Part 1
DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN.
DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN.
BY
