaps no-
thing is more expressive of the present wide-spread
interest in all subjects connected with horticulture
than the way in which this and other botanic estab-
lishments, without losing one jot of their scientific
efficiency, have become at the same time leaders

46 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

of the great national art of gardening. Time was,
in the days of decadence, when a botanic garden
was a name of horror to a garden lover, a spot
where dry scientific arrangement precluded all idea
of beauty, where stiff beds of plants — weeds, as
they were styled by the ignorant and irreverent —
gave, as it was expressed, no living interest to
any but a botanist as dry-as-dust as his own hortus-
siccus. With the examples before our eyes of
Kew, Edinburgh, Dublin, and the no less attractive
and well-cared-for establishments of the universi-
ties and others, we have learned to know not only
the world-wide importance of a modern botanic
garden, but its practical help to every member of
the community who chooses to ask for it.

Do we ask the purpose of the great mother
establishment of Kew as it exists in this twentieth
century ? In olden times, as we have seen, it was
mainly medical science that laid the foundation
of the physic or botanic garden. Nowadays it is
clear that not medicine only, but all vegetable pro-
ducts which affect the economic welfare of the
British people at home or in our colonies, in agri-
culture or manufacture, in commerce or in horti-
culture, all come under its jurisdiction. All vege-
table products ! Can an outside observer measure,
even to the extent of a limited range, how they
affect our common every-day life ? — timber, cereals,
roots and fruits, the indispensable beverages of
the breakfast table, wines, spices, vegetable oils,
dyes and scents, cotton, flax, hemp, with the in-
numerable plants of textile value of new discovery
— the thousands of economic plants, in short,

MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS 47

known only to experts — all of which in some way
or other it comes within the province of Kew to
receive from all parts of the world, to study, to
test, and to redistribute. The mildews and fungoid
growths which attack such economic plants con-
stitute in themselves one most formidable branch
of microscopic investigation. The plant-life of the
whole world, in consideration of our wide-spread
colonies, may be said practically to centre in Kew.
Living or dried, the student may expect to find
there specimens of the greater number of all known
plants ; and any serious scientific inquirer can
claim the courtesy and help of its staff in solving
questions of doubt or interest. The practice of the
science of botany is indeed no dilettante profession,
though it is common enough, even in these days,
to hear it spoken of as though it were of no account.

But there is a side-issue which belongs more
nearly to the subject of English gardening. In
the vegetable kingdom beauty in some form is
inextricably intertwined with service ; and the most
recent development of the modern botanic garden
is not only to make known in popular fashion
the inexhaustible wealth of decorative plants, but
to show the best ways in which they can be used
and cultivated.

Take, for example, the lessons of a brief winter's
walk which Kew offers to all garden-lovers who
come there, looking for helpful and timely hints.
How few, even of the most eager of these, recog-
nise what can be done by suitable choice of shrubs
and bulbs — by flower, by colour of stems and
branches, or by fruit — to brighten the winter gar-

48 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

den ! At Kew many object-lessons of the kind
are presented in the earliest months of the year.
The winter-sweet (chimonanthus) is in full fra-
grance of its brownish-yellow flowers, so welcome
on a February day, when there is as yet only a
suspicion of spring in the air, and tree-buds are
scarcely daring to swell ; and it comes as a revela-
tion that it will succeed as a bush in the open
shrubbery without the protection of a wall. Else-
where witch-hazels (Hammamelis) are shining in
the bravery of flowers of twisted gold set on the
yet bare branches; and foolish bees, tempted out
too soon by a transient gleam of sunshine, are
humming weakly about the beds of pink winter
heath. The earliest rhododendrons are in flower,
a little battered, perhaps, unless the season has
been more than usually kind; and Japan quinces
are only waiting for a few warmer days to burst
their scarlet buds. The crimson twigs of the still
leafless dog-woods, the brilliant stems of the golden
and cardinal willows by the water side, the glossy
green of bamboos in their sheltered dell on a frosty
day, the orange berries of sea buckthorn or the
scarlet of spindle wood, the new species of early-
flowering iris and hellebore and fritillary — all these
are to be seen on a winter's day. Such harbingers
of spring are rarely indeed to be met with in the
ordinary garden ; and many a one may well turn
homewards after a visit to Kew with a mind filled
with new suggestions. To one a bulb border with
the latest importations from Asia Minor may offer
the strongest attraction. To others the contents of
the glass houses will appeal with greater interest;

MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS 49

the Alpine house, with its rare treasures of moun-
tain flowers ; the warm greenhouse filled with all
kinds of decorative half-hardy plants ; the tem-
perate range with the Himalayan rhododendrons.
Everywhere will be found examples of the highest
culture, and excellent effects of grouping.

But at Kew we find as well illustrations of dif-
ferent types of gardening. The purely formal style
is represented in spring by brilliant beds of tulips
and hyacinths, and other early flowers adapted to
the season, replaced as the year advances, and
making at all times a display of colour which
is most appropriate to the position they occupy.
Elsewhere the contrast is presented of crocuses
growing in the grass and daffodils and anemones
in wild profusion on the slopes. Or again, there
is the via media of beds of such graceful flowering
shrubs as Forsythia suspensa, its slender wands
all hung with countless sulphur bells rising out
of a carpet of blue Siberian squills. Whether it
be in the early flush of almond and peach blossom,
or when the tree magnolias are opening their cups
and azaleas are flaming about them, or the rhodo-
dendrons in the dell are at the height of their
glory, or it is the season of the rambling roses —
the garden-lover, gentle or simple, cannot fail to
acquire much practical knowledge, while he mar-
vels at the beauty which finds so much expression
in the midst of the serious scientific work which
is the legitimate function of the modern botanic
garden.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

CHAPTER VI

THE WISLEY GARDEN

THE story of a remarkable modern garden, now
closely bound up with the advance of English horti-
culture, present and future, should find its niche
in any record of the evolution of gardening in Great
Britain.

Gardening is in itself a strenuous business ; yet
how many men of affairs of most diverse character
have found in it a happy relaxation and rest from
the wear and tear of occupations of greater strain
and stress. It was for this reason that some fifty
years ago one such business man, a managing
director of a great manufacturing firm, and much
engaged in scientific research and experiment in
connection with its operations, was inspired to take
up fruit-growing under glass. It was then the
early days of orchard houses, when the virtues of
the mere shelter of glass for the forwarding and
perfecting of hardy fruit was for the first time
being fully explained by precept and example by
Thomas Rivers of Sawbridgeworth — a phase of
gardening, this, which was caught up with eager
enthusiasm by amateur gardeners of every calibre,
and which has never since lost ground ; for the
unheated orchard house is now an indispensable

5o

THE WISLEY GARDEN 51

adjunct of every great garden establishment. Mr
G. F. Wilson in 1900, not long before his death
at a good old age, told in simple words and
with a sly touch of covert humour of the success
of his first venture at Weybridge. The orchard
house was sixty feet long by twenty feet wide, in
which, as he says, "being then a hard-worked
man, I had to prune the trees by candle light.*'
The rafters had proverbs, principally Spanish ones,
pasted on them. An amateur asked Mr Rivers
how it was that his fruit was eaten by wasps,
while Wilson's escaped ? The answer was, " How
could they attack it with all those proverbs against
stealing overhead !" The efficiency of the proverbs
might have been questioned ; not so the capability
and zeal of the man whose perseverance and power
of invention overcame every difficulty. Fruit-grow-
ing alone did not long satisfy a mind so keen and
active, and the next branch of gardening to be
taken up was the growing of Japanese lilies, not
so well known then as now. The impetus in this
direction was given accidentally by the purchase
of some lots of bulbs damaged, as it was supposed,
by sea water, which were going a-begging at one
of the horticultural auction sales. The hope which
instigated the venture was justified in the result.
The lily-bulbs, planted in rough wine cases, and
grown in the orchard house, proved to be quite
undamaged, and flourished exceedingly, while one
or two of them turned out to be of singular value.
Henceforward all sorts of experiments were tried
in lily-growing, both under glass and in the open
air, and were so successful that his untiring efforts

52 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

in that direction earned for him at length the nick-
name of Lily Wilson. In other ways as well the
most was made of the Wey bridge garden. In
course of time active business was relinquished, and
in 1878 Mr Wilson bought Oakwood, a hillside
farm of about sixty acres, consisting of woodland
with two-thirds of pasture and arable fields, situated
at Wisley, about six miles from his own home at
Weybridge, with the intention of converting it into
a garden after his own liking. In his own words :
" My business work having been mixed up with
many experiments and inventions, this place gave
just what I wanted — a grand new field and plenty
of work. The wood had not been disturbed for
many hundreds of years, during which time oak
leaves and bracken decaying had made a great
depth of vegetable soil. This, with the light loam
of the hill, gave great capabilities." At first, and
naturally enough, the new garden presented many
difficulties, and did not at once rush into perfection.
Wild gardening, which to a great extent was Mr
Wilson's aim, was in its infancy in those days,
and many were the experts who were inclined to
shake their heads over the experiment. Before
many years had passed, the verdict was entirely
favourable, for surely nothing succeeds like suc-
cess. By that time the Oakwood garden had be-
come * ' a place where plants from all parts of the
world grow wild."

It would be impossible now to trace the steps
by which this great purpose was accomplished.
There were no radical changes made in haste, but
a clearing here beneath the oaks was chosen for

THE WISLEY GARDEN 53

a colony of lilies, a hillock there to be crowned
with some choice free-flowering shrub, or again
a level space, moss-grown, through which in spring
a crowd of blue chionodoxas might spear their
way, or earliest rosy-flowered cyclamens spread out
their tiny round leaves. So the woodland garden
grew bit by bit, and every variety of soil and aspect
was used for the group of plants most likely to
succeed in it. Space was ample, and from giant
lilies to the tiny creeping partridge berry all plants
were colonised in breadths and the idiosyncracy
of each carefully studied. It was Mr Wilson who
recommended that white Madonna lilies, sometimes
so stubborn, should be " conquered by kindness,"
viz. by liberal feeding. Perhaps it was he who
discovered the love of gentianella for a hard gravel
bed; at any rate, it used to grow to perfection
in such quarters at Wisley, and probably does so
still. The May Beauty (Epigoea repens), so dear
to the heart of the Canadian or Nova Scotian, but
so baffling to the skill of the Briton who would
naturalise it, learned to grow rampantly in the
oak wood. The parsley fern, another coy denizen,
not of the forest, but of the bare and rocky moun-
tain side, contrived to find a home amongst the
ferns on the edge of the woodland. By one means
or another thousands of the beautiful plants of
other lands, or the scarce wildings of our own, like
the rare cypripedium of northern limestone districts
or the dainty Linncea borealis of Scottish fir woods,
were in time made happy, and throve as they
seldom have done away from their native habitats.
But the converse was no less true ; for plants that,

54 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

in added perfection of form and colour, were the
products of garden skill and hybridisation, also
grew in wild luxuriance, yet did not lose their
cultivated characteristics.

The oak wood itself, however, was but a part
of the whole. The hillside offered a variety of
aspects, and a good deal of the lower-lying ground
was damp, or wet, where moisture-loving plants
could be established. Ponds and watercourses with
fair lilies floating on their surface, and thousands
of Japanese irises clustering along their banks, are
a notable feature of this wonderful garden when
summer days are long; and truly it would take
a long day to become acquainted with even a part
of the treasures of plant life to be found there, for
they are well nigh inexhaustible. Few indeed
were the classes of plants left untried. Rhododen-
drons of the rarer Himalayan species, lilies, roses,
flowering shrubs, herbaceous perennials, bulbs of
countless kinds, Alpines, primroses, water plants
— all found their place. It is probable that to this
experimental character a great deal of the charm
of the garden is owing. There was no great
effort after mere effect in the planting, the chief
aim being to make the groups of plants, and those
the best of their kind, happy each in its own
way. Nature took the rest into her own hands,
and in her keeping pictures grew and multiplied.

For nearly a quarter of a century the owner
of this exceptional garden, happy in his self-im-
posed task, carried on the work of development,
bringing a thoroughly practical mind to bear upon
every detail, and what is more, being always ready

THE WISLEY GARDEN 55

to impart to others the results of his own hard-
won experience. Who can estimate all the value
of the knowledge thus passed on, to those who
love their gardens, and look upon them as one
main source of health and refreshment amidst the
dust and fray of daily life ?

At length it fell upon a sad day that the garden
at Oakwood lost its master, and it was whispered
soon after that the estate was to be sold. Then
a very happy event occurred ; but to explain how
it came about it is necessary to glance briefly at
another side of the story.

The old experimental garden at Chiswick, be-
longing to the Royal Horticultural Society, which
for fifty years had done excellent practical work,
was doomed. Situated in earlier days on an open
site, and with clear air in which all testing of new
varieties and other experimental garden operations
could be satisfactorily carried on, and also being
within easy reach of London, it had once possessed
every qualification for its purpose, and, by old
association, was dear to the heart of every horti-
culturist. But London fogs and the encroachments
of continual building threatened to destroy its use-
fulness in the near future, and there was much
exercise of spirit over ways and means and the
best course to be taken. One happy day the knot
of the difficulty was severed once and for all. It
was announced that Sir Thomas Hanbury, himself
an ardent lover of plants and the owner of the
famous garden at La Mortola, near Mentone, had
bought the Wisley estate with the intention of pre-
senting it to the Royal Horticultural Society as

56 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

their experimental garden, in lieu of time-honoured
but worn-out Chiswick. No gift could have been
more timely or felicitous. Generous in itself and
patriotic, for it was no less a gift to a nation of
gardeners like the British people than to the society,
there was a peculiar fitness in dedicating to horti-
culture the spot which had been lovingly created
and tended by so worthy a master of the art ; and
perhaps no tribute to his memory could have been
more graceful. It is now five years since all this
took place. The generous donor has in his turn
passed away, but the beautiful garden at Wisley
remains, a living memorial of both the maker of
it and the giver.

Necessarily the garden, with its new and greatly
extended purpose, has undergone considerable alter-
ation and addition, for which there remained ample
scope and space. New buildings had to be erected,
new trial grounds laid out ; but these do not inter-
fere with the original garden. The giant lilies still
lift their tall heads under the oaks, and others
open their primrose cups in their wonted place
under the old apple tree. The ferns dip their long
fringes into the clear pool, and the water lilies
ride on its surface. The feathery heads of spiraea
rise up by the pathway in misty clouds, and the
soft spires of yellow and white tree lupins still
veil the rough banks. Primrose and iris, pasony
and rose follow each other in the same quick pro-
cession as of yore, while spring glides into sum-
mer ; the famous hedge of Ramanas rose is studded
as ever in the autumn with its handsome fruit.
If some of these disappear, as in the course of

THE WISLEY GARDEN 57

nature they must, their places, we may be sure,
will be refilled, as far as it may be desirable; for
every essential feature is to be faithfully pre-
served, and in time to come the garden, it may
be, will attain to a degree of even higher per-
fection.

Could a better way of spending a bright day
in spring or summer be found by a garden artist
or a true lover of plants than in that beautiful and
instructive garden at Wisley ?

We are apt greatly to underrate the practical
value of an experimental garden of the kind which
has been so long maintained at Chiswick, and is
to be perpetuated in this memorial garden at Wis-
ley. Its motive and equipment is entirely distinct
from that of the botanic garden, and in some
ways it concerns even more intimately the every-
day life of the nation. It touches the commercial
side of the community by testing any new pro-
duction in fruit, flower or vegetable that is sub-
mitted for rigorous and careful comparison, and
awarding to that which is most worthy the good
send-off of the approval, signed and sealed, of
the best experts of the day. At the same time,
the general public gain a warranty of merit which
is of signal importance to them in their own gar-
dening transactions. It helps to solve difficulties
of culture. It brings to light new forces, natural
and mechanical, by which the products of the
soil can be augmented and improved. It keeps
alive the enthusiasm in gardening matters without
which progress of all kinds must'come to a stand-
still. Here, too, the amateur, if he will, has ample

58 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

opportunity of studying object-lessons which are
inestimable in their helpfulness for his personal
guidance.

In fact, it is only when we have learned to
recognise the full meaning of the influence exerted
by the private gardens of England upon the wel-
fare of our national life that we appreciate at their
true value the far-reaching benefits of such a gift
to the country as that of the Wisley garden,
or of the patient and praiseworthy endeavours,
through good report and ill, of such societies as
the Royal Horticultural Society to promote the
interests of all concerned in gardening pursuits.

And so, having brought this slight and imper-
fect sketch of some of the aspects of English gar-
dening in the past to a close, let us turn to the
changes which time has accomplished in English
gardens of the present.

PART II

PART II
CHAPTER I

OF FORMAL GARDENS

" GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden. And
indeed it is the purest of human pleasures."

FRANCIS BACON.

OF late years we have been so busily engaged
in getting rid of the worst types of formality in
the laying-out of gardens that it is difficult for
us now to recall what used to be in the days of
oblongs and squares and stiff trees set " all of a
row." Moreover, we are apt, in the revulsion of
feeling, to do less than justice to that formal plant-
ing ; for how beautiful are the remains of it all,
as it still lingers in some of the ancestral domains
of England ! To that passion for straight lines
do we not owe some of the grandest and most
distinctive features of English landscape — the mag-
nificent avenues of lime and elm and beech and
Scotch fir which tower, like columns of some vast
cathedral of Nature, above our heads, and fill
our hearts with awe and reverence? The massive
garden walls of weathered brick or stone, the
arched gateways, the broad grass paths and smooth

61

62 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

bowling greens guarded by their high sheltering
hedges of yew and box, hallowed by the traditions
and the growth of centuries, are as near to per-
fection in their way as may be.

So much cannot be affirmed of the curious and
very ancient art of tree-sculpture — more truly to
be described as tree-mutilation — which was revived
with enthusiasm towards the close of the seven-
teenth century. It might have been in honour of
the house of Orange — for William III. was an
ardent admirer of the topiary's skill — that trees
and shrubs were cut and clipped into all manner
of grotesque shapes. Or was it rather a whimsical
taste which had earlier taken root in the country,
to minister, by way of sudden alarms and sur-
prises, to the somewhat coarse humour of the
day ? Be it as it may, it was a usual thing in
the finest gardens for a stranger-guest to find him-
self unexpectedly confronted with a crouching lion
or rampant bear, to be entertained by an encounter
with a verdant pig, or lost in wonder at the skill
which had fashioned hen and chickens out of the
growing branches. Indeed, when the topiary's art
prevailed, trees and shrubs thus tortured — squared,
turreted, and shorn into every conceivable shape
but that which kind Nature had ordained — formed
the principal attraction of the pleasaunce. A few
historic gardens of the type still remain, and
amongst them Levens, in Westmoreland, is one
of the most remarkable. So often, indeed, has it
been told of and pictured that there are few, even
if they have never seen it, to whom the old-world,
fantastic garden, with its close-cut evergreens of

OF FORMAL GARDENS 63

endless configuration, is not familiar. Such a
garden is full of permanent value, being fitly
framed in the setting of historic association ; and
all gardeners should be grateful to the owners for
the reverent care with which such national monu-
ments are cherished and maintained. But efforts
have been made of recent years to revive the taste
for this mechanical art, which surely is mistaken
energy. Gardens like that of Levens should be
held sacred from any attempt at paltry modern
imitation. In a garden of to-day grotesque dis-
tortions of Nature cannot but be out of character
and lacking in taste. With most of us such sculp-
tured trees are not heirlooms, as they have been
in many a Holland garden for generations ; and
it is as distressful to think of a Dutch family part-
ing, for liberal largesse, with their ship, or church
steeple, or armchair of greenery, which has been
a daily care from father to son for time untold —
a temptation not infrequently placed in their way
— as to hear of the sale of some ancestral portrait.
Leaving out altogether the discordant element of
grotesqueness, it is a question whether evergreens
may not be used too profusely in our climate. A
classic garden, perfect as it may be in all the
formal grandeur of green walls and fountains and
amorini, would soon become a weary monotony
without some kind of changing relief. It mattered
little, perhaps, in sunny Italy, the home, if not
the birthplace of this style of garden, that flowers
had little share in relieving the solemn shade of
ilex and olive and cypress in the pleasure grounds
of old. Judging from records of the past, flowers

64 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

were grown by the Romans, amongst other garden
vegetables, merely on account of their decorative
value in wreaths and garlands, and possibly for
scent. Of planting a flower garden for its own
sake in those days there seems to have been little
idea; but it may be granted that there was a
certain congruity in the deep shadows and endur-
ing fitness of the clipped garden which accorded
well with fine statuary and the music of falling
water, in the glow and vivid colouring of the south.
Not so with us in the chill grey north. The rigid
severity of the style is too sombre for the ever-
recurring neutral tints which drift across our cloudy
skies. At Levens this has not been forgotten, for
the brilliant hues of larkspur, paeonies, roses,
hollyhocks, and a thousand flowers of the sort,
mingle with the dark, inflexible evergreens, and
chase away every suspicion of gloom by the magic
spell of changing form and colour.

Wisely used, nevertheless, there is infinite beauty
and repose in the massive hedge of yew or holly,
whether close-clipped or not, which gave comfort
and shelter to many a garden belonging to a seven-
teenth-century manor or rectory house. More of
these than some may now care to remember have
been ruthlessly done away with, to make room
for " up-to-date " improvements so-called. Far
better would it have been for many a present-day
garden if this kind of formality had been respected.
The slow rate of growth in their early stages of
our finest evergreen trees, not to speak of the
labour of the shears, now too often prevents plant-
ing that would take years to mature, and so we

OF FORMAL GARDENS 65

content ourselves with makeshifts of less intrinsic
worth and beauty. At the same time, it is well
to bear in mind that there may be an abuse as
well as a good use for evergreen trees and shrubs
in garden design.

It is by no means a necessary condition, how-
ever, of the happy use of the formal yew or holly
hedge, or evergreen verge, that the garden should
be on a grand scale. An old garden, though of
no great claim to fame, on the Cornish coast, with
high box hedges after the Dutch pattern, and
dating, presumably, from the reign of William
and Mary, was in existence only a few years ago,
and is worthy of a passing record, if only for the
reason that we might do worse, for a restricted
garden space, than in some degree to follow it
as a guide. It belonged to an unpretending and
rather gloomy granite-built house, with a semi-
circle of wind-tossed oak and ash trees planted for
shelter to right and left of it. The plain grey
front and yard-thick walls were pierced with many
square-cut windows. A flight of high weather-
worn steps led up to the stout oaken door, un-
protected by porch, or even by rude stone coping.
Before the house nothing but a roadway and rough
greensward giving away slightly to the edge of
the sheer cliff, where a heedless step might easily
send the unwary, headlong, forty or fifty feet, to
the boulder-strewn beach below. Beyond, far as
the distant horizon, the wide expanse of open, ever-
changing sea, now blue and sunlit as an Italian
lake, now leaden and tossing with angry crests
of foam as the mighty Atlantic waves dashed in.

66 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

thunder and shrank back, foiled, from the un-
yielding rocks. A ghostly looking place enough
on its seaward front, and said to be haunted by
the restless spirit of some bygone smuggler or
tenant of ill-repute. But all its grim weirdness
was atoned for by the unlooked-for charm of the
half acre or so of garden which fell in a gentle
slope from the back of the house. Standing on a
circular brick-built landing from which some half
dozen moss-grown steps descended, the eye could
roam over a sheltered enclosure walled in with
evergreens and flowering shrubs. The wide ter-
races were parcelled out into a many-angled pat-
tern of flower-beds, each with its green border of
box. Once on a time these had been kept smooth-
clipped and trim. Now the box had grown into
low hedges a foot and more high, a little ragged,
indeed, but not less picturesque on that account.
The beds they marked out were still plenished with
many stray bulbs and plants rare to meet with. It
was easy to read upon the face of it that the setting-
out of this favoured spot had been the work of
one who was both skilled and loving in garden
craft. Steps of brick, like the upper landing, evi-
dently an after-thought to the original building,
led from terrace to terrace, and in one far corner,
half hidden, stood a summer house embowered in
greenery, quaint enough outside with rustic wood-
work, which had often been renewed, but wondrous
within by reason of a lining, carefully preserved,
of choicest foreign shells let into walls and roof
in strange intricate device. A garden it had been,
without doubt, to live in and to love. Some Dutch

OF FORMAL GARDENS 67

Mijnheer, plainly a seafarer, had here found, in
the days gone by, a rest for the sole of his wan-
dering foot in the country which had given a royal
welcome to the sovereign of his fatherland, and
had fashioned a chosen plot after his own heart's
liking. A solitary man, to all seeming; for no
memory of him remained — no child's child had
claimed heritage in the old homestead. Not even
the dim shadow of a name lingered to tell of that
long-past ownership. The place had passed to
strangers; yet the garden, almost untouched, had
lived on through the changes of generations, to
enshrine the work of hands long folded to their
rest.

We are almost too ready in these days to lay
it down as an axiom that tall and wide box-edgings
harbour slugs and snails, and rob the soil of its
richness; and, on the other hand, to declare that
low and narrow ones are too formal to be tolerated.
All depends upon the environment. For when we
do come upon them, suitably placed, and guarding
a treasury of flowers, the first impression is one
of surprised satisfaction and pleasure, and, involun-
tarily, an expression of delight escapes from our
lips. Certainly a worse mistake might be made
than to lay out a narrow space of the kind as
an evergreen garden somewhat after the pattern
of this old Cornish paradise. A cosy sheltered
spot, warm and snug, shut in by green, clipped
hedges, with beds fringed with box and full of
flowers, would be, at any season, a well-frequented
loitering place in pleasure grounds, however
spacious in other directions.

68 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Fifty years or more ago formality in gardens
took another phase. Those who are old enough
may remember still the enthusiasm with which
the gay hues of beds and ribbon borders
of summer flowers were welcomed, and the
eagerness with which every plant that might
lend itself to the colour scheme was sought
out and propagated. It was the outcome of
that other style of geometric garden which
came much into vogue with the squares and
oblongs and quinquncial planting of the Stuart
period and earlier, by some called Italian,
by others Dutch, which was usually sunk
at a lower level than its surroundings, and was
laid out, more or less, to be looked down upon
from the height of a terrace walk — a style emi-
nently in keeping with a stately garden in its
manifold and varied aspects, but not, in all circum-
stances, appropriate. The mode quickly became
universal, for it had manifest advantages, and
whether suitable or not to the size and accessories
of the position, every owner of a garden plot,
large or small, must needs indulge in " bedding-
out " the flower borders thereof. It satisfied, in
fact, for a time, the natural craving for colour,
A wonderful impetus was given to the manufac-
ture of glass, for even the small garden required
its greenhouse for the preservation of the precious
half-hardy plants through the frosts and damps
of winter.

This fashion too had its day, and it was a
long one; but at length people began to grow
weary of the eternal sameness. Year after year

OF FORMAL GARDENS 69

gardens were ablaze — to the right with scarlet
geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and purple ver-
benas ; to the left with verbenas, scarlet geraniums,
and calceolarias. The changes were rung over and
over again to one reiterated chime. Foliage plants
were pressed into the service by way of variety —
perilla, dark and lurid, "to remind us of our
latter end," as a worthy old gardener was fond
of saying, with a twinkle in his eye, and crimson
and golden beets. Then tesselated work with suc-
culent plants came into vogue — grey-leaved eerie-
verias and green-leaved sedums on a carpet of
red altenanthera. But after a time every effort
began to pall, and we turned regretfully to the
memory of fragrant homely borders filled with
pinks and gillyflowers and favourite old perennials,
to sweet savours of rosemary and lavender, and
to wish them back again.

But there is a place for all things, and it is
very certain that wherever spectacular effect is
desirable formal beds and parterres can never be
quite dispensed with. The violent reaction, how-
ever, which set in against the stiffness and mono-
tony of the earlier bedding-out system has done
good work. We have only to make a tour of
the parks and public gardens of London, Hampton
Court, and elsewhere, to see the splendid use that
is now made of the wealth of decorative material
at our disposal — plants from all parts of the world
of which no one would have ventured even to
dream twenty years ago. The improvement is so
manifest that the most inveterate hater of garden
monotony can hardly fail to acknowledge that for

70 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

public gardens, as a rule, and for many positions
in the private pleasure grounds of princely
English homes, the formal system, in its present
modified aspect of harmonious grouping and
colour, is by far the most appropriate style of
gardening.

CHAPTER II

OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS

IT must be a quarter of a century ago, perhaps
a little more, since we were all beginning to ask
again for the beautiful hardy plants of which old-
fashioned gardens had once been full. The irises,
the larkspurs, the sweet Provence roses, the laced
pinks and richly scented clove carnations after
which our hearts hungered — where were they?
Alas, most of them had been grubbed up years
before and carted away to the rubbish heap, and
their ashes, by the irony of fate, had gone to feed
the hundreds and thousands of bedding plants,
turned out by routine as out of a machine, which
had taken their places. The nurserymen could not
help us, for they were completely at a loss. Hardy
perennials had long disappeared from their cata-
logues, and they could only assure those who asked
for them, with a perplexed and anxious expression
on their faces, that " such plants had quite gone
out of date." How bitterly then we regretted the
old favourites of our childhood's days ! How
every farmhouse garden was scanned in hopes of
meeting again with some long-lost treasure. How
many unexpected shillings found their way into
cottage purses — more scantily filled in those days

71

72 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

than in these — in return for the bits and offsets
that could be spared from vigorous clumps still
often to be found in village gardens. The turn
of the wheel had come with a vengeance, and
nothing would serve but that we must have our
herbaceous borders back again. Very few indeed
realised the difficulties ahead, and even now, after
the lapse of so many years, those same difficulties
are not altogether out of sight, except in one
direction, that of being able to obtain unlimited
material to work upon. Like our gardeners, we
had become accustomed to the order and neatness
of smooth-shaven lawns and trim flower beds.
Those who possessed ample resources provided for
a double flowering season. In November their
borders were filled with hyacinths, crocuses, tulips
— all the tempting suggestions of the Dutch bulb
lists. Wallflowers, primroses, forget-me-nots,
double daisies were called in to help, and added
to the joys of spring. By the end of May, all
these, whether they were past their beauty or not,
had to make way for the summer occupants of
the beds. The majority of garden owners, how-
ever, having less ample resources, and possibly
only one solitary gardener, had to forego spring
bedding and to content themselves with bare brown
earth during the winter and spring; but this self-
denial was not seldom rewarded by an earlier blaze
of summer beds and ribbon borders, which was
consoling. Though the monotony became un-
bearable after a time, at any rate we had colour
and we had neatness — two factors in the case not
to be despised.

OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS 73

It is more than possible that, at the back of
our minds, there lurked a secret hope that hence-
forth, if we returned to the old allegiance and
planting were once accomplished, the herbaceous
plants would take care of themselves, if they were
indeed perennial and worthy of the name, and
half the labour of the year would thus be saved.
Was it so ? Alas, that hope, born of inexperi-
ence, soon proved to be a fallacy. Herbaceous
borders, properly managed, entail more fore-
thought and greater labour, because less mechani-
cal, than the bedding-out system ever cost. But in
the first place, the old plan was to die hard. The
gardeners had grown accustomed to the routine
and would have none of the new-fangled notions
if by any means they could be nipped in the bud.
Bedding-out might, and did, involve a consider-
able amount of work, but it was, in no sense,
working in the dark. Initial principles once mas-
tered, all was plain and straightforward. The
veriest tyro could be set to make and put in cut-
tings of all ordinary bedding plants ; while Nature,
prodigal of her riches, did the rest. The chief
trouble lay in devising the colour scheme. When
the arduous undertaking of making a change from
last year's arrangement was successfully thought
out, the originator, whether master or man, folded
his arms and contemplated the anticipation or
surveyed the result of his work with supreme
satisfaction, and recognised neither flaw nor imper-
fection. Gardeners of an earlier date, again, had
been men both of brain and skill. A very cursory
dip into garden literature of the middle of the

74 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

last century makes that fact abundantly clear ; and
there is very little doubt that the art sank al-
together to a lower level during the bedding-out
craze. Poverty of thought and of expression is
the penalty exacted for too great a dependence on
mechanical means. In many directions, however,
we are beginning to return to better ways, and
may yet live to see mechanical skill, not, indeed,
displaced, but more evenly balanced by the high
joy, so nearly lost, of creative art. May we not
say that, in a sense, this has been one outcome
of the new departure in gardening ? In making
the change, nevertheless, we were confronted with
this very real obstacle, and one difficult to over-
come, for if an intelligent spirit, eager in pursuit
of the new knowledge and practice, were here and
there to be found amongst the gardening craft, it
was the exception, and not the rule. The majority
of working gardeners hung back or rebelled al-
together.

Another drawback followed hard on the heels
of the first difficulty, though it did not at once
reveal itself. With the revival of the quest for
hardy plants, there entered a vast number of poor
introductions from other lands which proved little
better than weeds, and bid fair, at one time, not
only to overrun our gardens, but to choke our
new-born aspirations and smother them with ridi-
cule. It took years to root out the worthless plants.
It has taken much longer still to collect and to
hybridise and to test and produce the best forms
of those that are worth growing; and it is work
that is apparently inexhaustible. We have only

OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS 75

to study the annual lists of new roses and lark-
spurs and pansies and sweet-peas, and the whole
host of border plants that are undergoing con-
tinual improvement, to understand that these things
are no longer " out-of-date," nor surely ever will be.

And yet, and yet, in the upkeep of herbaceous
borders there is not a garden-lover of us all who
does not find himself face to face with one supreme
difficulty, that of having them, if not at all times
bright with flowers, which is impossible, yet always
interesting and, above all, sightly. " It gave me
no pleasure, for it was the most untidy garden
that ever was seen," was spoken scornfully of the
best efforts of a true lover of plants, and one of
the most skilful in their cultivation. Unfortunately
the indictment is too often a true one. That fur-
tive hope of less labour to come which we allowed
ourselves to nurse in secret when we gave up our
gay summer beds, vanished long ago. Instead of
the precision of rule and compass, we have sub-
stituted that which is far more difficult of attain-
ment, order without formality, method without
monotony.

A well-ordered garden is like a shifting kaleido-
scope. Be in it when we will, at morn or eve or
sultry midday, in any week or month of the gliding
year, in sunshine or in cloud, it will never be
exactly as it was, even a short hour before. A
subtle change has come to pass, a new charm is
ready to greet us at every turn. It is just this
ever-changing element that makes the dressing and
the keeping of it a labour, yet a labour of love.
Gardening, in truth, is work for an artist.

76 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

It is of no use to disguise the fact that to keep
herbaceous borders bright and full of interest, with
a succession of perennial flowers for every season,
requires considerable knowledge of plants to begin
with, and no less forethought in the detail of
arrangement, to say nothing of the manual labour
which is far from light. It can be done, however,
and who can tell all the story of the far-reaching
influence of such work when it is successfully car-
ried out ? A perfect garden of this type, lying
under the shadow of one of the most beautiful
of our English cathedrals is very dear to memory.
It belonged to one of the ancient ecclesiastical
residences of the close, and, in his leisure hours,
was the constant care and pride of the venerable
chancellor of the cathedral. A broad grass walk
smooth as velvet led down to the swift-flowing
river which formed the boundary of the garden.
On each side of the green path was a long and
wide border filled with choicest hardy flowering
plants. That was all. There was no attempt at
display, no wide-spreading lawn, no grandeur of
terrace to distract the eye, over and above the
borders which hid the vegetable garden ; only a
small green space where low rockeries held the
minute and rarest treasures brought home from
Alpine climbs. The herbaceous borders were at
once the garden and the marvel of it. Gathered
from all temperate climates, from mountain and
from plain, the flowers stood in their serried ranks,
a marshalled host of forms and hues unrivalled —
every colour chosen, every contrast matched. And
over all reigned the spell of most complete order.

OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS 77

Not even a rose leaf might rest ever so lightly
upon the greensward; yet the garden gave no
uncomfortable sense of stiffness, nor even of over-
strained tidiness. It was a masterpiece of garden
art of its kind as rare as it was lovely. Visit
it when one might, except perhaps in the depth
of its winter's sleep, the mosaic of bright colours
was never wanting; decay found there no abiding
place. It was a garden honoured by royalty, yet
where the poor and the convalescent were always
welcomed and none went empty away, for the trea-
sures it contained were freely shared with all who
knew how to value them. Alfred Parsons por-
trayed those borders in their midsummer beauty,
and in his work they will abide; but the master's
eye looks on them no more. When old age made
the weight of duty too heavy to be adequately
borne, he gave up the honoured position and the
much-loved home, and choosing another abode else-
where, let neither vain regrets nor failing health
hinder the making of a new garden, which became
beautiful in its turn, but could never claim the
tender associations nor the old-world charm of
the garden in the cathedral close. The river eddies
and swirls onwards swift as ever between its low
green banks ; the chimes, unaltered, ring out their
changes from the belfry beneath the tapering spire ;
but the revered head lies low under the sods of
the cloister, and other feet now tread the green
pathway between the flowers.

The story of this life and its close amongst the
plants that were so well beloved has been told
because, while holding within it many of the

78 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

highest of garden lessons, it has a direct
bearing upon the special difficulty with which
in much present-day gardening we have to
do battle. Here were herbaceous borders, not
to be excelled for wealth of colour and variety
of form, entirely free from any blot of un-
kemptness or unsightly remnants of any kind, yet
without a suspicion of stiffness or formality. It
has always been somewhat of a problem to find
out how it was accomplished. For, on the one
hand, in the nature of things flowers fade, and
only too quickly put on the garments of decay ;
on the other, the life, even of a plant, demands
that the period of old age shall be respected.
Annuals can be removed as soon as their beauty
is over, for, as far as their immediate purpose is
concerned, their life's work is done ; but, with
bulbs or perennial plants, the functions of stems
and leaves must not be interfered with before their
set time, for upon the due ripening of these depends
the well-doing of the year to come. Nevertheless,
when these functions have been fulfilled there re-
mains no reason why withering stems and foliage
should not be cut away at once ; and herein very
many gardeners fail, especially of the amateur
class. As a rule all this useless rubbish is left
long after it need be ; nay, more, it is often recom-
mended that dead stems should be retained as long
as possible, as a ready-made rampart against frost,
when a few handfuls of leaf mould worked in about
the crowns of the plants that require it would
protect as well, if not better, both roots and buds
that are springing beneath the surface.

OF HERBACEOUS BORDERS 79

There are other factors, besides, which go far
to make herbaceous borders one of the chiefest of
garden delights, or the very reverse. A most im-
portant point is the choice of suitable plants. Out
of the multitude of fine hardy perennials at our
disposal, it is not easy to select this one and reject
that to good purpose. Generally it is only after
many failures and disappointments that we learn
by hard experience the sober truth, that it is not
enough for a plant to be admirable in itself, it
must also fit the exact place it is destined to occupy,
and that in close quarters with some neighbour
in whose company it must at all seasons abide in
harmony. Colour, height, habit, adjustment — all
these have to be taken into consideration and
weighed in the balance. Another point, and
one to be carefully guarded against, is over-
crowding. Whether the space be large or
small, it is almost inevitable that the owner
of a garden or his agents should want to
pack into it every lovely variety of growth
that comes within reach. But by this means
the end in view is defeated, for there are only
certain plants that are sociable by nature and
prefer to live in a throng. Most of them, like
human beings, crave for a breathing space, and
return good interest besides for larger room. As
a rule we measure the space to be allowed for plants
by inches, when it should be reckoned by feet,
or even by yards. Where room is thus generously
bestowed, it serves another purpose, for it is pos-
sible then to make intermediary use of annuals',
or even pot plants, to be plunged in vacant places,

8o GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

which are often invaluable adjuncts to the general
effect.

If these various means are given a fair trial,
they will go far towards ensuring that orderliness
in the herbaceous borders without which there can
be no real enjoyment of a garden.

CHAPTER III

OF WILD GARDENS

Is it a sign that a renewal of youth is coming upon
this old world that the past century should have
witnessed a great upwelling of the love of what
we comprehensively call Nature? The eyes of
many have been opened as never before to see
new beauty and new wonders in earth and air
and sea. Our ears catch echoes of voices long
unheeded. The restless activity and stress of life
is, in some degree, working out its own redemp-
tion. For there is surely a spirit abroad making
for rest, for greater simplicity. It asks for leisure
to think, an occasional breathing space of silence.
There are some who are gladly ready when they
may to steal away from busy haunts, from the
noise and strain of the thoroughfare and the mart,
to betake themselves to forest, or river, or lonely
moor — not to destroy or disturb the restful har-
mony that is there, but to listen and to learn. To
such the solitude of the woodland is no solitude,
it is peopled with life and colour and melody.
The silence of the everlasting hills is no silence,
for the air is full of speech. Flowers, in untended
beauty, are eloquent with their own sweet story.
Each flitting bird and humming beetle sings its
glad song of life to the ear attuned to hear. The
F 81

82 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

marvel of the daily miracle of being fills the re-
sponsive soul with wonder and thanksgiving.

Now a garden offers, to most people, the best
alternative for this healing balsam of untrammelled
Nature. Some yearning of the sort, doubtless,
lies at the root of the newer impulse which, of
late years, has created the wild garden, the rock
garden, the water garden. We long to trans-
plant into our nearer reach, as a refuge from the
fussiness and trivial annoyances of daily life, some
little nook of our own, where we may recall the
solemn stillness of the forest, the strength of the
rocky fastness, half-veiled by clinging flowers, the
rippling stream with its ceaseless murmur of life
and blessing, the quiet pool, bearing white lilies
on its breast, reminding us of the rest to come
when at length it ringeth to evensong.

Within living memory, and owing mainly to
the insistence of a master mind, whose untiring
energy and insight soon drew others with it, a
gradual but very real change has come over the
whole character of garden design in Great Britain.
The Garden Beautiful is laid out with greater art
on less artificial lines. The feeling of the day is
perceptibly more in touch with the freedom and
unstudied grace of Nature. The mind and work
of an artist is stamped now on many a garden
as plainly as on the pictured canvas. A slumber-
ing faculty has been awakened in not a few to
whom a garden has become the only expression,
within their compass, of that artistic sense which
is seldom wholly wanting even in those who have
but scant opportunities of culture.

OF WILD GARDENS 83

The longing for calm retreat in unconventional
surroundings was not unknown in other times. It
is betrayed by the wood left to Nature beyond
the ordered formality of the garden of the Roman
villa, the " wilderness " belonging to many an old
English home. Above all, we find the wild gar-
den foreshadowed in the six acres of heath or
desert, " framed, as much as may be, to a natural
wilderness," which Francis Bacon liked well to
have in the going forth of his princely garden.
Yet the image of the wild garden set forth in
such fair colours left no mark upon the mind
of even the most ardent disciple of Nature, until
the " fay re idea " was presented as an inspira-
tion.* It was the re-birth in England of a beau-
tiful ideal ; and that ideal, though many years
have passed since it was first evolved, is still a
living force.

Naturally, many mistakes have been made as
to the true meaning of a wild garden, which is
somewhat of a contradiction of terms; and un-
considered attempts at wild gardening have now
and then ended in nothing less than disaster. For
what it was never intended to mean is the turning
of the fair precincts of an ordered garden into
an unrestrained wilderness of wreeds.

Nevertheless, within the boundaries of almost
every country house, large or small, there is to
be found some piece of rough ground beyond the
pale of the garden itself, but bordering upon it —
some hedgerow or ditch or trickling stream, some
belt of thin coppice, or it may even be some dis-
* "The Wild Garden." By W. Robinson, F.L.S.

84 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

used hole or pit from which gravel or chalk has
been dug — which a little art may convert into a
very delightful bit of natural planting; though to
be successful it must be well thought out.

There are numberless hardy plants of excep-
tional beauty when in flower which are, notwith-
standing, from some character peculiar to them-
selves, unsuited to a position in beds or borders
where orderliness is more or less essential. Take
the handsome Iberian cranesbill, for example, in
its best form (Geranium platypetallum). A single
plant forms a tuft of large circumference in the
course of a season or two. In spring the shapely,
netted leaves are fresh and good to look upon.
By and by the purple glory of the large flower
heads delights every beholder; but when that has
gone by, there comes a time, especially in a dry
season, when the whole effect of the plant is un-
pleasing. It falls away from its centre, and the
limp stems lop over neighbouring plants that are
yet in their prime in a provoking way. It would
be bad gardening, nevertheless, to cut them away
before their natural time. After all, it is merely
a case of wrong placing. Establish a clump of
it in an odd corner — some thin hollow in a hedge-
row, some angle of a rough fence — where it will
interfere with nothing else, and can be left to
itself. Then it will come as a glad surprise, year
after year, and the sprawling of the fading stems
and leaves, if noticed at all, will only call atten-
tion to the beauty of their dying autumn tints.

In wild gardening one axiom should always be
kept well in mind — the planting should be essen-

OF WILD GARDENS 85

tially congruous. Nature herself is our best guide,
for she makes no mistakes. We do not find prim-
roses sown broadcast on a barren and shadeless
mountain side, nor sundew clustering upon a dry
stone wall. The rule should be, like to like — the
denizens of the wood for the woodland, mountain
herbage for the rock, moisture-loving plants for
the bog. Indigenous they need not be, for there
is almost unlimited choice from every temperate
clime. Thus, the Apennine anemone, having the
same character and a habitat by nature like our
own wood anemone, is perfectly in accord in the
same surroundings. It never startles us to see
colonies of it lifting up soft blue flowers at our
feet in any English wilderness walk on an early
spring day ; on the contrary, its charm is un-
utterable. A stray field poppy in the like position
would be a weed as much out of place as in a
bed of roses, and would give precisely the same
jarring shock of unfitness.

A delightful experience of woodland planting in
the west of England comes to mind. It was early
in the year, and the trees, excepting only the
hollies and ilexes, were bare and leafless. A path-
way led along the margin of a fine sheet of orna-
mental water ; but the low mossy bank of the
woodside which bordered it reached almost to the
edge of the pool, and there the ground was car-
peted with hundreds of hardy cyclamens. The
rosy flush of the flowers had faded with the autumn
tints, and already the long stalks were tightening
their spirals to draw down the forming seed-pods
into the safe custody of mother earth ; but the

86 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

tufts of polished, marbled leaves, showing now
and again their purple lining, were almost more
beautiful than the flowers in whose room they had
come. These had spread themselves as they would
in every mossy hollow of the bank, or cranny
amongst the knotted roots. It was a bit of wild
gardening scarcely to be surpassed for autumn
and winter effect, while it was entirely in accord
with Nature.

Be it only a ditch, perhaps a mere drain to carry
off surface water, which is too near to garden
or home paddock to be tolerated as it is, why
should it not be redeemed from unsightliness by
a little careful planting along its bank. Put in,
here and there — only be generous of space — a root
stock or two of the broad-leaved Californian saxi-
frage (S. peltata), a clump of globe flowers, Euro-
pean or Asiatic as you will, but preferably the
European, which is sulphur-coloured, not orange,
or a few roots of double meadow-sweet, a lovely
daughter of our wild queen of the meadows. One
April day you will pass that way and tall heads
of pink and white flowers like some dainty cluster
of enamelled mosaic will take you unawares ; they
are the forerunners of the handsome shield-like
leaves of the saxifrage, which makes a noble pic-
ture in any damp spot all through the summer.
Later on, the pale yellow globes of the Trollius, or
the creamy feathers of the meadow-sweet, will have
transformed the ugly ditch into a beautiful bit of
wild gardening.

Nothing is more lovely, again, than a tall hedge
of mingled holly and oak and ivy; there is such

OF WILD GARDENS 87

a one in my own garden, over and through which
a single rose grows rampantly. Each summer the
slender curving trails fling their great clusters of
milk-white flowers across the background of the
green wall, and make a picture very hard to beat
in its unfettered grace.

But, it may be objected, these are mere frag-
ments, instances of isolated patching and mend-
ing. A wild garden, to have any true significance,
must mean much more than this. Probably every-
one, according to opportunity and environment,
has his own ideal of what a wild garden ought
to be. Let us take an example from an ideal
accomplished.

One of the most delightful of English gardens
lies hid in the heart of picturesque Surrey. It was
carved, by the brain and hand of its accomplished
owner, out of some fifteen acres of wild woodland,
where hollies and silver-stemmed birches, and
beech trees of mighty girth are native to the soil.
On a cleared space stands the house — a house
which, with its commingling of almost conventual
simplicity, its artistic detail, and its quintessence
of modern comfort, has perhaps no match. All
about it are low terraced walls, with broad steps
leading to smooth green lawns and shrubbery and
flowery borders — a garden where a stranger may
easily wander away, and lose himself in some deli-
cious nook, canopied with birch boughs and car-
peted in springtime with primroses of rare tints
of cream and gold. Or he may stray into un-
expected corners set apart for special flowers of
every season — carnations or peonies or Michael-

88 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

mas daisies with their sad refrain of ' ' farewell
summer," but each so artfully grouped as to form
a lovely garden picture, which imprints itself on
the memory to be carried away as a possession for
a lifetime. Climbing roses, in their season, tumble
over low dividing walls in clustering masses of
pink and white and apricot, or ramble into the
inviting arms of some fostering tree. But the
greatest of all the charms of that sweet garden are
the green paths which open wide vistas through
the wood and the heather, and verge upon the
lawns. With what love and reverent feeling after
the fitness and simplicity of Nature has this wild
wood garden been planned and carried out. All
kinds of foreign flowering shrubs — rhododendrons,
cistus, kalmias, gaultherias — belonging naturally
to the peaty staple of the heath land, mingle freely
with the undergrowth fringing the wood, striking
never a discordant note. Rare giant lilies rear
their white spires beneath the strange English
trees as happily as in their native glades ; there
are drifts of daffodils and Solomon's seal and little
colonies of rare species of dog's-tooth violet, which
have made themselves a home amongst the ferns
and the moss. The sunshine filters through the
tender silken green of the beech boughs in the glad
English springtide, and flecks the heathery paths
with dancing shadows. On early summer nights,
when the full moon floods the long glades with
silver light, we lean perhaps against the open case-
ment, to look and listen. A nightingale trills out
its love song in the stillness ; a lordly pheasant,
disturbed, wakes up, flaps his wings and crows ;

OF WILD GARDENS 89

while the rabbits, none too welcome, play about
below and nibble the dewy herbage. Scarcely
another garden in the kingdom can be found,
probably, which unites so closely the charms of
the wild and the studied art of the garden. For
here art in Nature and Nature in art are so cun-
ningly intertwined that design is emptied of for-
mality and Nature robbed of her whilom rudeness.
In such a wild garden he who runs may read how
the lessons of the forest and the field may be laid
at the very threshold of our homes.

CHAPTER IV

DRY WALLING

THE wisdom of Solomon did not overlook " the
hyssop that springeth out of a wall." Nay, if it
be true that the name translated hyssop applies
more properly to the caper bush, it is likely enough
that the beauty of the large creamy-white flowers
would catch the eye of so keen a lover of plants.
But hyssop in the context is the antithesis of the
cedar of Lebanon, and with its pretty purple-blue
flowers and tufted growth is the very type of a
humble wall plant. So we may perhaps prefer
to keep to the familiar reading. Wall plants have
always been favourites, partly, it may be, from
their rare courage in asking little, yet giving much
to add to the beauty and colour and fragrance of
life. There are certain plants, besides wallflower,
which are always associated with a wall. Snap
dragon, for example, and the little ivy-leaved toad-
flax, red valerian, and, in Devon and Cornwall,
the round leaves and pale spikes of pennywort.
In the damp air of the west, maidenhair spleenwort
also, and ceterach and little tufts of wall rue and
other ferns, may be seen sometimes almost hiding
stone or brick with a mantle of greenery.

But it has been reserved for modern gardening,

90

DRY WALLING 91

taking council with Nature, not indeed to divert
walls from their normal province of seclusion and
shelter and support, but to use them actually as
planting ground. Anyone with an observant eye
must have noticed how plants of most unlikely
character will sometimes take root and flourish in
the apparently uninviting brickwork of an old wall.
We wonder how it could come about that an acorn,
hidden perhaps by some jackdaw in secretive mood,
should germinate and find nourishment and foot-
hold in such unlikely quarters ; yet there is the
evidence of the living oak, sturdy though dwarfed,
growing as it has been known to do for many a
long year out of the masonry of some old church
tower that we know well. We can all recall
instances of the kind, of forest trees, like Scotch
fir, it may be, or vigorous shrubs, like elder, tak-
ing root and in some unaccountable fashion living
and thriving upon the substance of a wall, having
no other visible means of subsistence, and yet,
in most cases, with an air of happy thriftiness
about them that seems to say that they would
not exchange their sparse living aloft for the fattest
pastures that might be offered them on level
ground.

It was this contented cheeriness and gaiety of
mien, no doubt, that originated the idea of wall
gardening. Some of us may remember when, in
our eagerness to follow Nature in all her methods,
we tried to dislodge crumbling pieces of mortar
or to break away fragments of brick or stone, re-
placing them with soil wherein to sow the seeds
or plant the seedlings which we fain hoped might

92 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

take root and in due time drape the bare wall
with gardens of beauty. Somehow the effort did
not always succeed, for bungling human ringers,
with the best will in the world to aid them, have
not the fairylike deftness of the puff of wind
which will, in a moment, waft a seed into the
very cranny that is made for it, leaving it there
for rain and sunshine to work the rest of the
miracle.

In Wales it is a common thing to see turfs,
cut from the roadside, laid on the top of low
cottage walls for the express purpose of growing
flowers; and the finest clumps of rock cress and
pinks, and occasionally dwarf irises, to be seen
anywhere, are the result — the trailers hanging over
the crest of the wall in curtain-like masses, full of
flower in their season.

These, however, were but first attempts at wall
gardening ; and the makers of new gardens have
now an added joy which was unthought of
even a few years ago, for dry-walling has been
devised.

What, then, is meant by dry-walling for garden
purposes ?

It is rough stone work prepared expressly for
the accommodation of suitable plants by laying
the courses of stone on beds of garden soil, filling
in as well all interstices of the joints, and using
mortar only where it is absolutely necessary for
the strengthening of the fabric of the wall. It
may be employed for dividing walls of low stature,
in some sort after the rough and ready method
of the stone dykes of Somersetshire and elsewhere ;

DRY WALLING 93

but perhaps the chief use of the system is to be
found in the construction of retaining walls in
gardens, in the facing of terraces, or other work
of a kindred nature. For all such purposes, ordi-
nary brick or stone and mortar building has, of
course, always been in fashion ; but the less formal,
and at the same time less costly, use of unset
and roughly squared stone has only of late come
extensively into garden practice. The usual de-
vice, for example, where a garden lies on a slope
more or less steep, is commonly to make, wherever
the outline of the ground seems to require it, a
rampart of grass ; but grass banks are always
troublesome to mow and keep in order, besides in
themselves being somewhat poor and unmeaning.

Building of any kind, rough or otherwise, is
expensive work; but where stone is easily to be
procured and other disabilities do not stand in
the way, there is no doubt that dry-walling for
the facing of terrace banks and for steps leading
from level to level, and many like purposes, is
one of the most delightful and effective methods
under certain circumstances of dealing, not only
with garden schemes on a grand scale, but also
with restricted space ; for it practically doubles the
available planting surface, while it gives dignity
to the whole plan which can scarcely be attained
in any better way.

There are details in regard to dry-walling which
cannot be minutely entered into here ; for the object
of the present volume is not so much to be tech-
nical as suggestive. The main idea, however, is
simple enough, and can be set down in few words.

94 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

The foundation of any wall, retaining or otherwise,
must be a foot or so below the surface, and the
earth well rammed in ; while mortar may be used
in the first courses if considered necessary, which
it is usually found to be. The blocks of stone,
rough-hewn and not too regular, must be laid ac-
cording to their natural stratification, and should
tilt a little backwards for greater strength and in
order to get the full benefit of all rainfall. The
twofold purpose of dry-walling being borne well
in mind, viz. that it is for planting as well as
for its normal use, the layer of bedding soil should
be tolerably thick and well spread between each
course of stones, leaving no gaps, but, in the case
of a retaining wall, running back to meet and be
incorporated with the main body of earth behind
it. The joints of the stones should also be fairly
wide apart, and well filled in with garden soil.
Mortar need only be used at the angles, or where
the greatest resistance is likely to be felt. The
body of earth behind the facing wall should be
thoroughly well rammed, to prevent any after-
mischief, such as breaking outwards under ab-
normal conditions of wet or frost. Steps will
require consolidating by mortar at the angles and
at the joints of the front edges ; but it is a good
plan to make these shallow, and wide enough to
be fronted only with stone, and filled in with soil
towards the back of each step, making thereby
a little natural bed for the rooting of low-growing
plants. Dwarf campanulas, or musk, or tiny Al-
pines, like erinus, when once established, never
look more at home than in the cosy corners they

DRY WALLING 95

delight to choose for themselves in such positions
and from whence they spread into little tufted colo-
nies at will. In just such a spot in my own
garden, at the foot of a retaining wall on a landing
at the top of some stone steps, a little drift of
winter flowering cyclamens has been established
which with their delicately marbled leaves and
rosy flowers make a bright little picture from Janu-
ary onwards.

Such, in outline, are some of the rules by which
good dry-walling is regulated ; but the chief ex-
ponent of the subject has written a charming and
most illuminating book,* which should be in the
hands of every garden-lover, as it clearly explains
the whole gist of the matter, with all details which
can only be lightly touched upon here.

There are manifold reasons why dry-walling
should possess a fascination peculiarly its own.
To begin with, it gives opportunity for something
akin to wild gardening within the precincts of the
garden itself, for while the method follows Nature's
own informal leading, the essential conditions of
the position make for a certain restraint which
is in accord with garden fitness and order. The
growth of wall plants, however spreading, is kept
more or less within due bounds. Some Alpine
plants for which the rock garden proves unsuit-
able may also on occasion be induced to make a
home on a prepared wall of the kind described,
for two reasons — the tufts of leaves, which are often
woolly or hairy, like those of ramondia and its

* "Wall and Water Gardens." By Gertrude Jekyll.
"Country Life" Library.

96 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

allies, enjoy the shelter and dryness of the vertical
position in winter ; while the roots find a long
run in their passage through the soil upon which
the stones are bedded, together with an unfailing
supply of moisture stored up in and beneath the
stones themselves. The conditions are thus as
nearly as we can make them like those of their
native habitats; and they are less liable to suc-
cumb to the treacheries of our variable climate.
Not only Alpines, but plants of warmer latitudes,
and consequently of somewhat tender constitution,
such as the cistuses of southern Europe and some
of the New Zealand veronicas, often short-lived in
the richer soil of a shrubbery border, are here
safe often for a length of time. They literally
set their backs to the wall, and fight against ad-
verse conditions. Above all these advantages, the
picturesque effect of a well-planted wall stands out
pre-eminently. Its charm is almost indefinable,
but it combines beauty and strength and homely
dignity in a way which suggests many a worthy
lesson.

Planting, however, is not everything; for it
may be said without exaggeration that in wall
gardening, beyond most other aspects of the art,
11 the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft
agley." Experience teaches that one plant will
take kindly to the position and fit into its niche
with utmost content; another, seemingly equally
suitable, may be tried again and again, but coax-
ing is all in vain ; and yet another, some tall
foxglove or massive silvery-leaved mullein, which
we should never have dreamed of inviting to take

DRY WALLING 97

up its abode there, settles itself in without saying
even so much as "by your leave," and astonishes
all beholders by its stalwart proportions and bold
self-assertion of being the right thing in exactly
the right place.

All the same, wall planting should be set about
with utmost care, with due regard to aspect as
well as to pictorial combinations. For a rough
terrace wall with stairways leading from a lower
to a higher level, which is one of the happiest
features of my own garden, the main details of
the planting were mapped out on a plan before
ever a stone was laid. It is plain that no hap-
hazard placing of shrubs or plants as they may
chance to come to hand, can produce the good
effect of ordered groups arranged in reference to
colour, habit of growth, and general fitness for
the position they are intended to occupy. This is,
of course, an axiom in all gardening ; but never
more so than in the case of the wall garden. In
the particular instance referred to, liberal use has
been made of hydrangeas ; and when these are in
bloom, the eye is carried from the fine heads of
soft blue flowers in the angles of the lower steps
to a border on the top of a seven-foot wall where
more of these invaluable autumn flowering shrubs
are massed. One or two groups of yuccas planted
amongst them, and coming forward to the edge
of the wall, are increasing in strength and beauty
year by year ; and the whole forms a charming
picture of lasting beauty throughout the autumn
months. Permanent planting of this character is
thoroughly satisfactory, and serves to atone for

98 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

any gap which may possibly occur through the
temporary failure of less enduring vegetation on
the face or crannies of the wall. There is no doubt
that where a judicious use of dry-walling can be
made it is a great enhancement both of garden
interest and picturesque effect.

CHAPTER V

THE ROSE GARDEN

' * THE great varietie of Roses is much to be ad-
mired, beeing more then is to bee scene in any
other shrubby plant that I knowe, both for colour,
forme and smell. I haue, to furnish this garden,
thirty sorts at the least, euery one notably different
from the other, and all fit to be heare entertained :
for there are some other that being wilde and of
no beautie or smell, we forbeare, and leaue to
their wild habitations." So wrote John Parkinson
in 1629, and it is not without curiosity that we
scan the list which he has left to us. We find in
it, first of all, by the specific name of anglica, the
red and white roses of the rival Houses of Lan-
caster and York, those " most ancient and known
Roses to our Country, whether natural or no I
knowe not, but assumed by our precedent Kings
of all others to bee cognisances of their dignitie."
A tradition, probably authentic, tells of the red
rose of Provins having been taken as a badge
during a French campaign by an English prince
some three centuries or more before Parkinson
wrote, so there is ample witness that these so-called
English roses were amongst the earliest, not in-
digenous, that found their way into our British

99

ioo GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

gardens. The damask, which was the prime
favourite of the time — and it may here be worthy
of remark that the roses of Passtum, probably
introduced into Italy from Egypt, were of the
damask breed, and may have come into England
with the Romans — the Hungarian and Franckford
roses, the velvet and a double yellow — this last
" very tender about London " — are all mentioned,
together with a few single forms, some of them
still known by the old names, such as the apple
and cinnamon roses, the rose without a thorn,
the climbing evergreen rose, and sweetbrier The
finest, probably, of them all was the Provence or
great Holland rose (R. centifolia), not to be con-
founded with that other rose of Provins, which
we may see over and over again portrayed by Van
Huysum and other famous Dutch painters. We
call it now the cabbage rose, an unaccountable
name for the sweetest rose that has ever breathed
upon our English gardens; and it still lingers
with us, though the Holland form, judging by
the pictures, must have been a larger and fuller
flower. By reason of its delicious fragrance and
the irregular form of its full-petalled flowers, which
have a charm of their own quite other than the
shapely modern rose, no garden should be without
a bush or two of this fine species, which, in its
ancient form, has survived the inroads of the
hybridist for so many cycles of years.

Noting the pride with which the " great vari-
etie " of roses to be found in that particular " gar-
den of pleasant flowers " during the early part
of the seventeenth century is dwelt upon in the

THE ROSE GARDEN 101

old chronicle, we cannot but wonder how a modern
rose catalogue with its many hundreds of names
would then have been regarded !

No flower, perhaps, has received more attention
from the hybridist; and it would be interesting
enough to retrace from their beginning all the
changes in which these labours have resulted; but
it will suffice to glance briefly at three distinct
developments which have succeeded each other
within living memory. The first was the gradual
evolution of the hybrid perpetual. Before the ar-
rival of these, roses had been mainly midsummer
flowers. A short six, or at most eight, weeks in
June and July, and their brief glory was past
and gone, save for the ever-faithful pink and crim-
son China roses, which loitered, then as now, on
sheltered walls or by cottage porches, till frost
came to punish them for their daring. There were
numberless varieties, graceful and fragrant, of these
summer roses, but what wonder if we all lost our
heads in a measure, and gave the old favourites
the cold shoulder, in the supreme delight of wel-
coming the perpetuals, which were to brighten
autumn as well as summer days with such glorious
shades of colour. Nevertheless, there was a lack,
and that a serious one, as time revealed — we missed
the perfume of the summer roses; for the new-
comers, with all their added charms of brilliant
colour and prolonged season of bloom, were too
often practically scentless. But another factor was
at work. 'Tis now fifty years ago since Gloire de
Dijon, though by no means the first of the tea-
scented roses which bid for public favour, proved

102 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

so vigorous and was so novel in character that it
gave a new impetus to rose growing, and became,
from the garden point of view, a forerunner of the
splendid race of hybrid teas. It may have been
some five and twenty years later that Mareschal
Niel, strictly a noisette, and still one of the finest
of yellow roses, rewarded the efforts of a French
grower. Tea roses were from the beginning highly
esteemed and coveted ; but at first their delicacy
of constitution, which seemed inherent, bid fair
to preclude any thought of their fitness for general
cultivation out of doors. Of late years, however,
this difficulty has been to a great extent over-
come, and now hybrid perpetuals in their turn
are beginning to have some ado to hold their
own against the hardiest hybrids of the tea-scented
race, though, in the meantime, there is ample room
for both.

The third and latest development has been in
the freer use of rambling roses. To this phase a
further impetus has been given, in quite recent
years, by the arrival from Japan, stowed away
somewhere, it is said, in a seaman's kit, of a climb-
ing rose of deeper tint than any of the old Ayr-
shire type — the brilliant Crimson Rambler — a name
which was destined in an incredibly short time
to become a household word. Since then a crowd
of rambling roses of many sorts and shades of
colour have followed close upon its wake, and have
already stamped a character all their own upon
the rose garden of the twentieth century.

To those who have watched the gradual un-
folding of these successive changes, the effect on

THE ROSE GARDEN 103

English gardens in general is very noticeable.
Progress is writ large indeed on rose growing, and
if to some of the older generation it might seem
to be advisable to put on the brake, lest in this,
as in other things, we may go too fast — down-
hill— it should not be taken amiss, for we have
need sometimes to be reminded that, in an ordi-
nary way, good work cannot be accomplished at
lightning speed. The danger is lest " the varietie
of Roses " should become too great, and so de-
teriorate in quality.

Surely, amongst other changes, the seasons have
also changed ! In an old garden, years ago,
though the climate was in no way exceptional,
Gloire de Dijon used to come in with the cuckoo.
True, it grew on a sheltered wall with the broad
eaves of a thatched roof overhead ; but the morning
of the i6th of April, when the cuckoo's note was
sure to make itself heard for the first time in the
coppice, always dawned as well on two or three
well-opened flowers of the " glory" with plentiful
promise of buds. Rose gardens in those days,
beloved as they were, generally lay apart from the
rest of the garden. For this there were several
reasons, the chief one being, perhaps, that the
rose bushes themselves when they were out of
flower gave little indication of the fulness of beauty
they put on in time of roses. Rosarians, besides,
were generally keen to exhibit, and the treatment
necessary to grow exhibition flowers was not al-
ways conducive to garden beauty. A wise dis-
tinction is now made between garden roses and
varieties to be grown for the show tent. Happily

104 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

many a rose-lover, insensible as a rock to the
joys of cups and medals, can rejoice in roses as
beautiful as heart could wish, even though they
fall a little below the prize-winning mark.

It is no exaggeration to say that a rose garden
to-day may come nearer to the ideal of perfection
than ever before, because we need not confine our-
selves to H. P.'s or H. T.'s or C. N.'s, or any
other lettered section of the queen of flowers, but
can choose as we like in any and every class accord-
ing to our own or our garden's idiosyncrasy. We
can plant a hedge of sweetbrier, or clothe a post
with carmine pillar. We may grow a single bush,
or, if we will, a group of La France at some cor-
ner where garden paths intersect the borders. We
can plant beds on grass or gravel of Griiss von
Teplitz or Laurette Messimy. We can fling one
of the beautiful new ramblers, or an old Dundee no
less beautiful in its way, over an arch, or wreathe a
pergola with a series of climbing roses of all tints
from pale moonlight to the saffron and orange
of sunset glow. There are roses dwarf enough to
grace the lowliest rockery, or sturdy giants that
will make a worn-out apple tree of considerable
proportions a fountain of blossom in its season.
It was not altogether that, in former years, there
was a lack of roses of all these different types —
though there are certainly many more, and some
of them finer than those of old — but we have
learned to use them better. In manifold ways,
then unthought of, folk to whom a separate rose
garden is a luxury beyond all reach, can now be
blessed with an exceeding wealth of the fairest

THE ROSE GARDEN 105

of all flowers within the limits of a modest cottage
plot, at the cost of little more than a good garden-
ing paper for instruction's sake, and the personal
pains and trouble which it stimulates.

And here I may set down a practical hint for
the sake of those who do not grudge such per-
sonal efforts. If it should be desired to have
roses on their own roots, an opportunity comes in
the summer which it is well not to lose. July is
one of the best months for putting in cuttings ;
and a sure and simple plan is as follows : — Dig
out a fairly deep trench in a semi-shaded position,
and place in it first a layer of good stable manure,
next a layer of leaves, and finally a layer of road-
grit or very sandy sharp soil, and tread all down
evenly and well. Make your cuttings of about
six to eight eyes each, either with a heel or with
the ordinary straight cut below a bud, and insert
firmly with three eyes at least below the surface.
Give an occasional watering in dry weather and
a very large proportion ought to strike, and the
slight trouble will never be regretted, for these
instructions were impressed upon me by an expert
of long standing who had proved their value.

It is very remarkable when we come to think of
it that the rose, which in its finer and more scented
forms is of Eastern origin, should have adapted
itself as kindly as it has to our variable and colder
climate. It speaks volumes, also, for the skill and
untiring patience of generations of cultivators, in
grafting and budding, in the wise selection of seed
parents, in the thousand and one details by which
acclimation is accomplished. For there is little

io6 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

doubt that tea roses, in particular, do flourish ex-
ceedingly in warmer latitudes than our own. In
no country could they be more rampant than in
those regions of Cape Colony, for example, which
are blessed with summer showers as well as winter
rains. Even in the higher belt of country, before
reaching the dry plains of the Karroo, where rain
falls only during late autumn and winter, and farms
and gardens depend entirely upon irrigation for the
rest of the year, tea roses are grown to such per-
fection as to be the envy of all British rose-lovers
whose eyes are privileged to rest upon them. I
recall with intense pleasure the thickets of bushes
almost hidden beneath the veil of myriads of roses,
suggesting the fabled groves of enchanted flowers
which concealed with their tangle the sleeping
beauty of the old story. But there is one draw-
back, the heat of midsummer quickly makes them
droop and fade, and thus their charm is more fleet-
ing than under our cool skies, so often veiled by
cloud and mist even in summer. Thus, there are
always compensations, and in spite of some limit-
ations, we can scarcely complain of the possibilities
we have in our own English gardens.

One phase of rose growing is very significant of
the awakening of a truer sense of beauty in form.
Single roses are now grown by scores where, for-
merly, they would have been discarded as of little
worth. There are three single roses in my own
garden which I would not willingly be without.
The first opens its earliest buds by the end of
May. Its wide rose-pink flowers, with bosses of
golden "threds," poise like butterflies above the

THE ROSE GARDEN 107

polished triple leaves. For a month we go daily
and many times a day to feast our eyes upon its
wondrous beauty, until, at length, each shell-like
petal has floated down, and we have to bid it a
sad farewell for a whole year. It is the anemone
rose, happily of hardier frame than the white R.
sinica, from which it springs.

It is followed, in another part of the garden,
by Paul's Carmine Pillar rose, the brilliance of
whose fully open single flowers as it climbs over
its post, and withal their soft velvet texture, passes
words or pencil to depict. It should be visited in
the sunshine of an early summer morning to ex-
perience a delight which is ever fresh and new
while the flowers last, but, alas, they are all too
fleeting.

The third is a white rose, also of marvellous
grace, which curtains a tall hedge with its long
wands of silver-washed foliage running up to a
height of some eighteen or twenty feet into the
oaks and hollies of its background, and hanging
out in July countless clusters of pure white flowers.
These, too, have their brightly shining knops of
fine-drawn gold, and the hedge in this dainty gar-
ment of roses is a very beautiful picture.

Would that it might be possible to add some-
thing of the perpetual character to the perfect form
and colour of some of these single roses. But no,
most of them are too busy forming their seeds to
have time to waste on producing a second crop
of flowers. Perhaps it is just as well, or how would
new varieties be obtained?

Rose fruits are in themselves often very decor-

io8 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

ative. Parkinson was not unmindful of this fact,
for in his comments on the great apple rose he
says "the whole beautie of this plant consisteth
more in the gracefull aspect of the red apples or
fruit hanging upon the bushes then in the flowers
or any other thing." The " red apples " of the
Japanese R. rugosa are finer still, and a bush of
the single white form, with its splendid wrinkled
leafage, has a second season of great charm when
autumn hangs it with ripe scarlet heps.

Rose gardens in their design are as various as
the domains of which they form a part. It is a
moot point whether roses are best planted severely
alone in separate beds, or placed by a loving hand
and well-trained eye amongst other flowers. Every-
one must judge for himself according to individual
taste and circumstance. But a picture once seen
dwells in memory of a flagged pathway leading
onwards to an old sundial. On each side were
long oblong beds planted with low bushes crowded
with roses in full heyday of glory. It was simple
as it could be, and yet no arrangement could have
appealed more surely to a sense of fitness, as the
roses uplifted their heads in silent joy towards
heaven, while they cheered the passer-by with their
sweet unconscious beauty. To point the moral the
legend of the sundial might well have been : —

TIME is AND is NOT.

LET us
EACH PASSING HOUR

SERVE GOD
AND ONE ANOTHER.

CHAPTER VI

WATER GARDENS

A NEW phase of gardening has sprung up since
the introduction of the beautiful hybrids for which
we are mainly indebted to M. Latour-Marliac, of
water-lily fame. Not that England can boast any
more now than heretofore of lakes and pools and
wimpling streams, some of which grew lilies on
their own account long before pink and blue and
pale yellow species and hybrids hardy enough to
grace such natural waters were ever dreamed of.
But our hopes and wishes have, of late, been
turned in the direction of water gardens, and even
when householders have to depend upon pipes
laid down from the main for their water supply,
heaven and earth are moved to devise means
whereby a tank of some kind can be constructed
in the garden to do duty as a lily pool.

It is scarcely to be wondered at, perhaps, for
water in itself has a powerful magnetic attraction,
and water lilies are well nigh irresistible, however
the element in which alone they can exist may be
attained.

To set a just value on lake or spring, one must
needs have lived on high ground, on the utmost
reach, it may be, of bleak chalk downs, where a

109

no GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

dew pond is the only make-believe for a pool,
and water so superlatively precious that driblets
only can be grudgingly spared for any garden
purpose. In that sort of country, those only know
who have put it to the proof how delicious it can
be on a day in the early year, when the springs
have broken under the chalk hills, to drive through
a water lane in the valley, to hear the splash of
the horses' feet as they daintily lift up each drip-
ping hoof out of the purling stream, to see the
lush growth of the new-sprung herbage, the earliest
white violet, the shining celandine, the rathe prim-
rose, bending down through the starting fern-
crooks to the life-giving runnel which tinkles with
joy as it laves their roots. Or, once more, what
happiness in a water-bearing country like Wales,
after a long drought ending in heavy rains, to
stand on a still evening to listen to the music of
a thousand rills hastening to swell the river below
as it rushes down to the sea. What would we not
sacrifice at such a moment if some of that quicken-
ing stream might flow through the garden that
we love. Water lilies, alack ! To folk in the
predicament of being practically suffering from
water famine it is almost an insult to utter the
name. But let us look at the other side of the
picture and consider the compensations. How
many a time has it not been said by dwellers in
the valley, " Oh that I lived on the hill !" Those
copious springs, of which in passing we only see the
beneficence, are apt to well up in untoward places
within walls, and at times may swamp both house
and garden. The river, so charming to watch as

WATER GARDENS HI

it ripples and swirls over yonder at the foot of
the lawn, one fine day overflows its banks and
leaves irreparable mischief behind it when it re-
turns to its accustomed channel. Early every
evening, too, the dank grey mist rises out of it
and scatters pains and penalties from its phantom
hands. It is useless, besides, to try to grow any
tender plant or shrub near the water's brink, for
in winter the frost is far more severely felt here
than on the hilltop a mile away, and even the
laurels are browned and stricken. Or, a contin-
gency of another kind may occur. The pond, in
which we fondly hoped the pure flowers would
ere long float, proves to be too much shadowed
by overhanging trees. The falling autumn leaves
have choked it, and the lily roots, stifled under
the black mud, refuse to flower, or even to grow,
in spite of being the very best sorts that could
be procured. Such are some of the pros and cons
of the circumstances of many a would-be water-
lily grower; for water, like fire, is a good friend,
but a bad master. And these pros and 'cons are
not so irrelevant to the subject in hand as they
might seem to be, because there is an unfortunate
tendency in the British temperament to play the
game of " follow my leader " at all hazards; and
we are as likely as not, in the near future, to be all
crying for the moon, in the shape of a water gar-
den, regardless of that which is fitting or possible.
Given plenty of water, however, and that under
right conditions, what more delightful use can be
made of the opportunity than to arrange some form
of water garden ?

H2 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

This type of gardening may be discussed under
two heads — first, the use, after natural methods of
lake, pool, or stream and their banks, for the
grouping of water-loving plants for pictorial effect.
Secondly, the artificial tank, which can range from
the costly canal of the stately formal garden to
the modest barrel sawn in half which in certain
positions makes no bad receptacle for the smaller
growing water plants, and which gives its owner
every whit as much pleasure.

It is not the object of the present pages to give
many gardening details. There are plenty of
sources whence these can be obtained with the
very latest practical advice. It is intended rather
to offer suggestions and helpful ideas which may
fit in with the wants and wishes of those who desire
to make their gardens a source of individual recrea-
tion and delight. Therefore I am not now going
to describe the method of puddling a pond or alter-
ing the course of a stream, or even of planting the
roots of water lilies in baskets, and slinging them,
weighted, into position in the bed of some quiet
backwater or pool. All these things can be better
learned from a practical man on the spot. I would
rather tell of some water or water-side gardens
which exist or might exist, here and there, in the
fitting precincts of English country homes.

The first that comes to mind belonged to a
homely garden which, except for a narrow strip
on the far side, was bounded by a shallow but
living brook which never ran dry. Half copse,
half meadow, and only a few yards in width, this
little belt of waste ground gave opportunity for

WATER GARDENS 113

an ideal water-side garden of the natural type.
It could only be called a garden in the strict sense
because the plants in it were not indigenous to the
spot, but had been placed there by human hands.
An alder or two grew out of the shelving bank,
with a clump of bright stemmed willows, golden
in winter, and further in a nut bush here and
there remained out of a thicket which had been
cut down. In and out amongst the rough hazel
stubs thousands of snowdrops pushed their way
in the early spring, keeping time with the catkins
swinging overhead. In March, to take the place
of the snowdrops came a crowd of lent-lilies, and
later on fritillaries, chequered and white, were
quite at home in the damp soil, which was often
enough flooded. At one time of year, in a bend
of the bank, and almost in the brook itself, a
stretch of marsh marigold shone, like burnished
gold, in the sunlight. At another it was a colony
of blue-eyed water forget-me-nots, or clusters of
pale yellow globe-flowers or scented meadow-
sweet, or the sword leaves and yellow flowers of
iris, that caught the eye. All was simple as well
could be; its charm lay in the congruity of the
planting. No exotic element disturbed the sense
of fitness, for nothing was there but the native
plants which might seem to have come at their
own sweet will. It was not quite the spot for
water lilies — the flower without a peer for a water
garden — though a pool might easily have been de-
vised ; but to my mind it was better as it was. The
capabilities, however, of such a spot are great ; but
— it must happen to border on your garden.
H

H4 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

It is not given to everyone to have the oppor-
tunity of a quiet reach on a river, or a peaceful
lake-head of just the right depth and aspect for
water lilies; but a pond of some sort is a very
constant accompaniment of the garden of a country
house. It may chance to be of the clear, bright
kind that will accommodate water lilies to perfec-
tion, and then by all means they should be grown ;
but any and every pond will not serve. Pond
water is too often apt to be green, full of stringy
weed, and stagnant, and to require raking out more
frequently than is at all convenient; or overhang-
ing boughs may throw too deep a shade for the
sun-loving lilies. The depth for strong growing
sorts, like M. Latour-Marliac's, should be from
two to three feet.

In gardening matters it is impossible to lay
down unalterable laws, for some of the best blue
and pink as well as white water lilies I have seen
were growing in quarters grimy enough — the waste
water tank of a Staffordshire colliery — as unlikely
a place as could well be tried for flowers so pure
and lovely. The element of success in that in-
stance was found in the constant inflow of the
warm water pumped up by the colliery engine.

In some large gardens, as at Wisley, water
channels, in the shape of canals or pools, may be
adapted or even artificially constructed, through
which a current of fresh water is continually pass-
ing, but without causing any great surface agita-
tion. Here admirable positions may be found for
the broad lily pads and flowers to make beautiful
pictures, as, in exquisite tints of sulphur or rose

WATER GARDENS 115

or pearl within their bronzed cups, they float on
the dimpling surface. In the shallower water near
the banks the blue American pickerel weed (Ponte-
deria cordata) may find a place, and some of the
fine single and double forms of arrow-head (Sagit-
taria), with which the rare British villarsia with
small floating water-lily-like leaves and fringed
yellow flowers slightly raised above them might
be associated. On the banks of ornamental waters
such as these many foreign plants are in good
keeping ; massive leafage like that of gunnera and
the umbrella saxifrage, in contrast with the beau-
tiful water irises of Japan (I. Icevigata), and in
some favoured positions bamboos, will give just
the characteristic water-side touch. Here, too,
rhododendrons and azaleas may come down almost
to the water's edge, and fine effects may be made
with osmunda and other large-growing ferns.

It is much more difficult to deal picturesquely
with the purely artificial tank basin, for it may
easily be pretentious and out of taste. In an old
garden, with high walls of time-worn red brick,
mellowed by the sunshine and storms of a hun-
dred seasons and clothed with climbing roses and
magnolia, one may come upon a large oblong
brick tank entirely in keeping with its surround-
ings and perfect in its simplicity. There are green
cushions of mosses and little creeping plants in
the chinks of the weathered brickwork, and tall
tufts of lady fern and fountains of hart's tongue
have grown up around it to break the straight
lines of the masonry. On all four sides steps go
down to the dipping places, and there one may

n6 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

stand to enjoy the water lilies lying calm and
peaceful on the clear mirror of the water in all
their ideal loveliness. Translate the whole pic-
ture into new red brick, and where would be the
unspeakable charm ? Still worse would be the
effect of stucco to cover up the crude flare of the
bricks, and yet how often such makeshifts are
allowed ! Personally, it seems to me that the ideal
place for water lilies, and more especially for the
new many-coloured varieties, would be in what
someone calls a stone garden, i.e. a flagged court on
a grand scale. Here there would be scope for con-
siderable architectural design, and the rich pictorial
forms of lily leaf and flower would be in perfect
accord with their setting. But this is true garden
luxury, and most of us have to be content with
simpler things. The simpler the better in the mat-
ter of small tanks for small gardens. No one can
find fault with one of square or oblong shape, or
a plain circle if it be preferred; though I confess
myself to a greater liking for the lines of the
" four-square," with a plain flat kerb, or one that
is only slightly raised above the level of the water.
Trefoils or quadrifoils or other devices of the kind
it seems, in most cases, best to avoid, for nothing
is wanted to call attention from the lilies in a plain
basin made solely in their behalf. These details,
however, are necessarily matters for the exercise
of individual taste.

The last resource of the gardener who would fain
grow some, at least, of the many beautiful water
plants, must not be left out — the barrel sawn in
half. Modest as it sounds, a good deal of con-

WATER GARDENS 117

trivance is required to keep even this primitive
water garden well supplied ; for water must be
laid on, probably, in some artificial way. Granted
that a simple reservoir can be constructed out of
sight — it need be no more than a big butt, though
filled from an unfailing source — a series of tubs
sunk at different levels may be arranged to afford
endless pleasure. Two inches or so of gravel at
the bottom of each tub, which should be then half-
filled with fibrous loam roughly pulled to pieces
mixed with a portion of the well-seasoned remains
of an old hot-bed and covered with water, will com-
plete the preparations. In a few days, when all
is well settled, the planting may be done, after
which more water can be gently added to within
a few inches of the brim. The idea is fully worked
out in a delightful book on water gardens by Miss
Jekyll, which should be in the hands of everyone
who has water-garden ambition. The larger water
lilies are, of course, too robust in growth for the
close quarters of a tub, but there are plenty of
suitable plants. Amongst them may be classed
the tiny white Nymphcea pygmcea and its pale
yellow variety, N. Helvola, one of M. Latour-
Marliac's hybrids, the Cape water hawthorn
(Aponogeton), so named from its sweet scent, the
pickerel weed before mentioned, besides several of
our British water plants, like the fringed buck
bean, the water violet, the pink flowering rush and
villarsia, which are so little known that few would
guess them to be native plants, though they may
soon cease to be so, for they are becoming scarcer
with every year that passes.

n8 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Though the subject can be but inadequately
touched upon here, what has been said may serve
to show in how many and what varied ways Eng-
lish gardening has developed within comparatively
recent years.

CHAPTER VII

THE ROCK GARDEN

CLINKERS, in the words of an old dictionary of
1730 or thereabouts, " are those bricks that, by
having much nitre or saltpetre in them, (and lying
next the fire in the clamp or kiln) by the violence
of the fire run and are glazed over." How often,
in the days of long ago, were these same clinkers
employed, and even recommended, for the con-
struction of rockeries, on the principle, perhaps,
that there is a use for all things under the sun.
Far be it from me to hint that clinkers are without
a value of their own. As an aid to drainage, for
example, they serve admirably, where they are out
of sight ; but they are taboo for the purpose of
the simplest rockery, dear as they may be, even
yet, to the heart of the suburban builder. Prob-
ably the early recollections of many a would-be
gardener, besides the present writer, include a
childish attempt, with the help of stone crops and
London pride, to make a thing of beauty out of
these unsightly lumps of refuse from some conveni-
ent brickfield. But, after all, we need scoff as little
at such poor beginnings as at the early attempts
at fine art left by prehistoric bushmen on the cliff
walls of some ancient fastness of a South African
119

120 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

kloof. Who can foretell what fertile germ of in-
spiration may lie hid within such first essays ? It
is certain that the elemental idea of the rockery
has fulfilled itself in a wonderful way in the modern
rock garden.

As far as memory serves, we need not search
far behind the clinker age for the earliest begin-
nings of the rock garden ; for it is more or less
the outcome of modern travel. It is true that
Alpine plants were not altogether an unknown
quantity to early British botanists, but they were
not much meddled with by the gardeners of old
time. A few saxifrages, under the folk-name of
sengreene, are figured in the Paradisus Terrestris,
with some Alpine primulas or beares-eares, an-
other old English name which lingers still in the
west country for the auricula. Ramondia is also
classed by Parkinson, though under protest,
amongst the primulas as the blew beares-eares with
borage leaves; and of soldanella he says, "This
groweth on the Alpes which are covered with snow
the greatest part of the yeare, and wdll hardly abide
transplanting." But among all the minute direc-
tions for his garden of pleasant flowers, there is
no mention of rock-work as a mode of growing
mountainous plants, though " a rocke or mount
with a fountaine in the midst thereof " may be
a part of the garden's delight, " according as every
man's conceit alloweth of it and they will be at
the charge."

The greatest impetus to real progress in this
phase of English gardening was presumably given
by Mr Robinson when the earliest edition of the

THE ROCK GARDEN 121

" Alpine Garden " was brought out. From that
moment the cult of the diminutive gems of mountain
herbage was established, and we have been trying
ever since, with varying measure of success, to
bring the spoils of the high Alps to the level
of the plains. In one famous garden, now a good
many years ago, there were in fact miniature moun-
tains where the lower rocks and their vegetation
gradually merged into snow-capped summits, simu-
lated by the silvery growth of antennaria and other
minute hoary-leaved plants. But without aspiring
to emulate Nature in these her grandest moods,
we may venture to observe and follow her methods,
and to adapt where we cannot imitate.

One reason why rock-work of any kind appeals
to us so strongly is not only that it affords
vantage ground for the smaller and more deli-
cate plants, many of which are supremely beautiful,
but also because it brings them closer to the eye
where their perfections can be enjoyed with com-
fort. Strictly speaking, the rock garden is associ-
ated only with the cultivation of mountain plants.
In common speech, however, the word " Alpine "
is most frequently used, except by the expert, to
mean any plant of moderate growth which is more
suited by height and habit to a raised position
than for the level border; and this definition may
fairly stand in relation to the ordinary English gar-
den. Few people except the most ardent enthusiasts,
like Mr Farrer, the owner of that delightful York-
shire Alpinery of which he gives so charming a
history in " My Rock Garden," could undertake
or indeed find any inspiration in the minute and

122 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

dazzling, but provokingly capricious, denizens of
the highest rocks and moraines. Fortunately there
are hosts of other plants of less difficulty which
may be beloved of ordinary folk, with fair hope
of success.

My own lines, years ago, were laid on dry chalk
hills where flints were plentiful — the last kind of
stone, perhaps, which would suggest itself for
rock-work of any sort. For flints have a certain
smooth aggressive baldness that is provokingly
obtrusive and difficult to veil. Yet in the clear
air of those bleak uplands, and in an unpretend-
ing little Alpine garden, consisting partly of nar-
row stony borders on the level and bounded by
a very primitive rock-work built up of those un-
promising flints, many beautiful low-growing
plants, some of them genuine mountaineers, were
quite content and even happy. The vigorous blue
flower spikes of the Carinthian Wulfenia, at a time
when its dislikes were less understood than now,
used to excite the admiration and envy of less
fortunate neighbours ; and ah ! how the lovely
Rocky Mountain Aquilegias, and the Siberian
A. glandulosa, used to thrive in that little garden,
for it was possible then to obtain good seed and
pure of the unmixed species of columbine, which
can hardly be said now ; while Himalayan primulas
grew fat and flourishing in one of the shadier
borders. The soil was naturally full of lime, which
suited the lime-lovers like the encrusted saxifrages.
The drainage in a chalk district is always perfect
as far as stagnant moisture is concerned. The
flints held all humidity without absorbing it, and

THE ROCK GARDEN 123

many a dainty little Alpine flourished in that gar-
den which I have not since found it, in more
favoured places and at lower altitudes, so easy to
cultivate.

Before starting on the subject of the different
types of rock garden, let me give a word of warning
against " rooteries," which are only a shade less
objectionable than clinker ies. A certain pictur-
esqueness is the only advantage that can be con-
ceded to root-work, except that of cheapness ; while
the continual annoyances arising from the harbour-
age given, by decaying wood, to destructive fungi
and noxious animals, to say nothing of prospective
collapse of the whole structure, are too formidable
to face for a temporary convenience.

The simplest form, perhaps, of rock-work is the
rock bed, where big boulders or blocks of stone
of various shapes and sizes are so sunk as to ap-
pear to crop up naturally from the surface. Such
a rock bed may be either on the flat or on the
slope, but, in any case, the ground must be dug
out to a depth of at least two feet, to make a solid
foundation upon which the stones can rest without
fear of being undermined by frost or superabundant
rain. Into this hollow suitable soil must be
thoroughly well packed after the stones are care-
fully placed. These arranged at irregular heights
and in groups as much as possible according to
nature, should give the effect of a bit of rock-
strewn moor or hillside adapted to a garden. Such
a rock bed with suitable planting of low-growing
shrubs, like the prostrate savin (Juniper) or some
of the dwarfer brooms, cistus or heaths on the

124 GARDENS—PAST AND PRESENT

higher parts, and spreading drifts of aubrietias,
mossy phloxes, or other creeping plants towards
the edge, with here and there, to make a few sug-
gestions, groups of taller growth — some of the
hybrid columbines or anemones, perhaps, or the
fine sorts of pentstemon or scarlet lobelia — would
be a source of continual pleasure, and might be
varied indefinitely. A crowning of some of the
higher points with one or other of the yuccas —
the dwarf er Y. flaccida seems to flower every sea-
son without fail — would in some positions of the
kind be very effective. In a dry soil some of the
hardy opuntias would thrive and be very dis-
tinctive.

Another simple form of rockery is the hillock
or mound, which may be large or small according
to the space at disposal. The height above the
ground line may, in this case, rise to about four
feet, while the sloping sides would allow of varied
aspects, sunny and shady, to suit plants of different
character. Experts insist, for this type of rock-
work, on the importance of forming in the first
instance a strong and stable skeleton of stonework,
the blocks or slabs resting firmly each upon each,
but with as many angles and spaces and pockets
as possible. This done, the prepared loam, peat,
and leaf mould, well amalgamated and intermixed
with chips and nodules of stone, which constitutes
a likely compost for most Alpines, must be filled
in with the utmost care. Loose packing, with the
ultimate result of settlement of soil and dangerous
hollows, is fatal to the well-doing of delicate plants.
Externally the stones should jut out irregularly,

THE ROCK GARDEN 125

to form little shelters or caves and chinks into
which plants will cuddle themselves according to
their nature in the most bewitching way. In early
days a rockery of the hillock form was sometimes
parcelled out, regardless of appearance, into little
square pens surrounded by slabs of half-sunk
stone. It answered admirably — for the Alpines.
They settled themselves snugly into their separate
compartments, and hugely enjoyed the protection
of the sheets of glass with which it was quite
easy to shield them from the fatal damp of our
English winter when it arrived. But the effect !
It suggested nothing so much as an overcrowded
cemetery, and the mimic tombstones failed to carry
conviction even to the least aesthetic of Alpine
growers. The genus " gardener " may be roughly
divided into lovers of plants and lovers of pictorial
effect; and happy is he who can reconcile the
opposing loves.

The sunk rock garden, with a broad pathway
running through it, is a more ambitious structure,
and is often built with facing blocks of sand or
limestone according to natural stratification, with
bays and hollows for the accommodation of plants
of varied requirements. A rock garden somewhat
of this character is well known to the frequenters
of Kew.

Happy are they who in planning a rock garden
can combine both rock and water. An open mea-
dow with a tinkling brook running through it is
as favourable a site as could well be desired, for
it may be transformed, by efficient generalship and
adequate material, into an ideal spot. Ideal, too,

126 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

for this practical reason among others, that only
a few plants, comparatively, prefer the shade of
trees, and for the class of which we are treating
there is nothing more essential than free circula-
tion of air with unimpeded light, as well as security
from damp and drip. Whatever form, therefore,
a rock garden may take, the site should be open
and free from overhanging verdure. This general
principle does not apply, of course, to a screen
of trees at some little distance, to serve as a wind
break.

A good rock garden, which presupposes its tons
of limestone or granite, its army of excavators and
builders, and its distinguished expert directing the
placement of the whole, is a luxury of luxuries to
the garden-lover; but between the humble rockery
and the culminating grandeur of the perfect rock
garden there lies every conceivable gradation, and
one or other of these is at the command of most
garden owners. Alas for poor mortals who never
are but always to be blessed ! The making of the
rockery is but the beginning, not the crown of
success. Almost every inexperienced amateur at
the outset is apt to fall into one signal mistake.
Full of fervour and impatient to see the bare skele-
ton clothed, he plants any and every delightful
thing that appeals to his fancy or his judgment,
without regard to that fateful idiosyncrasy of every
plant called habit. In a year, or two at most, the
rank growers have asserted themselves and taken
sole possession, while the most cherished, and
often the most costly, treasures of the collection
are — no more. The evil, unluckily, does not end

THE ROCK GARDEN 127

with the first loss, for it cannot be remedied with-
out drastic measures. The vigorous growers, in
themselves, may be as desirable as could be wished
— but it is a case of matter in the wrong place.
Their roots have burrowed beneath the stones,
coming up, it may be, on the other side and send-
ing out offsets with the utmost persistence. And
then — no amount of weeding, nothing, in fact,
short of taking the whole structure to pieces, will
suffice to turn out the enemy and restore the
rockery to its pristine condition. This applies
more particularly to the smaller forms of rock-
work; but it is a danger to be guarded against
in all cases. The late Rev. C. W. Wolley Dod,
a past master in this phase of gardening, used to
tell how, in the days of his lesser experience, heed-
less planting had obliged him to abandon more
than one rockery to the encroachments of such
aggressives, and to build others for the delicate
gems of the mountain flora upon which his hopes
were set. " Don't be too anxious to see your rocks
covered," was his advice; and everyone who knows
and aspires to the cultivation of true Alpines will
be ready to endorse it. The principle holds good
even with less exacting plants, for nothing is more
exasperating than to find rampant growers com-
ing up in the middle of some not over-robust
favourite and hopelessly entangled with it. Be-
ware, therefore, of introducing coarse growers into
the rock garden, however beautiful and appropri-
ate they may be for other positions — coarse, here,
being an epithet not of reproach, but of relative
interpretation.

128 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Here let me plead the merits of seed-raising, not
so much for the first furnishing as the keeping up
of the rock garden ; for Alpines, alas, are more
or less shortlived. Many of us, too, are sorely
tempted to annex for our own gardens some of the
captivating campanulas and rock pinks, primulas
and anemones, with which we meet on Swiss moun-
tains, in Tyrol, or elsewhere; but even should
we succeed in carefully extracting the long roots
without detriment, the chances are against their
reaching their destination alive, or, even so, that
they will long survive the transfer. To collect
seed is another matter; it will wait quite content
until we can get home to sow it, and as it often
happens that flowers are over, and seed is ripening,
before most people can get away to the moun-
tains, it is at least possible to secure many a pre-
cious pod and capsule. Some empty seed-pockets
should form part of the equipment of every
gardener-tourist. It is quite feasible, besides, to
get seeds of the most desirable Alpine plants from
the Jardin d'Acclimatation of Geneva. By rearing
seedlings in our English climate there is more like-
lihood of their becoming inured to a new environ-
ment. I can speak from experience, having raised
many, if not most, of the Alpines I have grown
from seed, of the fascination of this plan, though
it takes both time and patience. Of course, there
are disappointments. Seed will not always ger-
minate, even when most carefully harvested and
sown as soon as ripe, which is a safe general rule
to follow. There is, besides, many a slip between
cup and lip. But with all the risks and chances

THE ROCK GARDEN 129

of seed-raising, it brings its own reward, and often
a very rich reward.

Without attempting any of the baffling beauties
of the high Alps, like Mr Farrer's blue moss (Eri-
trichium nanum), which it would be folly for any-
one save a reckless optimist to take in hand without
due knowledge, there are hundreds of hardy dwarf-
growing shrubs and perennials from all parts of
the world, not necessarily, though many of them
are, mountain plants, which will both do better
and look better when cultivated among stones than
in the level border. Some of the brilliant small
pinks, like Dianthus alpinus, are emphatically
amongst these, as is shown by the comfortable
way in which the little tufts when well placed
will tuck themselves into crevices or bristle up
against the face of the stones. Several of the
small Erodiums and Geraniums are charming rock
plants — not the tall E. Manescavi, which is dis-
appointing at the best of times, nor the big purple
G. ibericum, which is just the reverse and very
lovely in its own position ; but such as the tiny
.E. Reichardi, or the silvery G. argenteum. Most
of us, too, who are garden-lovers have found out
how easy it is to grow Edelweiss ; and no Alpinery
seems to be quite furnished without it. Granted
that sentiment has more to do with its allurement
than intrinsic beauty, the " flannelette fraud " has
after all a distinguished fluffiness of its own which
makes it attractive. A good many of the small
spreading campanulas — ,the rock-loving primulas,
like P. viscosa, the Alpine auricula, and the pretty
mealy-leaved P. marginata — a vast number of

130 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

mossy and silvery-leaved saxifrages — the dainty
little anemones of the woodland type, as well as
some of the larger and finer species — are all at
home in the English rock garden. Ramondia,
too, the pretty rock mullein, which Parkinson
quaintly calls the blew beares-eares with borage
leaves, and its congeners, which want no sun-
shine, but nestle into the shadiest nooks among
the stones, are not hard to accommodate. These
are but a few; but besides the real Alpines there
are interesting dwarf perennials which are worthy
of a choicer place than the ordinary border. To
name some amongst the many, there is the prophet
flower (Arnebia echioides), with its vanishing
freckles; the honey-drop Onosmas; some of the
Mertensias, including our dainty native oyster
plant, wrhich is ready enough to do without the
salt sea breezes, and the gentian-blue Polemonium
confertum, which may or may not take kindly to
the quarters one can give it, or its much more
easily contented cousin, the white-flowered P. mel-
litum. All these we may know, but we never get
tired of them. Some are easy, others hard to
grow, but all are worth trying, for in gardening
no one can foresee what special factor of soil
or aspect in any particular plot of ground may
make for the well-doing, or the undoing, of a
plant. There is no need, however, to pin our
faith always upon the old well-tried favourites
for every day brings new discoveries. From
China and Japan they come ; from the little-
explored mountains of Bosnia and Servia, or
of Asia Minor ; from far-off Canadian high-

THE ROCK GARDEN

131

lands ; or who knows where ? The keen lover
of plants is never left without new worlds to
conquer ; and it is to the plant-lover chiefly that
the rock garden in any of its forms especially
appeals.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR

THERE is an association so stablished and endur-
ing with the very thought of a garden that a single
year of tenancy seems to put an end to any idea
of achievement or progress. We conclude that if
there be a garden at all attached to our temporary
home, we must content ourselves with making the
best of what is, and leave the rest to the tender
mercies of Fate. Most of us have to pass through
an experience of the kind at least once in our lives,
and it is just as well to make up our minds at
once that it is needless to give way to this kind
of despondency if we are only willing to take a
little trouble. In annuals we have a whole series
of the most effective flowering plants that can be
desired, and the main thing that is wanted is the
skill and experience that will enable us to grow
and use them to the best advantage.

The day has long gone by when, on a fine spring
morning, generally in April, it used to be the cus-
tom to sally forth with basket, trowel, and labels
all prepared, and — annuals not having then at-
tained to their present perfection — with a few neat
little packets of nemophila, candytuft, mignonette,
and possibly two sorts of sweet pea, one the pink

132

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR 133

and white " painted lady " and the other the dark
maroon and blue, which were sown thickly in
clumps and rounds, as fancy dictated. Some of us
can remember now the delight of seeing the little
green cushions or rings of seedlings crowding
round their labels, and the pride with which we
surveyed the success, as we fondly believed, of our
somewhat back-breaking efforts. Alas, our seed-
sowing somehow usually ended with promise and
never arrived at fulfilment ; and we know why now,
for since those days we have learned to do our
gardening better.

Unfortunately, when a tenancy is necessarily
short, it is not often left to us to choose the term
of it with reference to gardening convenience ; but,
given a voice in the matter, from Michaelmas to
Michaelmas would be as good a time as might
be chosen. Of course, it is a little late in the sea-
son, and a month or six weeks earlier would be
better in some respects ; but it is the term, and
at any rate some preparations can be set in hand
at once, and the sooner the better.

The first thing to be done is to consider care-
fully the space in hand, and to form some definite
scheme ; for herein lies one main secret of suc-
cess. It is not quite too late even by the end of
September to gain some idea of the capabilities of
the garden, what it contains and what it lacks ;
and we look at everything with a critical eye.
There are beds on the lawn which will have to
be garnished for the summer ; there are borders,
at present ill-supplied with occupants, which might
easily be supplemented ; a dilapidated archway cries

134 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

out for a prop, and with some quick-growing sum-
mer creeper might yet serve its turn for another
season. An idea once gained for a colour scheme,
the dreary feeling of depression passes away, and
as we are in no mood to plant for our heirs, our
hopes turn instinctively to annuals. There are two
classes, hardy and half hardy, of annuals, and for
the first of these autumn sowing, as a rule, is the
best — a fact often proved by seeds falling, self-
sown, as soon as they are ripe, where they quickly
germinate, and far exceed in strength and fulness
of flower those that are sown by hand in the fol-
lowing March or April. Of these Shirley poppies
may be taken as a type. Others, again, though
they come under the head of hardy annuals, can-
not stand the winter in their early stages, and
unless we have some means of giving them slight
protection, these must wait till the spring. If the
garden can boast of an empty greenhouse, however
small, or a cucumber frame, the difficulties are in-
finitely lessened; for all then becomes plain sail-
ing.

As there is no time to lose, the seeds to be sown
out of doors must be the first consideration. Shir-
ley poppies, the finest form of love-in-the-mist
(Nigella), the various eschscholtzias, and blue corn-
flowers, are all desirable ; and as none of these
transplant very well, places should be settled upon
and a very thin sprinkling of seed sown where they
are wanted to flower. If they come up freely, they
will even then have to be thinned out in the spring,
to leave ample room for development — from six
to twelve inches apart, according to the special

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR 135

needs of each kind, being none too much. This is
an axiom to be remembered in the case of almost
every annual, for overcrowding is one most fre-
quent source of failure in their cultivation. Nemo-
phila, Limnanthes Douglasii Eiysimum and others
which flower in the early spring may also be sown
in place, as they will be earlier than if they receive
the check of being transplanted ; but all these,
with candytufts, can be sown in a nursery bed
in autumn for planting out in March if, for any
reason, it should be more convenient. In most
cases annuals can hardly be treated too liberally
as to richness of soil ; but in seed beds for autumn
sowing, the poorer and more gravelly the ground
the better for the well-being of the seedlings during
the winter, as they do not then become too soft
and succulent to be able to resist frost. When
seeds cannot have attention before Michaelmas,
and where an unheated greenhouse is. available,
a good many things, like snapdragons, pot mari-
golds, the improved varieties of which are ex-
tremely fine, and even some of the good new strains
of early flowering carnations and Japanese chrys-
anthemums, can be sown in boxes and pricked off
before the winter; but a lamp in very severe wea-
ther might probably be necessary to keep out hard
frost.

Who would have believed a few years ago that
the large-flowrered chrysanthemums could be grown
from seed to flower within a year ! It must be seed
saved, however, from early flowering sorts, and
of first-rate quality, to answer well. A great many
of them will come single or only semi-double, which

136 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

makes them all the prettier for garden purposes.
High cultivation has, alas, imparted a strain of
delicacy to many of these hardy plants, even snap-
dragons, so that seedlings seem now to require
more warmth and shelter in winter than their more
robust and homely kindred used to do ; but the
less cosseting they get, the better. None of these,
indeed, are of merely annual duration ; but it is
now a common practice, and a very convenient
one, to treat them as though they were. There are
even polyantha roses which, with no more pre-
tention to being annuals than the last, are so
precocious as to begin to bloom within three months
from the date of sowing, and go on producing their
apple-blossom clusters year after year.

If a gentle hot bed can be made up in readiness,
a busy time will come in February, when all man-
ner of delightful half-hardy plants can be brought
on that will fill the garden with flowers in the
summer. Pentstemons, ricinus for good foliage
effect, cosmos of the early-flowering strain, the
compact-growing varieties of verbena, the white
and red-flowered tobaccos, and ten-week stocks,
may be set down as representing a few of them.
These again are not all annuals ; but according
to our modern methods they may be grown as
such. In March another batch can be sown in
boxes in a sheltered position out of doors — salpi-
glossis, the large-flowered scabious, nasturtiums,
the charming salmon-pink Clarkias, coreopsis,
mallows, lupines, and nemesia, which does better
without artificial heat if it can be sufficiently pro-
tected from wind and weather. Sweet sultans,

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR 137

which no garden should lack in summer, do not
bear transplanting well, and should be sown in
place.

The after-work of pricking out and eventually of
planting in position entailed by the rearing of a
great number of annuals or plants treated as an-
nuals, is necessarily considerable ; but there is no
doubt that a garden lovely in flower and foliage
and scent may be furnished entirely by this
method.

No mention has been made of sweet peas, which
perhaps now may be reckoned the most important
of all, and they may be treated in several ways.
An autumn sowing out of doors should always be
made, for in the milder parts of the country at
any rate, they will generally come safely through
an ordinary winter with the help of a light cover-
ing of bracken. They may be sown in pots under
glass, which gives them a good start for planting
out in spring. Or they may be sown in the open
ground in March in the usual way. By trying all
these methods a succession can be kept up until
the late autumn. It is better to grow them in
distinct colours, and, on this head, the only com-
plaint to be made is that there are too many sorts
to choose from. Mignonette, again, can be very
successfully raised in boxes, being afterwards care-
fully pricked out and finally transplanted in the
bed it is intended to occupy. These are operations
which must be carried out with some skill, as
mignonette does not move easily ; but neither does
it come to its best when sown and left to chance
in the open ground.

138 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Certainly one surprise of modern gardening is
the speed with which plants can be brought to the
flowering stage. It used to be a long business, for
instance, to work up a stock of bedding verbenas ;
and the continual process of propagating cuttings
in strong heat ended at length in disaster, for
this fine garden plant was in danger of being exter-
minated by exhaustion. M. M. Vilmorin, of Paris,
and others took them in hand before it was too
late, and now a sturdy race has been evolved of
better habit than of old, and all we now have
to do is to make sure of getting the finest of seed
to obtain, under ordinarily good cultivation, the
finest of plants. The same may be said of carna-
tions. The Italian firm who first introduced Mar-
guerite carnations laid all gardeners under great
obligations. Now we have still stronger and better
races which will flower in six months from the
date of sowing, and are as fine in form and colour
as many of the named varieties of former years.
These and other plants, like pentstemons and the
Japanese chrysanthemums beforementioned, not
being solely of annual duration, we can either
keep any exceptionally good sort, or increase it
by cuttings; but it is a great boon, by giving
them the treatment of annuals, to be able to enjoy
them in the garden of a year. Yet it would be a
pity if the perennial quality, by reason of too much
insistence, were gradually to be eliminated — a con-
tingency not altogether unprecedented in the his-
tory of evolution. The precocious abundance of
flower naturally tends to diminish robustness of
constitution ; and it is not absolutely certain that

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR 139

we do not already begin to detect this tendency
in some of the so-called florist's flowers.

Colour, form, sweetness — how richly are all these
given us to enjoy in the plants that fulfil the
whole round of destiny in a season ! This very
wealth, however, strikes a note of warning. Taken
by themselves as colours, the yellows are often
too strong, the blues too metallic in their bril-
liancy, the reds crude and out of harmony with
each other. How can we expect it to be otherwise
with plants brought together from all points of the
compass. The skill of the gardener consists as
much in being able to choose out of this inexhaust-
ible store the right materials for artistic grouping
as in the cultivation of the plants themselves. We
are gradually becoming more and more aware that
a colour scheme is indispensable if we would attain
to the most beautiful and pictorial effects. Tender
shades of colour of the earlier summer months —
the roses and pinks of Shirley poppies toning off
to white, the pale blues of Nigella and Nemophila,
the cream and citron of the less brilliant forms of
nasturtium, the buff and pink and mauve of ten-
week stocks — these do not clash. It is generally
later in the year, when we get to the deeper tints
of high summer and autumn, that the contrasts
of strong harsh colours coming together into too
close neighbourhood are apt, like some sharp acid,
to set the teeth on edge. It is not that we under-
value rich and brilliant colouring ; a garden with-
out it would be sadly tame and wanting. Even
the decried magenta — a name, for fashion's sake,
tacked on, nowadays, to many a fine hue of crimson

140 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

— has a place and service of its own. But we must
discriminate between the congruous and its ob-
verse, and by far the safest plan to follow is the
rather troublesome one of sketching on paper a
scheme of colour-planting from which to work,
instead of leaving the garden design to hap-hazard.
An excellent effect can be made, for example, in
a detached bed or border by using only flowers
of shades of yellow deepening into brown, a com-
bination to be found in some of the fine African
and French marigolds. This precaution with re-
gard to the mixing of colours is perhaps never
more to be borne in mind than in dealing with
annuals, where variety is so boundless and in which
flowers predominate over leaves.

There are not many strictly annual plants
that can be used with design as foliage. The
annual Japanese hop should not be forgotten, for
it is exceedingly elegant both in the green and
variegated form, and might be used in many ways
as an excellent background and foil for colour.
Cosmos, or cosmea, as it is generally set down
in the seed lists, is beautiful alike in feathery leaf
and flower, and ought to be grown more than it
is for the sake of greenery alone.

These are but a few of the possibilities of a gar-
den entirely dependent for brightness and beauty
on the plants of a year. If the fates decree that
such a one happens, at any time, to be ours, let it
be looked upon as an opportunity and inspiration
rather than as a tribulation. If it is to be entrusted
to a gardener, in the sense of a professional, keep
watch lest a too great love of variety should warp

THE GARDEN OF A YEAR 141

the sense of fitness. If it is to be the work of your
own amateur hands, my advice would be — restrain
your ardour and limit the extent of your labour by
making a moderate selection of those that will har-
monise best, and aim at broad effects rather than
at dots and flecks of colour.

CHAPTER IX

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES

A GREAT deal of the charm of our English land-
scape is due to the flowering trees and shrubs with
which Nature has bountifully endowed us. The
gorse and the broom gilding our commons and
waste lands, the blackthorn prinked in white in
lagging spring, the wild cherry and the pink-
blossomed crab, the snow of hawthorn in early
June, the brier rose and arching sprays of bramble,
lovely in leaf and crimpled flower and clustering
fruit, are but a few of these that are dear to every
British heart. No less do our affections cling to
the common lilac — the blew pipe tree of other days
— and laburnum, syringa and flowering currant,
which, though not wild, are yet such old inhabit-
ants of even cottage gardens that we have long
forgotten, if ever we knew it, that once they were
rare.

Most of the shrubs and flowering trees of earliest
introduction were south European or Persian in
their origin ; but of more recent years northern
India, China and Japan, America and greater Bri-
tain beyond the seas have sent us countless numbers
equally fine, which are either quite hardy or are
becoming gradually reconciled to the change of

142

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 143

environment just as their forerunners have done
in time past. Of ornamental shrubs now taking
the lead in English gardens, rhododendrons, per-
haps, may be set down as the most popular, while
they are also of comparatively late arrival. The
only species known in Parkinson's time apparently
was the little R. hirsutum, the prettier of the two
mountain species which are now familiarly and
indiscriminately known as the Alpine rose. The
common purple-flowered R. ponticum was intro-
duced from Gibraltar about the middle of the eigh-
teenth century, and the early R. dauticum and
the yellow-flowered Siberian species, R. chrysan-
thum, towards its close; but the majority of the
finer sorts have reached our shores within the last
seventy-five years, and these have been multiplied
to an enormous extent by hybridisation. It is a
question, noble as they are as evergreen flowering
shrubs, whether rhododendrons have not been too
exclusively planted, taking into account the beauty
and vast variety of other shrubs which are at com-
mand for every position and purpose. Azaleas,
now botanically included in the genus rhododen-
dron, have a totally distinct character, and are not
planted, perhaps because most of them are decidu-
ous, as much as the delicate shades of colour of
their flowers and the scarlet of their fading leaves
in the fall of the year entitle them to be. It is
true that much may be urged in favour of flower-
ing shrubs which are evergreen, since they not
only add their share to the colour of spring and
summer, but help as well to disguise the nakedness
and to shield the garden from the blasts of winter.

144 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

We could ill spare the different kinds of evergreen
berberis and cotoneaster, laurustinus and pyra-
cantha, and others ; but there is exquisite beauty
as well, and not to be forgotten, in the tracery
of bare branches — a beauty we are learning to esti-
mate at its true value more and more in the winter
landscape. What, for instance, is more graceful
in Nature than the drooping spray of silver birch,
whether it be set against the still background of
a grey December sky or lightly sways, wind-tossed,
in fitful March sunshine. Now, a shrubbery, from
time out of mind, seems to have been coupled
with evergreen shrubs, and more particularly with
cherry laurel and privet, aucuba, euonymus, and
the like, until the very name has become associated
in our minds with a part of the garden that is
dull and wanting in interest, and only to be re-
sorted to for shelter on a day too rough for exer-
cise farther afield. Many of these evergreen
shrubs, besides, have been treated as bushes, and
cut and pruned to keep them within due bounds,
because the popular conception of a shrub is of a
plant of low and branching growth which should
reach a height of no more than six feet at utmost,
whereas many shrubs so-called are by nature mode-
rate-sized trees of some twenty to thirty feet high.
The common cherry laurel is a case in point. It
is true that for some positions a laurel hedge is
as suitable as any, and lends itself with impunity
to annual clipping; but the fine character of the
cherry laurel is never realised until it is seen
either singly or in a well-grown cluster of trees,
with stout branching stems bearing aloft their

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 145

broad shining leaves, and laden in spring with up-
right spikes of creamy almond-scented flowers.
The same remark applies to the Portugal laurel,
which is finer still in general contour; and the
growth of years will transform even rhododendrons,
which may be called typical shrubs, into fair-
sized trees.

So far from the shrubbery being uninteresting,
it should, if well planned, be one of the most de-
lightful parts of the pleasure grounds. Here is the
place, so difficult to find elsewhere in a garden,
where both evergreen and deciduous flowering
trees, but neither class exclusively, can be used to
the greatest advantage, not dotted in straight lines,
but grouped at intervals, or planted singly, as the
case may require, in relation to other trees and
shrubs that are to bear them company.

There is little doubt that two factors have mainly
contributed to make shrubberies as uninteresting
as they too often are — first, poverty of choice in
planting material, causing monotonous reiteration
instead of infinite variety ; secondly, overcrowding
of the available space. At the root of all, however,
lies lack of knowledge and intelligence on the part
of the owner or designer. The usual plan when
a shrubbery, extensive or otherwise, is in con-
templation or in course of formation, is to write
or send to a nurseryman, local if possible, giving
approximate dimensions and an order, leaving the
choice of shrubs entirely in the hands of the ven-
dor, who is supposed to understand his business.
So he does, probably ; but no one can blame a
dealer for using the opportunity thus put in his

146 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

way to get rid of as much of the well-grown but
possibly quite inappropriate " stuff " which awaits
such orders in his nursery grounds. Arrived on
the scene of action, the next move is to fill in the
appointed space thickly, in order that it may look
" furnished " in the immediate present. No doubt
the shrubs are put in with some idea of suitable
juxtaposition ; but can it be wondered at that in
such a case the after-result is not what had been
fondly anticipated ?

How different the effect of even ten yards of
shrubbery border well thought out ! Such a bit of
planting may be easily imagined. A group of
hollies or Portugal laurel for background ; per-
haps for a sheltered spot a standard magnolia. To
the right at a short interval, a little forward or a
trifle farther back as the position may require, a
Siberian crab, perhaps a medlar, or a quince. On
the other hand a tamarisk, with a Judas-tree near
by, or it might be a Yulan, or a double-flowering
cherry. For dwarfer shrubs there might be chosen
Spircsa arguta, with arching sprays of white in
May, to be thrown into relief against the dark
background; a clump of mezereon for earliest
colour, while winter is scarce yet on the wane,
followed later on by golden-flowered berberis or
rosy iveigela. If space is to be quickly filled, a
tree lupin may be set to scent the summer air and
light up the gloaming with its pale gleam of moon-
shine; a few paces beyond, the rose-tinted smoke
of Venetian sumach for later effect. Interspersed
between the shrubs, perhaps groups of orange or
tiger lilies, which are easily satisfied, or the lovely

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 147

Madonna lily, if it will be kindly disposed. To-
wards the edge, low-growing things like the win-
ter heath, always good, but never so precious as
in the early year; the dainty Daphne cneorum, or
spreading carpets of sun rose. So one might go
on planning indefinitely, choosing trees for back-
ground, here flowering, there for leafage or autumn
tints, but which would not cast too heavy a shade
— not restricting the choice to shrubs alone if a
clump of peonies, or grand-leaved acanthus, or
cluster of yuccas would lend additional charm ;
grouping, contrasting, planting everywhere, not so
much for the effect of the moment as for time
to come. How little we realise the seriousness of
planting ; the good, ay, and the mischief, involved
in the right or wrong placing of a tree 1

There is scarcely a month in the year in which
some trees or shrubs may not be found at their
best; so that by careful choice and thoughtful
planting a shrubbery of any extent may always
present features of attraction, with very little repe-
tition along its whole length. January will gene-
rally find the witch hazels (Hamamelis) opening
their twisted petals — shrubs which might pass un-
noticed in summer, but delightful to come upon
on a winter's day. Few of the winter-blooming
shrubs are showy, but some are deliciously scented,
like the modest Chinese honeysuckle (Lonicera
fragrantissima), evergreen in mild seasons, but
flowering before the new leaves have developed.
It is a pleasant quest, too, in the southern counties,
on a January day, to look for the buff and brownish
flowers of winter sweet (Chimonanthus fragrans),

148 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

a few of which picked off and placed in a shallow
saucer will fill a room with fragrance. The cor-
nelian cherry (Cornus Mas), which grows from
ten to fifteen feet high, follows very soon with
its bright little yellow clusters, which ripen later
into fruit. Mezereon, when it has donned its
mauve-purple garments, is charming planted in
groups of six or eight well-grown bushes, and
attracts the first-coming bees. The tassel bush
(Garrya eliptica) is both evergreen and winter-
flowering, and though it may not succeed in all
parts of the country without the protection of a
wall, is too attractive to pass over where there is
a hope of its doing well. Some of the early rho-
dodendrons are valuable, like the crimson R. noble-
anum, the flowers of which will stand some frost
without injury ; and so are the smaller but free-
flowering R. dauricum and R. prcecox, though
both are apt to be a little too venturesome, and
suffer in consequence. Camellias, as is now well
known, are hardier than the common cherry laurel,
but require a little shelter to preserve their flowers.
For all such early-flowering shrubs it is not diffi-
cult, by careful planting in a large shrubbery, to
contrive sheltered bays where they would have a
reasonable chance of protection from cold winds,
more harmful than even frost, and which by break-
ing in upon the even tenour of its length would
add greatly to its delights.

Japanese quinces (Cydonia) may be in flower any
time between Christmas and May; but March
should usher in the almond, after which comes a
long procession of fruit blossom, double and single

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 149

— cherry, peach, and plum in endless variety —
Siberian crabs, beautiful in flower and, later in
autumn, fruit, the Japanese P. mains floribunda,
and the Canadian June berry. Throughout the
spring there is no lack of colour. Spirteas, ber-
beris of many sorts, especially B. Darwinii and
the fine hybrid B. stenophylla, Ceanothus, For-
sythia suspensa, Choisya ternata, and a host of
others, with laburnum, lilac, and hawthorns, scar-
let and pink as well as white, bring us to the end
of June. With July comes somewhat of a pause;
but gum cistus, and other shrubby species of cis-
tus, with good use of the dwarf sun roses (Heli-
anthemum) still help to give colour and brightness,
and with a " happy marriage " here and there of
rambling roses with some of the more slender-
growing trees at the back, the shrubbery may be
as charming as at any time.

In August the dwarf North American buck-eye
(dEsculus parviflora) is in great beauty, and some
yuccas should be in flower, and feathery tamarisk,
growing from six to twelve feet high, strikes a
distinct note. Hydrangeas then take up the run-
ning, and are especially valuable because they do
not object to overhead shade if not too dense, and
(with hardy fuchsias, like F. Riccartoni and Mme.
Cornelliseri) will add greatly to the charms of the
shrubbery in September and October, particularly
in those localities where they can be induced to
bear blue flowers. The pretty dwarf Caryopteris
Mastacanthus, with lavender flowers, also fits well
into an autumn scheme. Many of the shrubs
which have flowered in the spring give besides

150 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

an aftermath of rich autumn tints. Beware, how-
ever, of the gorgeous but wicked poison oak (Rhus
toxicodendron), a venomous Californian under-
shrub, which has avenged itself many a time on
the unwary fingers that have handled it, perhaps
for the innocent purpose of harvest thanksgiving
decoration. In spite of fair colours it is a deadly
danger, and safer never to be admitted into any
garden.

Some of the most beautiful of flowering shrubs
belong to the heaths, from the tall white Mediter-
ranean heath to the lowly winter-flowering Erica
carnea. For these the soil would have to be more
or less of sandy peat, which could be managed
easily enough in such an occasional sheltered
bay as has been already suggested. Zenobia pul-
verulenta, for instance, belonging to this alliance,
fine though it be, is seldom met with. It is some-
times called the lily of the valley tree, from its
lovely sprays of large white bells. Andromedas,
again, and Gaultherias, all of which have the urn-
shaped flowers of Arbutus, are also most desirable
both in flower and foliage, and when once estab-
lished take good care of themselves. Gaultheria
Shallon may be singled out as one of the most
charming amongst the better known of these heath
allies, with its sprays of white waxy bells on red
stems which last for weeks in perfection and are
followed by purple berries if only the birds will
let them ripen. The vivid green of the young
shoots is in striking contrast to the deep tone of
the last season's growth.

These are but a few of the fine trees of moderate

SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 151

size and flowering shrubs that might be named;
and though all have some special want of soil or
climate or aspect, yet after all a very small amount
of care will content most of them, and even this
short list will suffice to show how needless it is
in these days to have shrubberies dotted over with
a repetition of common evergreens interspersed
with an occasional thuya or " retinospera " to give
some semblance of variety to the monotony of the
planting which may be seen in nine gardens out
of ten.

CHAPTER X

THE BULB GARDEN

IN that little world of miracles which we call a
garden there is nothing more wonderful, except,
perhaps, some tiny seed, than a bulb or tuber at
rest. As we hold in our hand a hyacinth bulb,
let us say, or a tuber of some fine scarlet anemone,
a feeling of reverence, of mystery, steals into our
thoughts, for we knowr that within that dry, useless-
looking thing there lies hidden potential life and
beauty of form and colour beyond all that fancy
could have painted if the fact were not placed
beyond doubt by common experience year by year.

To plants belonging to the great natural divi-
sion to which bulbs belong we owe much of those
shifting changes and colours which redeem the
garden from monotony and seem to robe it in
ethereal textures not of this earth.

Bulbs, indeed, are at once the delight and pride
of the gardener's heart — and his despair. Foremost
comes the joy. How we love the tufts of early
snowdrops, the gold and purple masses of crocus
in March, the paler citron of nodding daffodils,
the scarlet and crimson of lordly tulips ! How we
feast on the exquisite grace of lilies during the
brief season of their stay ! But, when the colour

152

THE BULB GARDEN 153

and freshness have faded, the troubles begm ; and
it is on account of these after-troubles that we are
driven to say that bulbs, though they may be the
cynosure of our eyes at one season, are, at another,
a serious perplexity. The fading green, which
takes such an inconvenient length of time to get
itself decently out of the way, is the first difficulty.
All would be well were it only permissible to
cut off all that offends ; but if this be done — a
truth which everyone does not recognise — all hope
of flowers for next year is at an end. Leaves and
stems must, perforce, be left in all their dishevel-
ment until the right moment comes for their re-
moval ; and the practice of plaiting the dying
foliage of crocuses, for example, is but a lame
device, a remedy worse than the disease. Unfor-
tunately when all untidiness has at last disappeared,
and the bulbs are safely tucked away for their
long sleep, another trouble takes its place. Yawn-
ing gaps are marked with unsightly labels ; or,
if the label be forsworn, the exact spot is sure to
be forgotten, and the continual pricking over of
the surface which, in light soils especially, is so
essential in retaining necessary moisture in the
ground, disturbs and injures them, or some dis-
aster occurs which leads us to rue the day when
we suffered ourselves to plant bulbs in a mixed
border. It is not, therefore, without deliberate
thought that the bulb garden is taken as a heading
for an essay on a somewhat intricate subject.

It is much easier, on occasion, to garden on paper
than in real practice! A thousand contingencies
come in the way and prevent gardeners, and espe-

154 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

cially amateur gardeners, from doing as they
would. All that theory can do is to work out ideal
plans for those who have not the leisure to do
it for themselves, which may at least suggest
schemes that can be modified to suit individual
cases and views. A bulb garden, according to
circumstances, may or may not be the reality, as
well as the dream, of perfection. I know of a bed
in a small cottage forecourt which through the
springtime of year after year is a medley of snow-
drops, crocuses, and squills, followed by chequered
fritillaries and tulips. This bed remains, appar-
ently untouched, except for a little surface dressing
in the autumn ; but every summer, when the bulbs
go out of flower, pink annual larkspurs and love-
in-the-mist, probably self-sown, take their place,
and though, as we know, effects depend much upon
environment, the result in that particular spot is
dainty and charming, and could scarcely be bet-
tered. On the other hand, it is not uncommon,
more particularly in the garden of a specialist, to
see a border which was full of interest in early
spring looking for the rest of the year like a blot
upon a fair page. The solution for that kind of
difficulty, which is not always to be avoided, is
to choose a less prominent position for the indul-
gence of that peculiar hobby.

It may be taken as an axiom that it is a very
hard matter indeed to keep a bulb garden always
in evidence and at presentable pitch, without help
from other plants of a different character. Thus
we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma.

There are two ways in which these troubles may

THE BULB GARDEN 155

be met, and in some degree lessened, i. Many
bulbs, when their leaves are turning yellow and
the maturing process is well on its way, will bear
careful moving, if lifted with a good ball of soil,
to a reserve bed in the kitchen garden, where
neither conspicuous labels nor bare earth will be
out of place during the resting season ; and this
may be done not only without serious detriment,
but with some advantage. For in such quarters,
in an open sunny exposure, they will have a better
chance of ripening well than if they were over-
shadowed by the summer occupants of the original
position. This plan naturally involves some addi-
tional labour.

2. Where a bed or border is devoted entirely
to bulbs as permanent tenants, sufficient room may
be allowed between the different clumps either for
annuals to be planted amongst them or for pot
plants, like standard fuchsias or heliotropes, or
any others that may be available, to be plunged in
the vacant spaces without throwing too deep a
shade over the bulbs.

It will be evident that these remarks apply more
particularly to the bulbs which flower in spring,
the season of all others when there are the greatest
number and variety. Many of these, like scillas,
chionodoxas, and some of the best of the grape
hyacinths (muscari), are dwarf and insignificant
enough if planted singly, but give a vivid splash
of colour when massed in quantity — another reason
why bulbs of this kind are difficult to accommodate
in the mixed border without a good deal of space
and arrangement. Thus they can often be more

156 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

conveniently used in the wider area of the wild
garden. This has led to snowdrops and snow-
flakes, or breadths of crocus, in drifts of one colour,
being sometimes planted in orchards, where they
take care of themselves, spreading and increasing
at will and never giving more pleasure than when
they take us by surprise in such semi-wild en-
compassment. Here, too, daffodils of the more
vigorous types are quite happy. Tulips, on the
contrary, are more at home on tilled land than
in the grass, as they may be seen, growing wild,
in the ploughed Italian oliveyards ; while the bulb-
ous irises, of the sort to which the beautiful early-
flowering I. reticulata and its congeners belong, are
too delicate to trust beyond the limits of garden
borders.

Early summer ushers in a number of bulbs of
very distinct character which can be planted in
smaller groups, and are more suitable on this and
other accounts for the ordinary border — the grey-
blue North American camassias, the pure white St
Bruno's lily of Alpine meadows, the first early
gladioli of the ramosus and Colmllei breeds, which
are worthy of more patronage than they receive,
with many different species of iris. These last
are all grouped together, in common speech, under
the head of bulbs, though a large proportion of
them, like the German flags, have creeping root-
stocks of quite another description, and require a
treatment of their own. Amongst the summer
flowerers, the Spanish (7. xiphium) and English
(7. xiphioides) irises, both of them bulbous rooted,
are so easily grown and so decorative as to

THE BULB GARDEN 157

be indispensable. Irises, in fact, of one sort or
another, almost encircle the year, beginning with
the Algerian /. stylosa, one of the most precious
of open-air mid-winter flowers, followed by the
delicate tints of the early Persian, the rich purple
of the netted iris, and all the beautiful newer forms
introduced of late years from the mountains of Asia
Minor. In April come the dwarf flags, delightful
for edging where broad effects are desirable. These
are quickly succeeded by the German irises — the
" poor man's orchid " — in all their variety of pen-
cilled blue and purple and golden-bronze. A host
of species, not easy to class, fill in the time until
the fine Japanese /. Icevigata, which may be seen
in such perfection by the water side in the wild
garden at Wisley, brings the long list well into
the autumn. Last of all, the wild "gladden,**
often transplanted from the hedge bank into the
garden, bursts its large pods and lights up some
flowerless corner with its scarlet seeds.

Leaving out the red-hot pokers (Kniphofia), some
of which are very fine, and belong to the lilies
though their roots are not bulbous, hybrid gladioli
are the mainstay in the way of bulbs in the autumn
garden. Of these there are several distinct strains,
all beautiful of their kind, the oldest being the
familiar G. gandavensis, taken in hand first by
growers in Ghent, as the name implies, but since
brought to great perfection by the English firm
of Kelway of Langport. Next in order comes the
French breed of G. nanceianus, which is owing
to the good work of M. Lemoine of Nancy; and
lastly, the magnificent race inaugurated by that

158 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

prince of gardeners, Herr Max Leichtlin, of Baden-
Baden, which is best known by the name, of
American origin, of G. Childsi. Thousands of
varieties of these distinct types have been raised
from seed carefully fertilised. Some are of mode-
rate price, others would tax a long purse; but
gladioli are not very hard to grow. They prefer
a stiffish soil, such a staple as best suits roses
and strawberries; and the corms, the term used
for solid bulbs, increase fast by offsets, which are
freely produced, so that no one need despair, with
a little patience, of working up a good stock from
a modest beginning.

I can remember well, when the early white
variety of G. Colvillei " Bride " was still almost
a novelty, buying a potful from a famous old
nurseryman of his day, Wheeler of Warminster,
which multiplied without any trouble in the open
ground, by annual division, to many hundreds in
the course of a few years. In dry soils the early
gladioli succeed perfectly if thus left in the ground,
but the autumn-flowering varieties do better when
lifted as soon as the foliage turns yellow and stored
away in a dry, wTarm place through the winter.
The old G. brenchleyensis, however, seems sturdy
enough, generally, to take care of itself.

There are two or three late summer and autumn-
flowering bulbs which should not be overlooked.
The drooping white bells of the Cape hyacinth
(Galtonia candicans), on stems from two to three
feet high, are very pretty when planted in good-
sized groups, and it is one of the few bulbs which
can be easily and quickly raised from seed — flower-

THE BULB GARDEN 159

ing in eighteen months from the time of sowing,
and afterwards giving little trouble. The gor-
geous though fleeting flowers of Tigridia pavonia
would be sorely missed from the autumn garden
by anyone who is accustomed to find them there.
They are not reputed hardy in all climates; but
it has been found in several distinct localities in
the southern counties that a few handfuls of ashes
will keep the bulbs safe from frost in the open
ground. The white variety with crimson spotted
centre is a welcome addition to the scarlet tiger
flower — blossoms only of a day, yet each morning1
greets the opening of new and fresh ones as long
as their season lasts. Tricyrtis hirta, which has
been given, not very appropriately, the name of
the Japanese toad lily, is another charming little
late-flowering plant not often met with. Its pale
lilac-freckled blossoms are very suggestive of an
orchid, for which it is often mistaken when grown
in pots. This also has been found quite hardy
on dry soils, and is so distinct and pretty as to
be worthy of a position near the eye in a choice
nook of the rock garden — a portion of which may
sometimes be devoted to bulbs; but it flowers too
late to succeed in localities where early frosts have
to be reckoned with.

Lilies, the crown and glory of the bulb garden,
have been left until the last. The subject is wide ;
books might be and have been written to illustrate
their loveliness. As a rule they are native to the
more temperate regions of the globe; therefore
many of them are well suited for cultivation in
England, and such familiar species as the white

i6o GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

Madonna lily, the saffron lily, and various kinds
of martagon, have been inhabitants of English
gardens for hundreds of years. Not long ago the
saffron lily (L. croceum) was branded as a vulgar
flower. It is doubtful whether the word is appli-
cable to any flower ; but this lily is certainly hardy
and vigorous, and holds up its orange cups with
dauntless mien, asking little but to be placed where
its strong tone will not clash with some incon-
gruous colour, and to be left alone. Even if vul-
gar be used as a synonym for " common," the
epithet will hardly hold good, for the old-fashioned
orange or saffron lily has almost ceased to be com-
mon, and its splendid colour would enliven many
a shrubbery border with advantage.

White lilies, alack, do not thrive everywhere, and
sometimes despise the best efforts of good gar-
deners, but may often be seen doing well against
a cottage wall where they get a little shelter from
overhanging eaves. Protection from cold winds
and a soil that is moderately dry and not too rich
or stiff is prescribed by some lily connoisseurs, yet
they must not be starved ; and so great an authority
as the late Mr G. F. Wilson gave it as his opinion
that where difficulties occur with these beautiful
old-time lilies they may often be " conquered by
kindness." In all cases this particular lily is
worth any trouble to establish in gardens grand
or gardens simple.

One of the most satisfactory of the better-known
sorts, from all points of view, is the tiger lily,
which gives no anxiety whatever, for it seems to
thrive everywhere, and is easily multiplied by the

THE BULB GARDEN 161

bulbils produced so freely in the axils of the leaves.
The rich apricot tint of its spotted flowers is
scarcely to be matched in any other flower; and
its late blooming — from August to October — makes
it doubly welcome. Martagons, on the whole, are
the least esteemed among lilies ; but the choicest
of all the group is the white martagon. It prefers
a position that is partially shaded — a characteristic
of most lilies — and the tall spikes of pure white
turkscap flowers are peculiarly lovely in the sum-
mer twilight, and it might be counted one of the
rare gems of any garden.

L. elegans and its varieties constitute another
distinct group of lilies of very dwarf habit and
remarkably brilliant colouring, which ranges from
pale yellow to rich crimson mahogany. This type
of lily is useful for planting towards the forefront
amongst shrubs, especially where the soil is of
light peaty nature, and is very hardy and free-
flowering.

Japan lilies, by which are usually meant the dif-
ferent varieties of L. auratum and L. speciosum,
are well suited to the same kind of position amongst
rhododendrons, but must be allowed plenty of
room, as they are tall and spreading when in
flower. Both species are magnificent when they
become thoroughly established, and where the con-
ditions are suitable. In many gardens they are
short-lived, and have to be frequently renewed, but
thousands are sent over yearly from Japan, and
they can now be obtained at comparatively small
cost, which makes replacement an easier matter
than it used to be. The strong vanilla-like scent

162 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

of the golden lily, so overpowering in conserva-
tories or rooms, adds to its charms as an open-air
plant. L. speciosum, as well as L. longiflorum,
is more often seen in pots than planted out of
doors, but they are worthy of being tried in all
ways and in some localities succeed extremely well
in this way.

As long as lilies appear to be thriving, they
had better be left undisturbed with nothing further
than an annual mulching of what Sussex cottagers
call good " mending." If it be necessary at any
time to remove them, it must be done after flower-
ing is over and leaves and stems are sere and
yellow, but not absolutely dead and dry — a little
too soon is better than too late — and replanting
should be immediate. Root action in lilies has
scarcely any cessation. As soon as the year's
functions are accomplished, the work of the next
season begins, and any interference after new
growth has started is fraught with mischief. This
is doubtless one reason why newly imported bulbs
do not always succeed well the first year after
planting. Fading stems must never be cut away
as long as they show any sign of vigour.

Attention has lately been called to the import-
ance of depending more upon home culture of lilies
than has hitherto been done. The Japanese do
not cultivate them for export. They get their sup-
plies from wild bulbs growing in countless thou-
sands in their native haunts. Thus, like the world's
timber supply, which has been so recklessly drawn
upon, the end must come, and that at no very
far-off time, unless such ravages are repaired, in

THE BULB GARDEN 163

each case, by new plantations. The bulbs of most
lilies consist of scales, and these scales if they
should be injured and drop off during planting,
for they are very brittle, ought to be carefully
gathered up, especially in the case of rare sorts,
and laid upon sand, for they give an easy method
of increase by soon forming small bulbils, which
should be planted in boxes and grown on until
they are large enough to be trusted in an outdoor
nursery bed. In the same way they might be
increased on a larger scale, though it would take
time and probably home-grown bulbs would gain
in strength and hardier constitution by acclima-
tion. These are but a few of the beautiful lilies
that might be named, but they are either still
scarce, or require special modes of treatment, and
therefore can hardly yet be reckoned amongst popu-
lar plants. As to the great tribe of bulbous plants,
counting lilies and narcissus and iris, which for
us make up its chief divisions, how would our gar-
dens fare if instead of being, for the most part,
denizens of the temperate zone, they had peopled
the tropics and refused to be happy out of doors
in our variable English climate?

CHAPTER XI

THE BOG GARDEN

ANOTHER outcome of the revolt against the formal
gardening of the past is to be found 'in the interest
now taken in the cultivation of marsh plants.

In all thinly peopled countries there are vast
tracts of wet, water-logged land, absolutely useless
in their normal condition, and even hostile to
human life ; where, nevertheless, many of the most
singular and characteristic types of the world's
flora find a congenial home. In England and Ire-
land they have been called bogs ; in Scotland hags
or mosses ; in the New World swamps ; on the
South African continent vleis; but everywhere, be
it bog, swamp, or vlei, it is at one season or an-
other a garden of flowers.

Very seldom now, in our own land, can we get
away from civilisation into the heart of solitude,
except, it may be, in hidden recesses of Dartmoor
or, northwards, in some forgotten or inaccessible
corner where plough and drain pipes have not yet
been or cannot be set to work; and we dare not
grudge the high farming which has turned ague-
stricken marsh or reeking quagmire into wholesome
arable land. Yet it is delightful, on occasion, to
find oneself in some lone, wild spot, far out of

THE BOG GARDEN 165

ken of the busy hum of life, where beaded sun-
dew gleams, red and glistening on a soft carpet
of sphagnum moss and little trails of bog pim-
pernel or ivy-leaved bell flower wander in and out
amongst it. Places where hoary St John's wort
and pale, translucent rosettes of butter wort send
up their violet flowers and spread as they list
along the edge of the brown trickling water which
marks out a shining network of runnels for itself
through the sopping peat, and where, not without
a lurking fear of untoward consequences as we
step across the quaking surface of the bog, we
stoop to gather the downy pink clusters of cross-
leaved heath and orange spikes of asphodel, or,
it may be, of the pale blue marsh gentian. It is
well, while we may, to try to find all these in their
own wild haunts, for soon their place will know
them no more in any part of the countryside.
And it is meet, besides, that the knowledge of them
should be kept alive in our gardens, and not alone
between the dry boards of herbarium cases.

But how ?

Well, from the inherent character of things we
may guess that the bog garden, to succeed, must
be modelled after Nature's own pattern ; it cannot
be ordered according to any stiff lines of rule and
compass; but anyone who has essayed the joys
and perils of bog trotting, either at home or abroad,
will have no difficulty in understanding exactly the
quality of the spongy peaty soil which should, in
some sort, though without its stagnant malaria,
be reproduced if we want to grow bog plants. On
a small scale — as, for example, a bog bed — it is not

166 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

very difficult to manage, if a suitable position can
be found, with an unfailing supply of water which
can at all times be led where it is wanted. An
irregular hollow dug out on any open sunny site
away from trees, and filled in with a compost
mainly consisting of rough sandy peat and leaf
mould, which can always be kept moist, yet not
water-logged, will provide congenial quarters for
many beautiful plants, from Canadian swamp lilies
and mocassin flowers to some of the primroses and
gentians of the Swiss mountains, which are more
or less marsh lovers. People very often suppose
that whereas bog plants require much moisture,
therefore it is necessary to give them much shade
as well — which is, in most cases, a fatal mistake.
The majority of marsh plants live with their toes
in the water and their heads in the sun ; and this
fact should always be borne in mind in choosing
a site for a bog bed. Not that light shadow from
groups of low-growing shrubs in or about the bed,
or from tall herbaceous plants, is always hurtful.
On the contrary, it may serve sometimes to
preserve flowers from fading too quickly ; but
anything approaching to the dense shade of over-
hanging trees should be avoided. Another caution
may be given. It is better to spread a good layer
of some kind of rough rubble at the bottom of
the bog bed before the compost is packed in. The
natural drainage of a bog is a very different matter
to that of a small area under artificial conditions ;
and a limited body of soil is apt to get sour and
unfit to support plant life if no filterage helps to
draw off surplus water. Peat can absorb a vast

THE BOG GARDEN 167

amount of moisture; but it does not want more
than it can hold. The surface of such a bed, if it be
of tolerable breadth, need not be at one uniform
level. Some plants will enjoy the gentle trickle
from a hidden pipe near their roots, while others
will do better on a hillock where the soil, though
not dry, is less saturated with moisture. Stepping
stones in the hollows, or a raised pathway winding
in and out, will add greatly both to comfort and
pleasure. Nothing is more tantalising than to be
prevented from full sight of a new or interesting
flower by inability to get near enough to it.

Naturally the choice of plants will be restricted,
not only as to number, but in character, by the
size of the bed. It will not do to introduce spread-
ing bamboos or certain kinds of iris or coarse-
growing willow herbs into a limited space, however
much they may seem, at the moment, to suit the
situation ; for they would soon take entire pos-
session, and oust the more delicate occupants. If
shelter from north or east is desirable, no shrubs
are more suitable, at least in the southern counties,
than the so-called Ghent azaleas, which are really
the descendants of two or three American species.
These are perfectly hardy, and thrive in moist
peaty soil, and would always give the right effect
in fringing one side of the bed. Where azaleas
would not answer, and for summer greenery, hardy
ferns of the osmunda and lady-fern types, and
handsome foliage plants, like Gunnera scabra, for
large space, or Saxifraga peltata where a smaller
plant of somewhat like character is wanted, would
provide a little shade. Flowering plants suited to

168 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

the position would include the beautiful North
American mocassin flower (Cypripedium specta-
bile) and other slipper worts, the scarlet cardinal
flower and its pale blue cousin (Lobelia cardinalis
and L. syphilitica), the huntsman's cups (Sarra-
cenia), in mild positions the Madeiran Orchis
foliosa, or some of our own hardy British species,
which are scarcely less handsome. The swamp
lilies, of which there are several kinds, including
L. canadense and the leopard lily (L. pardalinum),
may be grown, swamp lilies as they are, in the
drier and more sheltered parts of the bog bed,
where the young shoots can be a little protected
in their early stages. These increase by their
creeping rhizomes, and like nothing better, when
they are doing well, than to remain undisturbed
at the root with a good top dressing of manure
every year. Many of the smaller evergreens, like
the bear berry (Arbutus uvi-ursi) and the partridge
berry (Gaultheria procumbens), both charming
little creeping shrubs, are very suitable, and it
might even be possible to establish the pretty
Himalayan species G. tricophylla, which has
arbutus-like flowers, followed in autumn " by sky-
blue berries which look like small blue eggs resting
on the ground among the minute twigs." Here,
too, Linncea borealis is quite likely to grow without
much trouble; and even the shy Mayflower (Epi-
gcea repens) might repay the kindly shade of azalea
bushes with its pretty clusters of pink and white
flowers.

But the most delightful of all bog gardens are
of a more natural kind, and the site for these is

A WOODLAND BOG GARDEN.

THE BOG GARDEN 169

only to be found in those localities where the soil
is, spontaneously, of moist, peaty character. A
spot of this sort may, here and there, be found
in England, and more readily, perhaps, in Scot-
land; but in this respect Ireland is the most
favoured country, where an acre or two of rough
bog land in near neighbourhood to the garden itself
may be easily fenced about and turned without
much labour into a garden of marsh-haunting
plants. Such localities are not rare in the sister
island; and an Irish marsh garden described, I
think, in the Field some few years ago, is typical
of the good u§e to which a stretch of natural bog
may be put. In this case the principal labour
consisted in the cutting of numerous canals to drain
off superfluous water, thus forming islands of peat ;
in throwing rough log bridges across them to give
easy access to all parts of the ground, and in the
making of raised causeways in all directions. Be-
yond this the soft brown peat required little work-
ing, and the choice of suitable plants was the main
undertaking. In an enclosed space of some three
acres there was scope for bold and noble grouping,
and the natural growth of silver birch and a belt
of sheltering pines and spruce firs gave just the
protection and slight shade here and there that is
always desirable, while they added greatly to the
beauty of the scene. Here there was ample room
for large plantations of hardy azaleas and kalmias,
for the huge tufts of reeds and grasses which lend
grandeur to appropriate breadth of space, but are
so out of character in cramped surroundings. If
I remember rightly, the account of this particular

170 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

bog garden was written in autumn, when the
changing tints were still full of glowing colour,
but flowering plants had mostly gone to rest. But
in the soft Irish air vegetation is rampant, and
trees and plants of many countries will flourish
in that mild, moist climate which utterly fail with
us, except in the warm south-west or the west
coast of Scotland. Therefore it is easy to imagine
how many beautiful things might be naturalised
and would luxuriate in such a spot — the Watsonias
and wachendorfias and oxalises of the South
African vlei and crinums in the drier parts; the
Japanese shortias and galax, with its scarlet and
crimson winter foliage, the Maryland spigelia,
spirczas of many sorts, the rarer American cowslips
(Dodecatheon) and dog's-tooth violets (Erythro-
nium), with the lovely Irish heath (Menziesia poli-
folia) in its various forms — to say nothing of some
of the gentians and moisture-loving primroses.
In fact, there is no end to the possibilities of such
a grand bog garden ; but there are few who can
indulge in a delightful playground of the kind.

In our English countryside we are more apt to
fall in with a likely willow brake, which, under
certain limitations, might make a tolerable substi-
tute. A raised causeway leading through it would
be one main requisite ; but as a planting ground
for some of the fine but somewhat encroaching
marsh or moisture-loving plants no position would
be more suitable. Willows are generally stubbed
by being cut over in rotation for osiers or withies ;
and between the stubs colonies of marsh marigold,
one of the finest of our native marsh plants, are

THE BOG GARDEN 171

frequently to be seen. We do not know enough
as yet about the fine Italian species, the story of
the " lifting " of which from the Vatican gardens
Mr Farrer tells us in his " Rock Garden," to pre-
dict that it will eclipse the old one, and prove
equally hardy and amenable to the conditions of
an English marsh; but these "king cups," to
give them an old English name, are typical of
the kind of plant suitable for the rough and ready
bog garden of the osier brake. The common
European globe flower, native in the north and
in some parts of Wales, and of which there are
some fine foreign species, would be excellent for
naturalising in such a spot. It should be planted
in early autumn, and will thereafter, if once estab-
lished, take care of itself. The strong-growing
white buttercups, familiarly called " Fair Maids of
France," and pretty both in the single Swiss form
and in the double, as they are found in cottage
gardens, love a watery situation. The beautiful
feathery meadow sweets, e.g. the deep rose-coloured
North American queen of the prairie (Spircea
lobata), the Japanese S. palmata, the pink S.
venusta, and our own native species, S. ulmaria,
which has some good garden varieties, would all
flourish well, and serve to prolong the flower sea-
son into summer. Then there are the upright-
growing yellow loose-strifes and creeping-Jenny
—all of them lysimachias — the last of which would
clothe the sides of the raised pathway with its
long trails studded with yellow cups about mid-
summer or later. Mimulus luteus, too, would
quickly become colonised; and touch-me-not

172 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

(Impatient), rare as a British wild flower, might
also find a foothold by the path. Quite distinct
from all these would be the feathered columbine
(Thalictrum), of different species; and in the au-
tumn the purple spikes of Lythrum salicaria are
handsome, which is apt to be aggressive if given
a place where it may not be allowed to spread
freely. The same may be said of the willow herbs
— the strong-growing rose-coloured " codlins and
cream," a popular name for which no reasonable
explanation can be offered, and the much more
desirable and elegant French willow, of which there
is a pretty white variety, but which may not be
admitted into a garden. Ferns of various kinds
would also find a congenial home in the drier but
still moist outskirts of the plantation.

Along lines such as have been indicated we may
perhaps be able to work out for ourselves some
possibilities of bog gardening according to the lot
which has fallen in our way.

CHAPTER XII

FERNS

THERE is a fascination about ferns that few people
can resist; nevertheless, time was when they had
an evil reputation. Once they had been sur-
rounded by dark shadows of mystery — strange
plants, it was said, that flourished and increased yet
bore neither flower nor seed visible to mortal eyes,
except, indeed, it were sought by mystic rite and
spell at midnight on the eve of Midsummer, alone
and unaccompanied, with intent that the finder
might walk invisible at will — a silly conceit that
was already ridiculed in Shakespeare's time,
though it had not been so very long before exposed.
It was an adventurous German, one Hieronymus
Bock of Hornbach, a physician of souls as well
as of bodies, who first boldly essayed to explode
the old superstition. At the period in which he
lived the dread of hidden spirits of darkness was
still so dominant that to accomplish his purpose
the good man probably had to take his courage in
both hands. In a " Herball " published in 1539 he
tells the story. It is to be found in that illumin-
ating book, Kerner's " History of Plants, " where
it is repeated thus: "All our teachers write that
the fern bears neither flower nor seed ; neverthe-

173

174 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

less, I have four times looked for the seed in the
night of Midsummer Eve, and I have found early
in the morning before daybreak small black seeds
like poppy seeds on cloths and on the broad leaves
of mullein beneath the stems in varying quantities.
... I have used no charm or spell in this matter,
but have looked for the seeds without any super-
stition and have found them. One year, however,
I found more than another, and I have sometimes
been out without success. I have not gone alone
to fetch the seeds, but have taken two others with
me, and have made a great fire in an unfrequented
spot, and let it burn all through the night. How
the thing came to pass, and what secret nature
intends to reveal by it, I cannot tell. I have
stated all this because all our teachers describe the
fern as being without seeds." Reading between
the lines, how clearly the solemnity of the occasion
stands confessed, and the heartening comfort of the
" great fire " in the murky woodland shades !

The so-called seeds were, doubtless, what are
now written " spores " ; and it was not surprising,
until the microscope came to disclose it, that the
riddle of the germination of ferns should have
remained so long unsolved. Gerard gives figures
of a good many species, and speaks of finding
"jagged hart's tongue" growing in a friend's
garden ; but ferns were only of value in those
days for their medicinal virtues, and perhaps for
the making of capillaire — never as garden plants.
There is no reference to them at all, as far as
I can remember, in the " Paradisus Terrestris."

The old feeling that there was something un-

FERNS 175

canny about ferns lingered on, nevertheless, until
much nearer to our own day ; and they were
ranked amongst " ditch trumperie," and styled
"vile unuseful weeds," and no one dreamed of
seeing any beauty in them. Less than a hundred
years ago, when the world was being ransacked
for plants of all kinds, there were but forty foreign
kinds to be found in the rich collections of other
plants at Kew, while now the known species may
be counted by thousands.

Ferns are most at home in warm, moist climates,
those of temperate regions being considerably
fewer ; therefore the species that can be grown
with success in the open air in England are some-
what limited in number. Whether hardy or
tropical, they agree in the main in requiring a
certain humidity in their surroundings, both of
air and soil ; but there is no rule without exception.
I remember finding in Cape Colony two, if not
more, small ferns, one of them a cheilanthes and
the other probably a pell&a, perfectly happy, grow-
ing on the open veldt, amongst drifts of boulders
as hot and dry as the burning South African sun
could make them !

As a fact, ferns rejoice not only in moisture,
but in light. Though, speaking generally, hot
sunshine is not naturally suitable to their wants,
yet in cultivation it is found that they succeed
best in fairly open spots, screened, but not too
much overshadowed. May it not often be noticed
that the common brake fern spreads outwards in
the direction of the light, away from, rather than
towards, the darker recesses of the forest ? It may

176 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

be taken, therefore, as a fairly constant rule that
if moisture be the first requisite for ferns, shelter,
more than shade, is the next thing to be provided
for — draught being altogether contrary to the well-
doing even of the most hardy kinds. Filmy ferns
which, by natural habit, are found growing in
deep shade, may be regarded as exceptions but
though the two British species, the Killarney and
the Tunbridge filmy ferns, grow freely in the open
air in the few spots which they haunt, it is exceed-
ingly rare to find them doing well under cultivation
without artificial shelter of either a cave or glass
case.

British ferns are ranged under about fourteen
well-defined heads or genera; but the species and
variations of these mount up to many hundreds.
Some of them, such as the depauperated varieties,
though exceedingly interesting to fern collectors,
are not beautiful from a garden point of view.

The British ferns that are most generally suit-
able for outdoor culture are as follows :

Aspidiums or Shield Ferns

Aspleniums ,, Spleen worts

Lomarias ,, Hard Ferns

Nephrodiums ,, Buckler Ferns

Osmundas ,, Royal Ferns

Polypodiums ,, Polypodies

Pteris ,, Brake Ferns
Scolopendrium ,, Hart's Tongue

There are others which do not belong to these
groups, which present greater difficulties of con-

FERNS 177

stitution, and which, though British, can be more
successfully grown under special conditions. This
little table may be found useful, because ferns are
now commonly spoken of by their Latin rather
than by their English names, and, a good many
changes in these having taken place, it is just
as well to be acquainted with the latest edition.

British aspidiums are represented by the prickly
and soft shield ferns (A. aculeatum and A. angu-
lar e), which are very generally to be found wher-
ever ferns naturally grow. These have sported
into a vast number of beautiful variations, and
have become favourite pot plants, some of which are
proliferous, producing tiny plants from bulbils on
the fronds, by which they can readily be increased.
Shield ferns are often spreading rather than up-
right in habit, and, with their brown chaffy scales
and crested and feathery fronds, are exceedingly
handsome in some of the best forms. Being quite
hardy and strong-growing as well as evergreen,
they are amongst the best for outdoor ferneries.
By the unlearned, shield ferns may be distinguished
from buckler ferns, of which the common male
fern, which they somewhat resemble, is the most
familiar example, by the way in which the young
fronds turn back and unfold their points from
without, whereas the male fern uncurls the tips
of its growing fronds from the inner surface. The
holly fern (A. lonchitis) belongs also to the shield
ferns, and is always a favourite, though not so easy
to establish as some of the others.

Spleenworts (Asplenium) include the lady fern,
of which there are more than a hundred variations,
M

178 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

some of the plumose sports being amongst the
most elegant of hardy ferns, but they are not
ever green. The " French fern " of the florists,
and the pretty little maidenhair spleenwort, which
grows in spreading rosettes on moist walls and
banks in Devon and Cornwall and elsewhere, are
also aspleniums, which will show how varied may
be the species belonging to the self-same genus.

Hard fern (Lomaria spicant) is found on damp
peaty soil in woods and moors, and has shining
brown stalks and leathery, toothed fronds, unlike
other British ferns. The spore-bearing fronds,
which are long and feather-like, rise up in the
centre of the tuft and give it an air of distinction.

Buckler ferns, as said above, are best known in
the common male fern (Nephrodium felix mas)
which though not so delicately graceful as the
lady fern is as beautiful in its own way, and,
being evergreen, is almost more useful — indeed,
it is everybody's fern. Of this, too, there are
many garden forms. The broad buckler fern (AT.
dilitatum) is another well-known and elegant wild
fern, most worthy of cultivation; but this species
dies down in winter.

The royal fern (Osmunda regalis) is familiar to
most people, and is found in boggy places in
various parts of Great Britain. It is often called
the flowering fern, because the spores are not borne
on the back of the fruiting frond in the usual
way, but on separate stems, which have some re-
semblance to spikes of flowers in bud. There are
a few crested and forked varieties, but none are
finer than the stately normal form.

FERNS 179

The common polypody is often to be seen grow-
ing on the branches of oaks, as well as on moist
banks or even on damp walls, and is green during
the winter but withers up in hot dry weather.
There are some beautiful sports of this fern ; for
example, the Welsh polypody (P. cambrica). Two
very favourite small ferns, the oak and the beech
ferns, come under the head of polypodies.

Brake fern is the only British pteris, and it often
comes as a surprise that the ribbon ferns of our
greenhouses, which are called pteris by every
costermonger nowadays, should be so closely re-
lated to the common brake of the woodland; but
the essential points are the same, for in all ferns
the distinguishing feature of each group is to be
found in the arrangement and position of the spore
cases. In pteris the spores come under the rolled
back edges of the fruiting fronds, whether these
are ribbon-like or broken up into many small pin-
nules or divisions.

Hart's tongues, which are, perhaps, the best-
known of all British ferns, and need no descrip-
tion, have on the contrary slanting bars of spore
cases across their fronds on the under side. Of
all ferns this seems to vary most, into forked and
crested and fluted forms, though none exceed in
beauty the long dark-green fronds of the ordinary
hart's tongue, as it may be seen growing on wet
rocks or on the moist hedgerow banks of a Devon-
shire lane.

Under these few heads will be found most of
the ferns which can be cultivated with ease in the
open air. Among the more difficult may be

i8o GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

reckoned the true maidenhair (Adiantum capil-
lus veneris) and the sea spleenwort (Asplenium
marinum), both of which are occasionally to be
met with on damp rocks or sea caves in Ireland
or the extreme south-west of England, but can
hardly be called hardy ferns, though they can
be grown under partial shelter specially contrived.

The parsley fern (Crypto gramme crispa) luxuri-
ates in stony, mountainous districts in the north,
but only rarely succeeds well under garden condi-
tions. The elegant little bladder fern (Cystopteris
fragilis) adapts itself more easily to a damp rockery
and is often quite at home at the foot of a wall.

The curious little adder's tongue, which is found
in great abundance in some pasture fields in the
west of England, is fairly amenable, but its rarer
cousin, moonwort, is not to be tamed as easily.
« Of foreign ferns there are not a great number
that are generally useful out of doors; but atten-
tion may be called to two or three of great beauty.
The North American maidenhair (Adiantum ped-
atum) is a delicately beautiful fern, but quite
hardy, thriving in moist, peaty soil. It grows
abundantly in damp Canadian woods, where I have
found it companying with the white Trinity flower
(Trillium grandiflorum) and yellow dog's-tooth
violets (Erythronium americanum) and the pretty
hooded arum, which is familiarly called Jack in
the pulpit. The spreading semicircular fronds of
this bird's foot maidenhair crown the shining dark
stems, which are about a foot high ; and it should
be given a place wherever it is possible by every
fern-lover. Being deciduous, it is safe in winter,

FERNS 181

but requires a sheltered nook, free from draught,
in order to develop its fronds in summer.

The fine ostrich-feather fern (Struthiopteris ger-
manica) is one of the flowering ferns so-called,
and of very different habit from the last. It is
not hard to establish, and is well suited to positions
where there is ample room to show off its hand-
some shuttlecock-like proportions. There are a
few other foreign ferns available for the outdoor
fernery ; but a fine lomaria (L. chilensis) may com-
plete the present list. It is of somewhat stiff habit,
but forms a grand contrast to other ferns, and is
generally evergreen. A very severe winter may cut
it to the ground, but fresh fronds come up in spring.

It is not always easy in ordinary gardens to
find the right position for ferns. They may some-
times be planted, either singly or in groups, with
good effect in sheltered borders associated with
flowering plants; or they may find a suitable posi-
tion on a low rock bed; but the fashion of lump-
ing a number of species together on rock-work
in some neglected, out-of-the-way corner of the
garden is happily passing away. It is not often
that a glen with a rushing stream is to be found
within two minutes' walk of the garden walls;
though I happen to know of just such a spot, where
all kinds of ferns luxuriate in the most picturesque
way on the steep rocky banks, and almost under
the misty spray of a natural waterfall.

It is quite true that a fern will occasionally grow
and look well where nothing else will succeed,
and also that it will often take up quarters for
itself which no one would suppose to be congenial

i8a GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

to its wants. But probably all fern-lovers will
agree that the best situation will always be one
which comes nearest to that which is natural to
any particular species which may be in question.
Shield ferns are often found growing on drier
banks than suit the majority of their kindred.
Osmunda likes a moist situation, but prefers its
crowns to be above water-line. The male fern is
often found growing out of a ha-ha wall ; but the
earth behind it is always more or less damp. The
finest broad buckler ferns and lady ferns are to be
sought for low down within the sheltering sides
of a wet ditch. I have even heard of a fern walk
which was constructed somewhat after the pattern
of an adit — the horizontal entrance to a mine — with
deep sides to give protection from wind.

Thus ferns may be used in many delightful
ways, to fringe the water side, or planted along
the verges of a coppice ride; sometimes in the
bay of a shrubbery border, or in hollows or nooks
amongst shelving rocks or stones, according to
their stature; and sometimes it may be possible
to plan a fern glade or dell. They will look well,
in fact, in any position where they may seem to
have taken up their abode without asking leave.
But, of all plants, ferns are the least suitable for
formal arrangements, and, if practicable, should
be planted, far from dust and disturbing draughts,
in cool, moist spots where their exquisite greenery
may reach to the utmost perfection; and yet, so
accommodating are they that fine specimens may
often be seen growing in the unlikely quarters of
a dry and dusty London area.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GARDEN OF HERBS

" GARDENING is of few years' standing in England,
and therefore not deeply rooted nor well under-
stood. About fifty years ago, about which time
Ingenuities began to flourish . . . this Art of
Gardening began to creep into England, into Sand-
wich and Surrey, Fulham and other places. Some
old men in Surrey, where it flourisheth very much
at present, report; — That they knew the first gar-
diners that came into those parts to plant Cabages,
Colleflowers, and to sow Turneps, Garrets, and
Parsnips, to sow Raith (or early ripe) Peas, Rape,
all which at that time were great rarities, we having
few or none in England but what came from Hol-
land and Flanders." This was written in 1651,
when the lost art had once more come to life ; and
to hap upon a passage like this, quoted with all
its quaint spelling, from an old author, sets one
thinking, with a grateful heart, of present-day
blessings.

A chronicle of English gardening would be want-
ing indeed without some allusion to one of its
most important aspects, the culture of vegetables;
but it is with its private rather than with its public
phase that we are here concerned.

183

184 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

The synonym for a kitchen garden in olden
days was the herb garden ; but this passed away,
and left behind it the more prosaic name for future
generations to use. True, man is by nature a
1 * cooking animal," and much addicted to gastro-
nomy, and there is no occasion to be ultra " nice "
in our modes of speech, which is very mistaken
refinement; but for all that there is a ring about
the name as of that which is common and to be
put out of sight, which ought not to be. For
while the kitchen garden is, materially, of greater
moment, if possible, to our physical well-being
than the flower garden, it lacks nothing in essence
of the same spiritual beauty.

A well-ordered kitchen garden is, in truth, one
of the great luxuries of life. Happily it is one
of those luxuries which may be shared, in some
measure, by rich and poor alike. For the author
of the " Garden of Epicurus " was right when he
wrote, " All things out of a garden either of salads
or fruits, a poor man will eat better, that has one
of his own, than a rich man that has none." But
I would fain add that the luxury is one not of
eating merely, important as that may be and is,
but also of the seeing eye. One can scarcely pass
through a kitchen garden in full production without
a sense of content and satisfaction in the beautiful
vegetable forms to be seen in every direction, quite
apart from any prospect of culinary usefulness. I
do not now speak of the magnificent frosted silver
leafage of globe artichoke, or the green plumes of
asparagus, of the rosy down of ripening peach or
bloom of purple plum, which appeal to most of

THE GARDEN OF HERBS 185

us; but of lowlier things. The wondrous beauty
of the dewdrop resting in the waxen curves of
red cabbage blades, the filigree network of savoy,
so good to look at, the fresh grey-green of pea
stems and tendrils, the fixed bayonets of sentinel
leeks keeping guard, undaunted, in coldest winter,
the crimson lustre of beet, the tints of feathery car-
rot in autumn, the exquisite grace of fennel — all
these and a score of others lie in wait, in the sim-
plest garden, to arrest the eye and waken thoughts
of beauty. Did not the sculptor-artist of fair Mel-
rose find inspiration in such wise, for some of the
loveliest carving of pillar and cloister, from the
crested coleworts of the kailyard ? We all acknow-
ledge the charm of these common everyday things
when we notice them ; but more often we forget
to look, and thereby lose much joy and uplifting
above the drudgery of life.

The progenitors of many of our ordinary garden
vegetables are to be found to this day growing
wild on our shores, or in fields and waste lands ;
but there are scarcely any, as has been said before
in these pages, for the culinary knowledge of which
we are not indebted to foreign intuition. Not only
does the original cabbage grow on sea cliffs of the
south and west English coast, and carrot and pars-
nip in fields and chalky banks, but celery and
asparagus and sea kale — those choicer dainties —
are simply native plants brought under cultivation,
though we English had not the wit to find out
their worth for ourselves.

Besides water cress and mushrooms there is only
one other native English plant, a kind of perennial

186 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

spinach, known to me as being commonly used
in some parts of England, notably in Lincolnshire,
under the name of Mercury ; and strangely enough,
for it is very good, that one is rejected on the
Continent. At least, I have more than once found
it growing wild abroad, and have pointed it out
as a good substitute for spinach ; but the sug-
gestion has always been, politely, indeed, but
coldly, received. Yet one cannot help thinking
that some of those worthy cloth weavers of Bra-
bant must have made the discovery that it was
fit for food, and bequeathed the knowledge to their
English hosts. In the same way our field mush-
room finds no favour abroad, while many kinds
of fungus, especially in Italy, which we should
scarcely venture to taste, are common articles of
food — though it is true that they are offered for
sale only after strict municipal supervision.

In spite of the quotation from the " Legacy of
Husbandry" given above, there is scarcely a
vegetable now grown that was not known to
Parkinson, which shows what strides had been
made in gardening within a short period ; but his
was no common garden, and he himself was much
in advance of his time. It is rather a curious fact,
so strong has insular prejudice always been, that
many of those in common use to-day had to serve
a long probation before being received into favour
— potatoes, for example, and Jerusalem artichokes.
Of quite late years some have admitted sorrel into
their gardens, and have learned to blanch chicory
for salads — barbe de capucin and witloef, as our
French and Belgian neighbours call it, accord-

THE GARDEN OF HERBS 187

ing to their different modes of culture. Yet of the
first, Parkinson says that it is a " herbe so common
and the use so well known both for sawce and to
season broths and meates for the sound as well as
sick persons that I shall not need to say anie more
thereof " ; and of succorie and endive that both
were " whited in the frame for sallets."

Some attempts have been made in modern times
to introduce new vegetables. Knol-kohl, the
chourave of the French, is one of these which was
much advertised when it was first suggested as
food for man as well as cattle. It is really valu-
able as coming, in somewhat different form, mid-
way between cabbage and turnip, and also for its
preference for dry soils and seasons, which makes
it specially suitable for some localities; but it has
never taken much hold of British inclinations.
Celeriac, again, though familiar enough in Ger-
many, is comparatively little grown in England,
perhaps from a tiresome habit of losing its bulbous
stem, and reverting to the ordinary form of celery.
It is excellent, however, when well grown, and the
nearest substitute we can get in our climate for
finocchio, that Italian fennel whose swollen leaf
bases make such an appetising morsel for those
who do not dislike its very pronounced flavour.
Some years ago another curious plant, Stachys
tuberifera, was announced from Japan, which pro-
duces quantities of small white tubers on creeping
stems. In France these are called " crosnes," and
are fairly pleasant to the taste, though not so good
as the underground artichoke; but it has never
become popular. No foreign introduction, call it

i88 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

fruit or vegetable as you will, of more recent times,
except perhaps the banana, has been adopted by
popular consent so readily as the tomato. From
being a questionable delicacy occasionally to be
seen on the tables of educated and travelled folk,
tomatoes, after a short interval of aloofness, have
come in the course of a decade or two to be food
for the million.

One kind of " salleting " which was formerly in
great request has probably dropped entirely out
of cultivation — a certain umbelliferous plant, Siiim
sisarum, the tuberous roots of which were known
as skirrets, and were " boyled^, peeled and pithed
and eaten cold with vinegar and oyle." Skirrets,
like parsnips, have a peculiar sweetness which, it
is said, recommended them as a special dainty to
the Emperor Tiberius. I have sometimes looked
through seed catalogues for this old-fashioned
plant, but without success, as for curiosity's sake
it would make a good addition to the herb garden.

Herbs, in our modern acceptation of the term,
are too much neglected nowadays ; and an interest-
ing collection might be made, which would always
be an attractive corner of a kitchen garden to those
who like to recall old-time associations. Mint and
sage and lemon thyme, with parsley, make up the
chief sum of pot herbs in ordinary use. The
French grow many more of these savoury things
for " garniture " than we do — a good example
which is always being set before us, but seldom
followed.

A long list might be made of the herbs that
were commonly grown in the seventeenth century

THE GARDEN OF HERBS 189

either for physic or for cookery, though the very
names of many of them have now passed out of
memory, and are only looked up now and then
by a lover of antiquated garden lore. Who cares
now to find out what costmary may be, which used
to be common in every farmhouse garden ? or
maudeline ? or asarabacca ?

Rosemary and lavender ranked high in olden
days in the herb garden. Of the last there were
several varieties — our ordinary lavender and the
white-flowered sort ; the dwarf lavender, which
grew in his majesty's private garden of White-
hall and was prized above the common ; sticadoue,
or French lavender, which " we keep with great
care in our gardens"; and Santolina, different
altogether, and belonging to another order, but
known by the old English name of lavender cotton.
Lavender was never a culinary herb ; but rose-
mary to this day is used by French cooks as the
appropriate seasoning for poulet a la casserole.
Of true pot herbs, so to speak, there were basill
and savourie and mangold, common and lemon
thyme, and "that guilded or embroidered sort
which will not abide our winters." Fennel and
sweet cicely (chervill), smallage and alisanders —
a comestible that was something bitter, and especi-
ally set apart for Lent — clary and tarragon, balm
and hyssop, the double variety of which has " the
aptnesse to be ordered as the keeper pleaseth," and
so can be clipped and set to border a knot of
herbs or flowers; burnet and tansy and lang de
beefe, which was none other than our wild rough-
leaved ox-tongue, borage and bugloss, purslane,

GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

rampion, and chives — all these come to mind as
being used in some way or other either as season-
ing or salading.

The " physicall herbes to serve for the spe-
cial uses of a family " were many and varied.
Amongst these peppermint and horehound were
conspicuous, with dill and caraway, valerian and
French mallows, elecampane and chamomile, herb
of grace (which was rue) and liquorice. Others
there were, such as " dragons " (Arum dracun-
culus) and monk's rhubarb or patience — a kind
of dock — some of which may possibly have been
of more doubtful efficacy for the domestic medi-
cine chest. Amongst them all the "blessed
thistle " was sure to find a place, as a safe and
potent antidote against plague or other appalling
sickness.

Some of these quaint things, like the pretty Barn-
staple balm, might well be nurtured in gardens
to add old-world interest to them ; but especially
would I choose chamomile to grow over some edge
of a pathway. It is a herb which will " perfume
the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest,
but being trodden upon and crushed," though it
is not of the three — burnet, wild thyme, and water
mints — of which Bacon bids us "to set whole
alleys, to have the pleasure when you walk or
tread."

What shall be said of the fruits, which after all
are the crown and glory of the walled kitchen
garden ? Oh, luxury of garden luxuries ! with its
well-trained cherries and plums and peaches, its

THE GARDEN OF HERBS 191

espaliers of pippins and pears, its goodly rows
of raspberries and currants, its gooseberries and
its strawberry beds, its broad borders of homely
flowers half-veiling the rest of its comfortable
equipment — the kitchen garden that we have known
and loved so well in the merry, happy days of
unwitting childhood — what need to dwell upon its
delights ! Surely there is poetry enough of yester-
day, to-day, and to-morrow within its walls to waft
the thoughts above the mere grovelling of earth
into the pure atmosphere of thanksgiving for the
solace and beauty and grace of the common things
of life !

PART III

N

PART III

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR

" A garden is a beautiful book, writ by the
finger of God; every flower and every leaf is a
letter. You have only to learn them — and he is
a poor dunce that cannot, if he will, do that — to
learn them and join them, and then to go on read-
ing, and you will find yourself carried away from
the earth to the skies by the beautiful story you
are going through. You do not know what beau-
tiful thoughts — for they are nothing short — grow
out of the ground, and seem to talk to a man."

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

SPRINGTIDE

THE perfection of gardening was once happily
defined as the skill which so plans its result that
" it looks, not as if it had been done, but as if
it had happened." To shadow, in some slight
degree, what may " happen " in a garden, with
right forecasting, at the different seasons of the
year, is the thought which is intended to thread
together these concluding pages.

The birthday of spring in England is a question
everyone has to settle for himself. The authorities
fix the 2ist of March; but if a festival so variable
must be fixed at all, the old folks' choice of Valen-
tine's day is perhaps as seasonable as any, for

195

196 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

life is surely beginning to spring anew in the
green things of the earth by the middle of Febru-
ary. Besides, it sets a reasonable date for the
incoming of the rest of the seasons as they follow.

Spring spreads a carpet of tender, beautiful
colouring under our feet, and thus seems to fore-
show what should be our plan for the garden in
the early months of the year. We do not then
pine for rarity so much as plenty. The brown
earth has been bare for so long, we have so dili-
gently admired the tracery of the leafless boughs
through restful weeks, that we weary now to see
them clad once more in their fresh young green.
After the sombre neutral tints of winter, the eyes
crave for brightness and richer hues ; but, as if
it were better for us not to be ushered too sud-
denly into light and glory, pale harbingers come
to lead the way into more flowery paths. It is
a late season, indeed, if snowdrops are not hanging
their modest heads amongst their blue-green blades
by mid-February.

Now, to enjoy snowdrops to the full, as we all
know, they should be naturalised. The verges of
a woodland walk, an old-fashioned wilderness, an
orchard where they can peep out of the grass —
are ideal spots for them ; but a little thought will
generally suggest some vacant bank or hedge side
— anywhere rather than a set border, which is
the last place to choose — where they may be left
in peace to take possession, and reappear, like old
friends, year after year. Wherever a beginning is
made, with a view to establishing them, the plant-
ing should be done not later than September, in

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 197

little groups of six or seven bulbs. I cannot tell
why, but I have noticed that snowdrops dotted
singly two or three inches apart do not multiply
quickly by offsets, while small clumps soon grow
into large ones, ready for dividing again as occa-
sion requires.

As with snowdrops, so with many of our best
spring flowers, they should be grown in masses ;
and it seems a good rule to follow, if the ideal
place or space is not at hand, or, at any rate,
a fair substitute for that ideal, to do without the
special plant we covet, and to choose some other
that will fill the niche we have to offer with satis-
faction to itself and all concerned. After all, it
will not involve much self-denial, for there are so
many not less beautiful which may " happen."

No doubt we all hold with Bacon that " in the
royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gar-
dens for all the months of the year " ; but that
would be royal gardening indeed. Manor-house
pleasaunces of the olden days had many nooks
and corners fenced in with yew or hornbeam, and
sometimes " my ladye's garden " was surrounded
by massive walls of brick or stone and barred
from ruder entrance by a closed gateway. But
the bedding-out system, amongst other enormities,
contrived to do away with much of the taste for
that secluded charm to which, happily, we are
now reverting. Not that space is to be decried,
nor breadth of level lawns, with ample room for
trees to grow and spread without restriction into
their own beautiful and characteristic forms. But
there is nothing more delightful than to wander

198 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

away from these into unsuspected retreats, and to
find in each some entirely new feature. For, sad
to say, even a garden may become monotonous,
and lose something of its enticement, if the whole
is to be seen at one glance.

Spring is, perhaps, of all the seasons, that one
for which, in most gardens, it might be possible
to set apart some sheltered spot where winter and
spring might indeed meet and join hands. One
would have it, by preference, screened by a wind-
break of some kind, whether wall or belt of shrub-
bery and trees, on north and east; or hedged
about and lighted up through the dark months with
the steadfast cheer of holly, by choice — a standard
being left here and there, to give winter glow of
berries; but a quick-set hedge, with a sweetbrier
or two hidden within it to scent the air when April
showers fall, is warm, too, and cosy ; or hornbeam
or beech or arbor vitae — what you will.

There is scarcely a doubt that shelter is one, if
not the most, important factor in the well-being
of any garden, but especially in the early part
of the year. Frost is an enemy, but not so un-
relenting an enemy as strong wind; and this we
do not always recognise as we might. The wind-
swept isles of Scilly would grow little beyond their
native gorse — which, by the way, is never more
golden-bright than there — were it not for the net-
work of evergreen hedges and barriers of rock
which interpose to protect the plantations of daffo-
dils and tender Australasian shrubs and South
African aloes and crassulas which are the glory
of the famous gardens of Tresco Abbey. As it

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 199

is in the early months, then, that we suffer most
from cutting winds, the question of shelter for a
spring garden should receive fullest consideration.

It may be that our spring garden is a snug
quadrangle, three sides enclosed and bounded on
the fourth by a thin belt of trees. The planting
of such a garden should be of the latest and the
earliest, to make it at once a pleasant shelter to
seek on a winter's day and a trysting place where
we may wait and watch for spring. A few good
shrubs should be there; perhaps, in favourable
localities, a camellia or two, of the delightful semi-
double kinds, like C. reticulata or C. Donckelaari,
looking northwards, for they like shade and also,
though quite hardy in the south, they prefer to
be guarded, by low-growing shrubs in front of
them, from keen winds, which do more harm to
their stems and roots than to leaves and branches.

Amongst other shrubs might be named, for win-
ter effect, the Calif ornian tassel bush (Garry a
eliptica), which in favourable situations will dis-
pense with a wall, or some of the quite hardy
bright-berried trees and shrubs — spindle trees
(Euonymus europceus and E. latifolia), the per-
sistent pink fruits of which open, flower-like, on
bare branches in late autumn ; or Skimmia For-
tunei; or even, as a low-growing bush to break
a too level surface, Cotoneaster microphylla, with
its crimson berries. Here, " in the lew," the
russet autumn buds of laurustinus would change
into milk-white flowers less tardily than in more
open positions, to gladden cloudy weather, for
there is no shrub that responds to shelter more

200 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

readily, and it may be found in flower from Decem-
ber to May in different parts of the garden, accord-
ing to aspect. Here, too, it would be worth while
to plant the Kaffir flag (Schizostylis coccinea) in
some quantity, for its cheerful crimson spikes will
often last beyond the turn of the days in favourable
seasons. At any rate, Christmas roses would clus-
ter thick through frost-proof leaves, and the winter
heaths grow rosy as January wanes.

By that time a group of the low-growing Mag-
nolia stellata would be getting ready with promise
of white starry flowers to come in April, and here
too the Algerian iris (/. stylosa), forgetting its
native sunshine, would deign to deck a warm cor-
ner of an English garden with its delicate pencil-
ling of pure soft lilac.

And here, one day, wrhen we have hardly begun
to look forward to milder weather, we may come
quite suddenly upon colonies of winter aconites
lifting up their little frilled collars, and notice that
the bees are waking up, for a few are blundering
in and out, in a weak, dreamy way, amongst the
first white flowers of Harbinger primroses, until,
tired of finding so little spoil, they go off in despair
to the fragrant winter honeysuckle, which beckons
them afar to the snug haven in which it is anchored.

After that spring comes in apace. For lo ! the
winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth ;
the time of the singing of birds is come.

All down the pathways on sunny days there is
a sheen of purple and gold and silver-white of
wide-open crocuses. The double primroses which
crowd under the shade of the rosemary bushes, a

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 201

spot just to their liking, are all bristling with
buds, and March will see them unfold their dainty
little rosettes of lilac and white and sulphur. Great
cushions of aubrietia, broidered in purple and crim-
son, overflow upon the gravel pathways. The
earliest daffodils, the big old-fashioned double ones,
shine out like burnished metal against the greenery,
but they are soon outflanked by a phalanx of the
single trumpets and stars and coronets of their
less plebeian kindred. In March and April the
deep violet and orange of the netted iris (/. reticu-
lata) comes to rejoice our hearts; and if we are
iris-lovers, probably many another of the fair sister-
hood will find a choice place in the spring garden ;
but these are not for everyone, capricious beauties
that they are. If we must needs be content, how-
ever, to do without great rarities — and let me
assure the enthusiastic tyro that the deprivation
is not unmitigated woe — there are yet a hundred
flowers, easier to grow, which may be had almost
for the asking, that are no less enjoyable. Violets
surely will find a home ; some of the stray Czars
and Princesses of Wales, and even Marie Louise
and Neapolitans, which were not pounced upon
for the early frames ; and in some corner there
must be a small carpet of the meek little Russians,
which come so early, year after year, and fill the
air with sweetness. But there is rivalry as to
scents, for the orange and velvet-brown of wall-
flowers greet us at every turn, and their fragrance,
in Bacon's immortal phrase, " comes and goes, like
the warbling of music." Corners may be well
rounded off by a planting of the thick-leaved saxi-

202 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT . ,

frage, so handsome in its tinted winter leafage,
so welcome in spring, with its curious mingling
of pink flowers upheld by vivid scarlet stems.

There is plenty of space in the spring garden
for many bulbs. The graceful, nodding fritillaries,
native wild flowers though they be, are so prettily
quaint in their chequered livery that we cannot
do without them or their less frequent white and
sulphur-coloured comrades. Only a few people
grow the fine Cilician species, F. aurea, whose
solid golden bells are only slightly flecked with
black, and droop upon stems scarcely six inches
high ; but it is a very precious bulb, and quite
hardy, and might well be admitted to a place in
our spring garden, for we are supposing that this
spring garden is devoted to the purpose, and will
not have much disturbance or replanting during
the rest of the year, except perhaps from the judi-
cious introduction of a few annuals by and by.

There are a good many blue-eyed bulbs that
flower about the same time in early spring — squills
of various sorts and chionodoxas, with their equally
if not more cumbersome English name of glory
of the snow. These scillas are more difficult to
place rightly than almost any other bulbs. Their
shades of blue will not even agree to differ. S.
sibirica, with its vivid metallic tone, for instance,
must not be seen within speaking distance of the
softer hue of S. bifolia. But in such a spring
garden there would be room enough and to spare
for little colonies of the different species at opposite
poles, where they need never come into collision.

It is easy to run through the list of favourite

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 203

spring flowers — alyssum and double arabis, forget-
me-not and cluster primroses, with their infinite
variety and gradation of colour, crown imperials,
early tulips, anemones, Solomon's seal, and many
more. To take the place of these a little later
on room should certainly be found in a sheltered
garden of the kind for groups of the choicer
pseonies. There are some beautiful forms of the
old-fashioned herbaceous paeony, which are quite
independent of shelter, and whose place is else-
where. It is the montan or tree pasony, that will
repay a little kind protection with noblest mien of
leaf and flower when the three months of spring
are passing by.

Alas, it is not everywhere that a spring garden
of this kind can be set apart, nor a wild garden
where the lovely heralds of the year which we
have been counting up can be made to happen
as they will ; but there is still another way. It
is not seldom, even in the gardens of smaller
country houses, that we find a stretch of grass lying
idle beyond the lawn, or on the verge of tennis
court or bowling green, which cannot be kept in
the fine order required for the lawn itself. Here
is the very spot to plant drifts of crocus and snow-
flakes, star of Bethlehem and blue Apennine ane-
mones, fritillaries, early daffodils, or Spanish and
English blue bells — all common early bulbs, in
fact, which live their brief life and soon disappear.
The mowing can be left a while till no harm can
be done by the scythe, and from March to May
the meadow garden would give untold delight.

But all too soon spring melts away — gone whilst

204 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

we find ourselves still saying "It is coming," and
we are gliding imperceptibly into summer. Before
we know it we have arrived at the parting of the
ways. Listen ! does not the happy hum of life
resound in the air, like the distant fanfare of trum-
pets, proclaiming the coronation of a new queen of
flowers ?

MIDSUMMER GLORY

APPLE blossom is letting fall its fading pink and
white; lilac and the "streaming gold" of labur-
num are passing by ; hawthorns, with their crim-
son and pink and pearl a little tarnished, are
beginning to set to work on more serious business.
Spring has emptied her treasures on the earth.
It seems peculiarly fitting that the gorgeous
oriental poppies should usher in the fulness of
summer when, towards the end of May, they burst
into their magnificence of deep scarlet and orange.
Herbaceous borders, which should be the pride
of all gardens in June, are then becoming every
day more rich in colour.

There are many modes for the effective arrange-
ment of herbaceous plants. Sometimes they are
grouped in beds — tall-growing delphiniums in one,
Chinese pasonies by themselves in another, chim-
ney campanulas in a third — and with plants which
remain in bloom for a considerable time, and under
certain conditions of unlimited space and limited
requirements, such a scheme has its merits. It
may be said to belong rather to the garden which
is left in the hands of the professional gardener,

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 205

who has a multitude of cultural details pressing
upon him at once and in various directions, rather
than to that which is in the loving care and
thoughts of a leisured and inspired owner. Some-
times a long length of shrubbery border skirts a
drive where numberless herbaceous plants are used
to utmost advantage, giving scope for the most
advanced experience and good taste. But it may
be a question, after all, whether the old homely
plan of having a broad border of flowers on each
side of the central path of a kitchen garden is
not as enjoyable a way as any. It is a plan open
alike to the most prince-like of gardens or to the
humble farmhouse, and the very homeliness gives
it a charm of its own which may be lacking to
more ambitious efforts. Can any sight be more
alluring than the vista of the flower-decked path
framed in the gateway of a well-appointed kitchen
garden ?

The best plants for the hardy flower borders are
known to most people nowadays — the taller lark-
spurs and hollyhocks and heleniums for back-
ground, oriental and other poppies, the beautiful
varieties of Chinese paeon ies, eryngiums, the more
easily grown lilies, like the Madonna and Nankeen,
the tiger and the saffron lilies, alstrcemerias, aqui-
legias, campanulas, fraxinella, lupines, and ox-
eye daisies of different sorts. It would be easy
enough to fill pages with the names of fine her-
baceous plants for different purposes. What is
not easy is to marshal all these diversities of form
and habit and varied hue into such order as will
satisfy every sense — for while flowers of any kind

206 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

can hardly fail to possess some intrinsic beauty,
hap-hazard planting may take much of it away.

A few brief words taken from a paper read
before the Royal Horticultural Society on the sub-
ject of " The Arrangement of the Flower Border,"
are so full of helpful teaching in garden art that
they cannot be too often recalled to mind, and I
feel sure that I shall be forgiven for repeating them
here.

" An essential feature in a garden of hardy
flowers is a well-arranged mixed border. It is here
that we can show the true summer flowers at their
best, but it is here, more than anywhere else,
that the ' art of many sacrifices ' must be put in
practice. For the main spaces plants should be
chosen of bold and striking beauty, but as a bor-
der of all large plants would have a kind of mono-
tony, certain spaces, chiefly towards the front, but
also running back in many parts among groups
of taller things, should be planted with those of
lower growth. . . . Each kind of plant in a mixed
border should stand in a bold group, and the
groups, differing in size and shape, according to
the aspect of the plant, should follow one another
in a carefully arranged sequence of colour, keeping
plants of a colour together, such as mulleins with
CEnotheras, and Tritoma with Oriental poppy. In
the case of the last named it is convenient to actu-
ally intergroup the two kinds, for the foliage of
the Poppies dies away early and the blank space
it would have left becomes covered by the later-
growing leaves of the autumn-blooming Tritoma.
Groups of red, orange, and strong yellow follow

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 207

well, and help each other by forming a rich colour
harmony. Flowers of a strong blue colour, like
Delphiniums, seem to ask for a contrast, such as
that of white Lilies, or the pale yellow of (Enothera
lamarckiana and Verbascum phlomoides, the best
of the Mulleins."

These are general principles which it would be
well for everyone who contemplates the planting of
a mixed border thoroughly to grasp, and to work
out for himself in their practical bearings. The
' ' art of many sacrifices " is no mere phrase ; its
reality and necessity ought to be writ large upon
the experience of most plant-lovers, whose perennial
temptation it seems to be to include all beautiful
things in border arrangements without due regard
to environment.

Perhaps in the eager desire for glow and colour
we are a little unmindful of the value of foliage.
Yet it is wanted in the herbaceous border no less
than in the conservatory or in any other part of
the garden where the grouping of plants forms
part of the design. A fine effect may be made
here and there by rosemary or by a well-grown
clump of the common Indian corn with its sug-
gestion of warmth and sunshine, or even a plant
or two of the graceful annual hemp or the fennel-
like foliage of cosmos-, while the stateliness of
plantings of yucca, even when they do not flower,
cannot be surpassed. The different species of ac-
anthus, too, and especially A. spinosissimus, are
invaluable for border greenery, while for a different
sort of foliage effect the silver-grey of globe arti-
choke, and lavender, of achillea, notably A. cegypti-

208 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

aca, of cerastium, and othonnopsis, and others,
according to habit, may serve to great advantage.

Hardy flowers have an important part to play
in the later year as well as in summer, and this
has always to be borne in mind at planting time ;
but what a wide difference, plan it as we may,
between June and September ! The scarlet and
purple and orange of autumn are vivid, more
dazzling far than most of the summer tints ; never-
theless we do well to speak of midsummer glory.
For it is of the freshness of youth and beauty at
its floodtide, the high hope of manhood in its
first flush of strength, that our thoughts are full,
though we scarcely know it, as we come upon one
lovely flower after another and read its parable.

That pathway in- the well-remembered kitchen
garden — can we not all recall some memory of
the kind ? — where clumps of old-fashioned pinks,
none so sweet, ran over the border edge and
encroached upon the gravel with their spreading
cushions of white and pink; where little beds of
gentianella crept close to the front, laying a green
carpet between the pinks, and in June bristling
with brown seed spikes to show the wealth that
had been ; where, in their stead, came shrubby
tufts of gromwell, studded thick with its own
gentian blue, and opening fair to the sunshine that
it loves. Blue was rife in that summer border of
the dreamland of long ago, for the tall larkspurs
at the back showed many a variety of shade, from
deepest Oxford to palest Cambridge colours, in
their towering spires. We had not attained then
to the iridescent tints of the present day ! Here

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 209

and there June lupines, less ambitious than the
larkspurs, with delicate fingered leaves, held up
spikes of amethyst ; and in July the Italian alkanet
— the Dropmore variety had not yet found itself —
gave a brilliant revival of the favourite colour. Yet
there were others beside blue flowers. As one
looked along the line, groups of lovely pasonies,
blush-tinted, or cream, or purely white, held up
their dainty heads, and a great tree lupine which
filled up a corner hard by, as evening drew slowly
on seemed almost to flicker with lambent light.
There were plenty of daisy flowers — pyrethrums,
chrysanthemums of the moon-daisy sort, lilac sten-
actis, and white marguerites, most cheery and
heartening of all, to enliven that border, and nestle
up against silver-leaved cardoons and lavender.
How tempting it was sometimes to pull off the
spotted cones of the trailing cenotheras, and set
free the pale primrose or filmy white of their folded
petals long before the westering sun gave leave;
or, in morning hours, how pretty to watch the
green mantle gently fall apart to release the
crumpled silk of the French poppies ! For in such
surroundings the heart sings as we go lightly from
flower to flower, and even the old feel young as
they greet the friends of many summers and learn
to love some that are new.

To fill up the cup of midsummer delights come
the roses. The tiny buff bouquets of the Banksias
lead the way, where they can cling to the shelter
of house or wall ; and these are followed by one
of the loveliest single roses of early summer, the
pink-cupped R. sinica anemone. But these are

2io GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

not strictly midsummer roses, though they linger
on with us often until the longest day, that
pathetic day when we realise that the flowing tide
of summer glory must soon ebb, and leave us with
dwindling days and darkening evenings.

But it is high summer yet, and we forget that
it is passing while roses are in their heyday and
we are watching and waiting for the slow-paced
ramblers to enter into possession of pillar and per-
gola in July. Surely one of the greatest boons
that has come to our gardens of late years is in
the successional character and grace of the newer
roses. There is scarcely a day from May to De-
cember on which we may not gather a bunch of
one kind or another. And many ways of using
roses are now open to us, made possible by their
varied habits — from the compact low-growing
edging kinds of the polyantha race to the climbers
with wands of twenty feet in height, which were
not brought to the same perfection in years gone
by.

Summer, assuredly, is the time of fruition and
keenest enjoyment in the flower garden. We are
reaping now what we have sown in the past, and
the harvest is rich. But, even so, there is some
work to be done as we look forward. Opportunities
must be seized as they come, for lose the moment
and the year is lost.

Yet gather we roses while we may, for summer
wanes, its flowers are fading, its glory is passing
by.

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 211

AFTERMATH

THE dust of August lies thick on the full leafage,
which tells already of the glare and stress of a
day that has passed high noon. The exuberance
has suddenly grown sedate. That short pause,
that sorrowful hush — have we not all felt it? —
has come when the genius of the garden stands,
with shaded eyes, looking after summer as she
goes to meet full-handed autumn. We miss the
song of the birds as they nested ; we look for the
flowers to gather as in the weeks that have fled
so quickly; but there are few. The merry frolic
is over, the year has grown middle-aged. But,
after all, there is an aftermath at hand.

In the twilight of an August evening, and more
precious then than if they came in June, the ivory-
white pinnacles of yucca, stateliest of its kind,
stand out from the dusky background, phantom-
like. The shortening days give occasion, which
otherwise might be altogether missed, to mark the
strange shimmer of white flowers in the gloaming.
They seem more purely white, more spiritual.
Then it is that the sheen of the white lily caps
of martagon is most ethereal, and the pale stars
of nicotiana take on a lustre never to be imagined
by light of day when the dull flowers droop. The
North American buck-eye (Pavia macrostachya),
beautiful as are its candelabra-like spires of flowers
in the full sunshine of an August day, might well
be planted solely for this lovely twilight effect.
And oenothera has also a peculiar beauty of her

212 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

own in the evening light ; but her primrose tint
just saves her from looking ghostly, though she,
too, only makes her curtsey to the lengthening
shadows.

Autumn does not give us many white flowers ;
rich warm colouring prevails. We have the purple
of clematis and gold of sunflowers, the scarlet of
salvia and lobelia and glowing salmon-reds of
cactus dahlias, the orange and velvet-brown of
African marigolds and coreopsis. Still, some paler
tints remain. The pink — or, by good luck, the
blue — of hydrangeas, the white Japan anemone,
the varied shades of gladiolus and the lilacs and
purples of meadow saffron and Michaelmas daisies
— for September is very fair, though it be with
the colours of the declining year, and rich with
the ripening fruit.

But autumn is more than fair; it is the time
to be up and doing. There is something other
than beauty to be admired. The hour has struck
for stern criticism of past work and for the making
of new resolutions. There is no time to fold the
arms and moan out regrets; mistakes have to be
noted that they may be rectified, new combina-
tions and alterations have to be thought out, re-
movals to be planned. There is a sort of stock
notion that if perennials are to be transplanted
it is proper to wait to do it in November. Not so
in the experience of most old gardeners. A vast
number of hardy plants flower and mature their
growth early, and can be removed and divided to
much better advantage in September, while the
earth is still warm enough to encourage root action,

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 213

so that firm foothold may be taken before ever
there is fear of frost either to grip or to loosen.
Many a plant meddled with in November has been
done to death by good intentions. Of course,
there are some so hardy that they may wait with
impunity, and without an anxious thought ; yet
even these do better with an earlier shift, when
practicable, to start with.

Autumn, too, early and late, brings the interest
of seed saving as well as, in many cases, of seed
sowing.

There are a great many seeds which are much
better left to those whose business it is to raise
them in experimental seed grounds, where rigorous
selection is carried on by skilled and competent
hands. All seeds, for example, of florist's flowers
— pansies, asters, and stocks, and the like — are of
this type. We may share by purchase, and it
should be ungrudgingly, in the fruits of their
labours ; for, as a rule, nothing is gained, and
only disappointment courted, by trying to save
such seeds ourselves. But, on the other hand>
seeds of rare shrubs, if they ripen well in a good
season, and of choice perennials or rock plants,
are always valuable, and in many cases, as in gen-
tian and anemone, the best success is only to be
attained when the seeds are sown as soon as ripe.
Watch should always be kept over self-sown seed-
lings, for fine varieties of plants have originated
in this way by chance in an amateur's garden
which have afterwards become established favour-
ites. Opportunities of saving and sowing seeds of
these different classes, and also of distributing

214 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

them when there are any to spare, should never
be allowed to slip.

Seeding plants, too, should be well looked after.
Where a very abundant crop is setting, the vigour
of the shrub or plant may be overtaxed, and it is
often advisable to remove half or even more of
the seed pods ; those that remain will ripen better
and the plant will be relieved of strain. Some-
times an overabundant flowering and seed setting
indicate that the vigour has already reached its
limit and that the plant is making its last supreme
effort. In this emergency, and especially in the
case of a rare or choice plant, every means should
be taken to perpetuate it. How many are the
vain regrets when it is too late and the old favourite
has gone beyond all hope of replacement ! In all
cases it is better to be prepared for untoward acci-
dent. A hard winter may come, unexpectedly, to
destroy the original stock of some valued posses-
sion, be it cistus, or veronica, or any other of
doubtful hardiness ; and then, if we have saved
seed or reared cuttings, we shall have reason to
rejoice in the fruits of forethought.

Scarcely enough use is made in English gar-
dens of the trees and shrubs which are rich in
autumn colour. Now is the time to mark vacant
places, or dull uninteresting spots, that might be
lighted up in time to come by judicious planting.
How seldom in parks or large gardens do we
see grand effects made by the brilliant colouring
of scarlet oak or sugar maple, the crimson of mes-
pilus, beautiful alike in the snow of spring or in
autumn leafage, the vivid tints of wild cherry or

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 215

Keiffer pear ? We may grow weary sometimes of
the constant reiteration of Virginian creeper,
though it is seldom that fault is found with it in
the season of its crimson glory ; but there are
vines, for example, Vitis Coignetice and the old
claret vine, and many shrubs, like the dwarf
Japanese maples, one or two of the barberries,
some of the sumachs (though it would be wiser
to leave out the beautiful but wicked poison oak),
liquid amber, and others, which are more rarely
used than might be, with this end in view.

Yet deck the autumn as we may, there is always
the sadness of decay and death in the fall of the
leaf. The symphony of the year is ending. Each
musician, as he finishes his part, closes his book
and puts out his light. One by one they silently
pass out, until the bandmaster, intent upon his
score, at length looks up and finds himself left
alone.

So with the gardener. The summer is gone, the
harvest is past, flowers are withered, the last leaf
is fluttering down. The moment seems filled with
unutterable melancholy.

But it is only for a moment, this inevitable de-
pression ; it will pass. The leaves will soon be
swept up, the litter removed, and we are heartened
once more. For look where we will, we are met
no longer by desolation, but by tokens of the life
that is to be.

WINTER'S REST
ACCORDING to the theorv that St Valentine ushers

216 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

in the springtide, St Martin should unlock the
gate to winter, and, on the favoured south coast,
it may be so reckoned ; but in many parts of the
country, not so very far northwards, it is St
Michael who lays a stern hand on autumn's shoul-
der and bids him begone.

That first sharp touch of frost, how sudden and
fell and needless it seems when it comes, blacken-
ing the dahlias and scorching the heliotrope, crush-
ing the nasturtiums under its relentless heel,
dealing out devastation without mercy or pity !
But it is better so. In mild localities do we not
see these half-hardy things, long after their beauty
is over, missing the sunshine, shivering in the
dank, raw fog from which we are never altogether
free in any part of our sea-girt land, yet lingering
on in misery waiting for the final stroke. And we
share their misery. When once the blow has fallen
and they are gone, a few calm days of Indian
summer, bright and warm and still, often come
to cheer us. It is then that the freshness of the
crimson spikes of the Kaffir flag take us by sur-
prise, and the first yellow stars of winter jessamine
shine out among the green leafless stems, and we
are grateful for the pretty half-opened buds of
pink China roses, and enjoy them all while we
may.

Then winter begins in earnest ; darkness falls
early, and by four o'clock in the dim afternoon the
invitation of blazing logs and the sunlight of acety-
lene, that modern boon of the country house, allures
us away from the slumbering garden.

But there is no gloom in winter. The bare

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 217

boughs of the trees are instinct still with beauty,
even though their yellowing leaves have floated
down the stream of Time. Their year's round
of duty has been fulfilled, the season for recruiting
has come, and it is good. The buds lie dormant,
but they are not hidden ; there they are, plainly
getting ready to start afresh when the call of the
rising sap bids them awake, and, meanwhile, we
do not grudge them their well-earned rest. It is
beneficent sleep, not death, that we mark in every
stately limb and curve of swaying bough and close-
packed bud, and we go on our way rejoicing in
hope.

It is in winter that we make fast friends with
the trees of the garden, and learn the idiosyncrasy
of each — the sweep of horse chestnut boughs and
their varnished gummy buds ; the knotted branch-
lets and rugged boles of the oaks; the drooping
spray of birches, where the witches hang their
broom-heads, and the white film of their flaking
bark; the grey wrinkled stems and black angled
buds of the ash ; the red twigs of lime. One never
knows a tree until one can call it by its name
in undress as well as in its familiar summer uni-
form. How much is lost of winter joy and interest
when the eye is not trained enough to detect the
difference between oak and elm, the silver birch
and the birch of the coppice, the beech and the
lime, the sycamore and the plane ; nor the ear
attuned to catch the notes of robin and wren, the
first pipe of blackbird or twitter of hedge sparrow
and chaffinch in the dawn of the early year !

To some temperaments winter is beyond measure

2i8 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

depressing. The dead calm of arrested life in the
dark months contrives, too often, to hold us in
its grip, even though the deciduous trees, to a
watchful eye, are never wholly asleep, but full of
hope. We may not realise that it is, in fact, owing
to the more, and not the less, complete suspension
of vital force during the resting time, that conifers
and other evergreen trees and shrubs are able to
hold their leaves when the others let them drop.
At any rate it is forgotten as we gladly turn to
the living green of pine and juniper, yew and box,
and to the exotic shrubs by which our native ever-
greens have been so largely supplemented, and
rejoice in their shelter and warmth.

Amongst them all none seems more precious and
full of the joy of living than our time-honoured
English holly. Health and vigour and alertness
are stamped upon it at all seasons; " dead calm "
cannot be thought of in its presence, and the cheery
glint of its polished leaves and the red glow of
its berries put new spirit into the dullest day.

This diversity of character in evergreens is a very
important point, not to be lost sight of when plant-
ing. In comparison with deciduous trees there is
a tendency to stern and rigid melancholy which
seems to belong to most of them. We do not feel
it when the slanting rays of the setting sun light
up the red stems of the Scotch firs, nor when the
murmur of the west wind croons softly in the
spruce boughs above our heads on a warm autumn
day. We may even turn away from the dazzling
colours of flower borders to the cool grey-green
of juniper with a sense of relief, or thankfully take

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 219

shelter from scorching noontide sunshine under the
dim shade of some solemn yew or cedar and never
once think of sadness. But reverse the picture and
recall how all these look under a gloomy Novem-
ber sky, with fog clouds hanging low and chill
over the hilltops, and say whether we are not then
ready to confess that one and all are more or less
funereal. Exactly the same effect of gloom may
be given by many evergreen shrubs and conifers
when planted too close to house or windows.
Rhododendrons, for instance, are chief offenders,
for in hard frost they look very sorry for them-
selves, and communicate a sense of their misery
to all who look out at them. It is well to remem-
ber, therefore, that while evergreen shrubs placed
in middle distance or on the confines of a goodly
stretch of smooth green lawn are delightful, the
same close at hand may become intolerably op-
pressive. Near or far, however, holly is never sad
and dreary, nor ever out of character with English
scenery ; and no ornament of a lawn can be more
in keeping than a shapely specimen feathering to
the ground.

After all, for work or rest, for recreation or for
interest, the garden is what we choose to make it,
and to each one it tells a different story in a lan-
guage of its own. Would that every Briton, man
or woman, rich or poor, might have some personal
share in the delight and benefit which a garden
has the power to confer on mind and body!

Surely it is not without its age-long lesson that
the opening page of human history should picture
primeval man and woman placed in a garden to

220 GARDENS— PAST AND PRESENT

dress it and to keep it. Is it not the God-given
ideal ? and believe it or not as we may, the home
in the garden remains for all time and for all
humanity, whether taken in its largest or most
limited sense, the truest and best realisation of
earthly happiness. Light and air, sunshine and
shade, trees and flowers and the fruits of the earth,
are the heritage of every human being — every-day
blessings which, to their own undoing, many, alas,
cannot enjoy, and some seem scarcely to value.

Neither is it enough to hold these blessings in
common. The plot must be our own, to have and
to hold, if only for the time being, where sun-
shine or shower may shine or fall on us and ours,
where stands the tree under whose shade our chil-
dren have a right to play, where grow the flowers
and the fruit tended by our own hands or under
our own supervision — the home in the garden for
workers and breadwinners to return to when the
day's work is done, the home in the garden for
the home-stayers to take pride in and to keep, for
all to love and cherish and to enjoy. No more
precious gift can fairy godmother lay in the cradle
of earth-born child in castle or cottage than the
spell of the garden to rest upon heart and hands !

Let us rest here in these gathered up thoughts,
which at best are but suggestions, with one final
aspect of the garden that we love.

In springtide or at the zenith of midsummer
glory, in the aftermath of autumn or in winter's
rest, as long as life shall last and human senses
remain unimpaired, it never loses its interest. One

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 221

is almost tempted to believe that a true garden-
lover never grows old, or rather, perhaps, never
loses touch altogether with the joy of living.
Surely, amongst the many blessings of the home
in the garden, this may be reckoned one of the
chiefest and best — that when the cup of life is
emptied of its fulness, and cares and sorrows have
tinctured its dregs with bitterness, it will yet yield
an anodyne which will not only soothe, but uplift
the faltering spirit and cheer the waning hours.

Above a garden gate a Latin inscription is carved
in stone, and the interpretation of the legend is
this:

" THEY HEARD THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD
WALKING IN THE GARDEN."

It may be that while physical powers waste away
under the burden of years, aging eyes are opened
to read more clearly the divine parables of Nature,
that the ears which are growing duller to earthly
music are attuned to hear, above the murmur of
distracting echoes of Time, a still, small voice.
To every whisper of the wind that stirs the opening
leaves it utters some message of loving Providence.
By every floweret that raises its sweet face once
more to the light of day after its winter's sleep
it teaches some lesson of sure and certain hope of
the new life of glad service to come.

Do we do wrong to believe that the garden,
which holds within it so much that is divine, is
intended to convey to our finite senses some faint
foreshadowing on earth of work and rest and peace
in the Paradise of God?

INDEX

N.B. — In this Index, for the convenience of the
reader, both Latin and English names of plants referred
to have been given where practicable, as well as some
of the best species to plant when these have not been
mentioned in the preceding pages.

Aboriculture in seventeenth

century, 36

Acanthus spinosissimus, 147, 207
Achillea aegyptiaca (Egyptian

Yarrow), 147, 207
A diantum capillus veneris

(English maidenhair), 180

pedatum (bird's foot

maidenhair), 180

Agricola, Julius, 5

Alisanders (Smyrnium Olus-

atrum), 189
Almond tree, 36, 39
Alpine garden, a simple, 122
Alpines, easily grown, 129

on dry wall, 95

Alstroemerias (Peruvian lilies),

205

Alyssum saxatile, 203
Amelanchier canadensis (June

berry), 149, 214
American cowslip (Dodecatheon

Meadia), 170
Andromedas, 150
Anemone japonica, 212

wood, mistaken for new

fern, 20

Annuals for autumn sowing, 134

hardy and half hardy, 134

of climbing habit, 140

Antennaria tomentosa, 121
Aponogeton distachyon (water

hawthorn), 117
Aquilegia glandulosa, 122
Arabis, double flowered, 203

223

Arbor Vitae (Thuya occidentalis),

39, 198
Arbutus uvi-ursi (bear-berry),

168
Aromatic winter green (Gaul-

theria Shallon), 150
" Art of many sacrifices," 207
Asarabacca (Asarum europceum),

16, 189

Ash native to Britain, 33
Aspidiums (shield ferns), 176,

182

Aspleniums (spleenworts), 176
Asters, perennial (Michaelmas

daisies), 212
Aubrietia purpurea (purple rock

ciess), 201

Autumn, seed sowing in, 134, 135
Avenues in olden time, 61
lime, 37

BALM (Melissa officinalis), 189
Banksia Rose, 209
Barbe de Capucin, 186
Barnstaple balm (Melittis

Melissophyllum), 190
Bedding out. A necessity in

public gardens, 69

system welcomed, 68

Beech native to Britain, 33
Benefactors of horticulture,

famous, 39

Berberis Darwini, 146
Birch, common (Betula pube-

scens), 217

224

INDEX

Birch, silver (Betula alba], 34
Blessed thistle (Carbenia bene-
dict a], 190

" Blew beares-eares," 130
Bluebells, English and Spanish,

203
moss (Eritrichium nanum),

129
Bog asphodel (Narthecium

ossifragum), 165
bed. Drainage necessary

for, 1 66

formation of, 166

garden, an Irish, 169

land, disappearance of, 164

pimpernel (AnagalUs

tenella], 165
planting, suitable subjects

for, 167
plants, open position for,

1 66

spreading plants in, 167

Borage, 189

Botanic gardens, enlargement

of aim in, 41, 45

functions of modern, 46

private, 17

Botanical learning in fifteenth

century, 1 5
Box edgings, 67

Box-tree native toBritain, 34, 218
Brake fern or bracken (Pteris

aquilina), 175, 179
Britain, supposed origin of name,

4
Brittle bladder fern (Cystopteris

fragilis), 180
Broad buckler fern (Nephrodium

dilitatum, 178, 182
Bulb border, pot plants plunged

in, 155

grower, troubles of the, 152

Bulbs, late flowering, 158
lifting into reserve bed,

155

at Kew, 48, 49

Buckeye, N. American, 149
Buckler ferns (Nephrodium), 176
Bugloss (Echium vulgare), 189
Burnet salad (Poterium san-

guisorba), 189

Bute, Lord, patron of botanic
research, 43

Camassia esculenta (Quamash),

156

Cambridge Botanic Garden, 1 5
Camellias, 148
C. Donckelaari and C. reticulata,

199

Cape Colony, tea roses in, 106
hyacinth (Galtonia can-

dicans), 158
Caraway, 190
Cardinal flower, blue (Lobelia

syphilitica), 168

scarlet (L. cardinalis), 168

Cardoon (Cynara Cardunculus),

209

Carnations, marguerite, 138
Carpet bedding, 69
Caryopteris Mast acanthus, 149
Cathedral close, garden in, 76
Ceanothus azureus, " Gloire de

Versailles," 149
Cedar of Lebanon, 37, 219
in Chelsea Physic Garden,

38
in Jardin des Plantes, Paris,

40

Celeriac, 187

Celery, Sandwich famous for, 28
Cerastium tomentosum, 208
Chamomile (Matricaria chamo-

milla), 190

Chelsea Physic Garden, 21
Cherry, double flowering, 146
laurel (Prunus laurus-

cerasus), in, 144
Chervil (sweet cicely), 189
Chestnut, sweet or Spanish, 34,

3.6

Chicory, 186
Chimney campanula (C. pyra-

midalis), 204
Chionodoxas, 155, 202
Chiswick, R.H.S. garden at,

55
Chives (Allium schoenoprasum),

190
Choisya ternata (Mexican Orange

flower), 149

INDEX

225

Chou-rave (Knol-kohl), 187
Christmas rose (Helleborus

maximus, H. niger), 200
Chrysanthemums, Japanese,

from seed, 135
Cistus (rock rose), 212
Claret vine, 215
Clary (Salvia Sclarea), 189
Clinkers, 119
Codlins and cream, 172
Collections of plants, 43
Colour scheme in garden of

annuals, 140
Congruous planting, 85
Conifers, rare in England in

fifteenth century, 39
Coreopsis grandiflora and C.

lanceolata, 212
Cornelian cherry (Cornus Mas),

148

Cosmos bipinnatus, 207
Costmary (Balsamita vulgaris),

189

Cotoneaster microphylla, 199
Cottage gardens, pride of

England, 23
Crab, Japanese (Pyrus mains

floribunda), 149

Siberian (P. baccata, 146

Creeping Jenny (LysimacMa

Nummularia), 171
Crinums (C. capense, C. Moorei,

C. Powelli, 170
Crocus, spring, 154, 200, 203
" Crosnes " (Stachys tuberifera),

187
Cross - leaved heath (Erica

tetralix), 165
Crown imperial (Fritillaria im-

perialis), 203
Cyclamen, winter flowering (C.

count), 95

European, 85

Cypress, Eastern (Cupressus

sempervirens), 39

DAFFODILS, 201

Danby, Earl of, 16

Daphne cneorum (pink garland

flower), 147
Mezereum (Mezereon), 146

p

Decline of botanical enthusiasm,

Deer parks in English history, 34
Delphinums, herbaceous, 204,

207

Dianthus alpinus, 129
Difficulties of perennial borders,

72, 78
Dill, 190

Ditch side planting, 86
Doctrine of signatures, 12
Dog's-tooth violet (Erythronium

denscanis), 170
" Dragon " (Arum dracunculus),

190
Dry wall, advantages of, 93

use of mortar limited in, 93

Dutch garden on Cornish coast,

65

EDELWEISS (Leontopodium al-

pinum), 129
Elecampane (Inula Helenium),

190
Elm not British, 6

and vine in Lombardy, 7

Environment, suitability of

plants to, 79
Epigcea repens (May flower), 53,

1 68
Erica carnea, 150, 200

Mediterranea, 150

Erinus alpinus, 94
Erodium Reichardi, 129
Eryngium alpinum, 205
Erysimum perofskianum, 135
Erythronium americanum, 180
Evergreen trees, British, 33

diversity in character of,

218

overplanting of, 63

Evelyn, John, long life of, 39

visit to Oxford Physic

Garden, 18

Exotic plants by waterside, 115

FAIR Maids of France (Ranun-
culus aconitifolius), 171

Feathered columbine (Thalic-
trum aquilegi folium), 172

Fen rue (Thalictrum flavum), 172

226

INDEX

Ferns familiarly known by Latin

names, 177

filmy, 176

foreign for outdoor culture,

180

old fancies about, 173

positions suitable for, 181

require light, 175

table of British for out-
door culture, 176

Fig culture in Sussex, 7
Figs, Roman love of, 7
Finocchio (Italian fennel), 187
Fir, silver (Abies pectinatd), 39
Flower borders, arrangement of,

206
Flowering rush (Butomus um-

bellatus), 10

trees in shrubberies, 146

Flowers, British love of, 26

rare British, at Wisley, 53

Forget-me-not, water (Myosotis

palustris), 113

Formality, a phase of garden, 68
Forsythia suspensa (Golden bell),

49
Fraxinella (Dictamnus Fraxi-

nella), 205
French fern (Asplenium adian-

tum nigrum, 178

lavender, 189

or marsh mallow (Althaea

officinalis) , 190

willow (Epilobium augusti-

folium), 172

Fntillaria aurea, 202

meleagris in Oxford

meadows, 1 54

Fuchsia, Mde. Cornellisen and
F. Riccartoni, 149

Galax aphylla (wand flower),

170
Garden, a remarkable modern,

50
love for a, lifelong, 220

practical value of experi-
mental, 57

the home in the, 220

waterside, 112

Gardening once a lost art, 25

Gardening in seventeenth cen-
tury, 183
Gardens for all months, 197

formal, of olden time, 62

Garry a eliptica (tassel bush), 148,
'' Garth," the cloister, 10
Gaultheria procumbens (partridge
berry), 168

shallon, 150

tricophylla, 168

Gentianella (G. acaulis), 53, 208
Gentian Pneumonanthe, 165
Geranium argenteum, 129

Manescavi, 129

platypetallum, 84

Gerard, John, "Herball" of, 13
Ghent azaleas, 167
Gladiolus brenchleyensis, 158

Childsi, 158

Colvillei, 158

lavensis, 157

nanceianus, 157

Globe artichoke, 184

Grape hyacinth (Muscari

botry aides), 155
Grass, spring bulbs in, 203
Great Britain, flowering trees

and shrubs of, 142

garden design in, 82

Gromwell, trailing, 208
Gunnera scabra, 115, 167

Hamamelis arborea (witch

hazel), 48, 147
Hanbury's, the late Sir T., gift

to R.H.S., 55
Hard Fern (Lomaria spicant),

176, 178

Hardy cyclamens naturalised, 85
Hart's tongue fern (Soolopen-

drium viilgare), 176, 179
Hawthorn, indigenous, 33
scarlet and double flowered

varieties, 149

Healing, art of, in early times, 12
Hedges, yew and holly, 64
Hemp, Indian, 207
Herbaceous borders left uncared

for, 73
Herb garden of old, 189

of Grace (rue), 16, 190

INDEX

227

Herbs trodden upon for fra-
grance, 1 6, 190

Hieronymus Bock, story of, 173
Hilltop, compensations of the,

no
Holly (Ilex aquifolium), 198,

218
Holly fern (Aspidium lonchitis],

177

Hollyhocks, 64, 205
Hop gardens, origin of Kentish,

29
Japanese (Humulus faponi-

cus), 140

Horse chestnut, 36, 217
Horehound (Marrubium vulgar e),

190

Houses, stately Elizabethan, 26
Huguenots, influence of on

horticulture, 30
Huntsman's Cup (Sarracenia

purpurea), 168
Hydrangea hortensia, 149
Hyssop (H. officinalis), 90, 189

ILEX, rare in John Evelyn's

time, 37
Impatiens noli - me - tangere

(touch-me-not), 172
Improvement, general social, in

reign of Elizabeth, 25
Indian corn (Zea Mays], 207
Influence, foreign, on English

cottage gardening, 27
Iris IcBvigata (Japanese water

iris), 157

reticulala (netted iris), 156

stylosa (Algerian iris), 157,

200

xiphioides (English iris),

156

xiphium (Spanish iris), 156

Irish butterwort (Pinguicula

grandi flora), 165

heath (Menziesia poli-

folia), 170

Italian alkanet (Anchusa

italica), 209
Ivy, 33
Ivy-leaved bell-flower (Wahlen-

bergia hederacea), 165

" JACK in the pulpit " (Arisaema

triphylla), 180

Jagged hart's tongue fern, 174
Japanese toad-lily (Tricyrtis

hirta), 159

- vine (Vitis Coignetice), 215
Jardin d'Acclimatation, Geneva,

128

Jerusalem artichoke, 29, 186
Jessamine, winter (/. nudiflorum) ,

216
Jewish Medical School at

Oxford, 1 6
Judas-tree (Cercis Siliquastrum),

39, 146
June berry (Amelanchier

canadensis), 149, 214
June, garden glory in, 204
Juniper native to Britain, 34

- prostrate (Savin), 123

KAFFIR flag (Schizostylis

coccinea), 200, 216
Kew becomes a national garden,

45

- House, 42

- in reign of George III.,

44

lessons of,
gardeners, 47
Palace, 42

to amateur

' ' King Cups ' ' (marsh marigolds) ,

171
Kniphofia aloides (Red-hot

poker), 157
Knol-kohl (Chou-rave), 187

LABELS, unsightly, 153

Laburnum, 149

Lady fern (Asplenium filix

fcemina), 177, 182
Lange-de-beefe (Picris echioides),

189

Larch (Larix europasa), 39
Larkspurs, 205, 208
Late flowering bulbs, 158
Laurel magnolia (M. grandi-

flora), 146
Laurustinus ( Viburnum tinus),

199

228

INDEX

Lavender (L. spica), 16, 189 207

cotton (Santolina chamoB-

cyparissus), 189

Leyens Hall, 62

Lilies, Japanese autumn flower-
ing, 161

best left alone while

thriving, 162

in bulb garden, 159

oldest English garden, 160

propagation of, 163

Lilium auratum (golden L.),
161

canadense (Canadian

swamp L.), 166

candidum (Madonna L.),

53, 147, 1 60
croceum (Orange or saffron

L.), 146, 160

elegans, 161

giganteum (giant L.), 56,

88
longiflorum, 162

Martagon, 161

pardalinum (Leopard

swamp L.), 168

speciosum, 161

testaceum (Nankeen L.)

205

tigrinum, (Tiger L.), 146,

1 60

Lily of the valley tree (Zenobia

pulverulenta), 150
Lily tank, artificial, 115

simplicity of design in, 116

Limnanthes Douglasii, 135
Linncea borealis, 20, 168
Linnaeus, visit to Oxford, 18
Liquid amber (Loropetallum

styraciftua), 215
Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra),

16, 190
Lithospermum prostratum

(trailing gromwell), 208
Liverwort (Anemone Hepatica),

13

Lomaria chilensis, 181
Loosestrife, tufted (Lysimachia

thyrsi flora), 171
purple (Lythrum salicaria),

172

Loosestrife, yellow (Lysimachia
vulgar is), 171

MADEIRA Orchis (C. foliosa), 168

Magazines, botanical, 45

Magnolia stellata, 200

Maidenhair spleenwort (A s-
plenium trichomanes), 178

Male buckler fern (Nephrodium
Filix Mas), 178

Maple, field (Acer campestre), 34

Japanese (A. palmatum

and vars), 215

Marguerite daisies (Chrysan-
themum frutescens), 209

Marigolds, African and French,
140

Marshmarigold (Calthapalustris),

H3

plants, 164

St John's wort (Hypericum

elodes), 165
Massing of bulbs, 155
May flower (Epigcea repens), 53,

168
Meadow saffron (Colchicum

autumnalis), 212
Meadowsweet (Spircea ulmaria),

10, 86, 113, 171

Medlar (Pyrus germanica), 146
Menziesia polifolia (Irish Heath),

170
Mercury (Chenopodium Bonus

Henricus), 186
Mespilus snowy, or June berry,

214
Mexican orange flower (Choisya

tern at a), 149
Mezereon, 146
Michaelmas daisies (Aster

amellus, A. Novas Anglice,

Novi Belgii, etc.), 212
Mimulus luteus (monkey flower),

171
Misery of cottar in fourteenth

century, 24
Mocassin flower (Cypripedium

spectable), 166
Monastery gardens, 10
Monasteries, husbandry fostered

by, 9

INDEX

229

Monasteries respositories of herb

lore, 12
Monotony in shrubbery planting,

145

of bedding-out system, 68

Mons. Latour Marliac's water

lilies, 109, 114
Moonwort (Bolrichyum Lun-

aria), 180
Moutan or tree paeony, 203

NASTURTIUM ( Tropceolum majus),

139, 216

Native bog-plants, 165
Nature, modern love of, 81
Nature's pattern in bogland,

165
Nemophila insignis, 132, 135,

139
Nephrodiums (buckler ferns),

176

New vegetables, 187
New Zealand veronicas, 96
Nigella damascena (love-in-a-
mist), 134, 139
Nymphcea helvola, 117
Nympheea pygmcea, 117

OAK a British tree, 33
Oakwood, 52

CEnothera lamarckiana (La-
marck's evening primrose,

207, 211

missouriensis (Yellow), 209

taraxacifolia (white), 209

Old sundial in rose garden, 108
Onosmas (O. echioides, O. alba-

roseum), 130

Orchard House at Weybridge, 50
Oriental plane, 35
Ornithogalums (O. nutans, O.

umbellatum), 203
Osmunda regalis (royal fern),

176, 178, 182
Ostrich-feather fern (Struthio-

pteris germanica), 181
Othonnopsis cheirifolia, 208
Overcrowding of plants, 79
Ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum

lacustre, L. maximum and

vars), 205

Oxford Physic Garden, 15, 16

weed garden, 19

Oyster plant (Mertensia mari-
timd), 130

PEONIES, Chinese, 204, 209

herbaceous, 147, 203

" Paradisus Terrestris," the first

English gardening book, 14
Parkinson, John, 14, 28, 36, 40
Parsley, 25, 188
Parsley fern (Cryptogramme

crispa), 180
Pavia macrostachya (syn.

^Esculus parviflora, 211 (see

p. 149)
Peacock tiger flower (Tigridia

pavonia), 159
Pentstemon Hartwegi, 138
Peppermint (Mentha piperita),

16, 190
Physicians, training of early

English, 15

Piers Plowman's complaint, 25
Pinks, old fashioned, 208
Pioneers of English gardening,

39
Planting for autumn effect, 214

of spring garden, 199

Plant life at Wisley, 52, 53
Poison oak (Rhus toxicodendron)

150
Polemonium confertum, 130

mellitum, 130

Polypodium cambrica (Welsh

polypody), 179
Polypodiums, 1 76
Pomegranate, 36
Pontederia cordata (pickerel

weed), 115, 117
Poppies, Oriental, 204
Portugal laurel (Prunus lust-

tunica), 145, 146
Potato, Evelyn's opinion of the,

29

tardy popularity of, 29

Pot herbs, 188

marigold (Calendula

officinalis), 189

Prickly shield fern (Aspidium
aculeatum, 177

230

INDEX

Primroses, double, 200
Primula marginata, 129

viscosa, 1 29

Princess dowager of Wales, 43
Pteris aquilina (brake fern), 175,

179

Purslane (Arenaria peploides),
Pyrethrums, 209

QUAINT prescription of fifteenth

century, 12
Queen Charlotte, love of, for

botany, 42

Queen Elizabeth at Kew, 41
"Queen of the prairie"

(Spir&a lobata), 171
Quercus Ilex (Evergreen oak),

37, 63
Quince (Pyrus vulgaris), 146

Japan (Cydonia japonica),

148

RAGWORT, Oxford, 21
Ramondia pyrenaica (rock

mullein), 120, 130
Rampion (Campanula Rapun-

culus), 190
Rhododendrons, earliest known

species, 143
Rhod. nobleanum, 148

prcscox, 148

Rhubarb, Turkey, 16

Rhus cotinus (Venetian sumach

or smoke bush, 146

glabra (R. typina), see p. 21 5

Rock bed, the, 123

Rockery, careful planting of,

necessary, i 26

hillock form of, 124

Rock garden, dwarf perennials

for, 130
early attempts at, 120

good advice on planting

a, 127

sunk, 125

Roman influence on British

husbandry, 5

Rome, gardens of ancient, 63
Roof gardens in Norway, 24
Rooteries, 123
Rosa anglica, 99

Rosa centi folia, 100

Rose cuttings in July, 105

evolution of H. P., 101

garden in 1629, 99

gloire de Dijon, 101, 103

Rose growing, modern oppor-
tunities in, 104

heps, ornamental, 108

Marechal Niel, 102

Rosemary, 16, 189, 200, 207
Roses, rambling, 86, 102

R. rugosa (Ramanas R.), 56

1 08

Roses, single, 106
R. sinica anemone, 107, 209
Rough places, planting in, 84
Royal fern, 176, 178, 182
Rue — herb of grace (Ruta

graveolens), 190

SAGITTARIA sagittifolia (arrow-
head), 115

Savoury (Satureia hortensis], 189

Saxifrdga eras si folia (thick-
leaved Sax), 20 1

peltata (umbrella sax), 86,

167

umbrosa (London pride),

119

Scarcity of water on chalk hills,

109
Scarlet Watsonia (W. Meriana),

170
Scillas (S. bifolia, S. hispanica,

S. sibirica), 154
Scotch firs, 61, 218
Sea holly, mountain (Eryngium

alpinum), 205
Sea spleenwort (Asplenium

marinum), 180
Seed raising, 128

saving, 213

Sensitive plant, 18

Shelter essential in spring

garden, 198

Shield ferns (Aspidiums), 176
Shirley poppies, 134, 139
Shortia galacifolia, 170
Shrubberies, uninteresting, 144

overcrowding in, 145

Shrubs, autumn flowering, 149

INDEX

231

Shrubs of early introduction, 142

winter flowering, 48, 147

" Simples," 13
Skimmia Fortunei, 199
Skirrets (Sium sisarum), 188
Slipperworts (Cypripedium

calceolus, C. pubescens, C.

spectabile), 166, 168
Snapdragons (Antirrhinum

majus), 135
Snowdrop (Galanthus mivalis),

113. 154

Soldanella alpina, 120
Solomon's seal (Polygonatum

multiflorum), 203
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa), 186
Spearmint (Mentha viridis), 188
Spigelia marilandica, 170
Spinach, Parkinson on, 28
Spindle trees (Enonymus euro-

poeus, E. latifolius), 199
Spiraa arguta, 146

lobata and S. palmata, 171

ulmaria, 10, 86, 113, 171

venusta, 171

Spitalfields silk- weavers, 31
Spleenworts (Aspleniums), 176
Spring garden in March and

April, 201
Spring snowflake (Leucojum

vernum), 203
Star of Bethelehem (Ornitho-

galum), 203
Stenactis speciosa, 209
Stone gardens, 116
Stone pine (Pinus Pined], 39
Strelitzia regina, 44
Summer flowering bulbs, 156
Sun rose (Helianthemum vulgar e),

149

Surrey, a famous garden in, 87
Swamp lilies, 168
Sweet Basil (Origanum basili-

cum), 189
Sweetbrier, 198
Sweet Cicely (chervil), 189
Sweet or Spanish chestnut, 34, 36
Sycamore or great maple, 37

TAMARISK (Tamarix gallica), 146
Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), 189

Tarragon (Artemisia Dracun-
culus), 189

Tassel bush (Garry a eliptica), 148

Thyme, 189

Tomatoes, 188

Topiary art, effort to revive, 63

work of seventeenth

century, 62

Tradescant, John, 17

Trees in winter, 217

Trinity flower (Trillium grandi-
florum), 1 80

Trollius eur op ceus (globe-
flower), 86, 171

asiaticus, 86,

Tropceolum majus (Nasturtium),
139, 216

Turf on walls in Wales, 92

Tulip- tree (Liriodendron tulip-
fera), 39

Tulips, garden, 154, 156

Turner, Dr William, 15

Types of gardening at Kew, 49

ULMARIUM, an ancient, 6
Ulmus campestris (hedge-row

elm), 6
Untidy gardening, 75

VAGARIES of plants, 96
Valerian (F. offtcinalis), 190
Value, economic, of Kew, 46
Vegetables, beauty in common,

185

few new, of recent years, 186

several indigenous, 185

Veldt ferns in Cape Colony, 175
Verbascum olympicum V.

phlomoides, 207
Verbenas, 138
Veronicas, tender, 214
Villarsia, 115, 117
Vine introduced by Romans into

Britain, 8
Vineyard, Lord Bute's at Cardiff,

8

Violets, 201
Virginian Creeper (Ampelopsis

hederacea), 215
Vital force, suspension of, in

evergreens, 218

233

INDEX

Wachendorfia paniculata and

W. thyrsi flora, 170
Wall-flowers, 201
Wall gardening, origin of, 91

planting, pictorial, 97

plants, 90

trees subsisting on, 91

Walnut-tree, 36
Watercress (Nasturtium

officinale), 185
Water lilies in Staffordshire

colliery, 114

lily growing in barrels, 116

side, natural planting by,

Weigela (Diervilla florida), 146
White beam (Pyrus aria), 34
White flowers in twilight, 211
Wild asparagus (A. officinalis),

185
cabbage (Brassica oleracea),

185.
carrot (Daucus Carota), 105

celery, Smallage (Apium

graveolens), 185

cherry, 214

crab and wild pear, 34

garden true meaning of, 83

Wild parsnip (Peucedanum

sativum), 185
sea kale (Crambe maritima),

185

Willow brake, a, 170
Winter aconite (Eranthis

hy emails), 200
sweet (Chimonanthus

fragrans), 48, 147
Wisley garden, development of

the, 52

Witch Hazel, 48, 147
Witlcef, 1 86

Woodland, cedars in, 38
Wulfenia carinthiaca, 122

YELLOW dog's-tooth violet, 180

Yew, a native tree, 33

Yews, ancient in physic garden,

Oxford, 21

grotesque clipping of, 62

Yuccas (Y. fiaccida, Y. gloriosa),

124, 211
Yulan (Magnolia conspicua), 146

Zea Mays (Indian Corn), 207
ZenoUa pulverulenta (lily of the
valley tree), 150

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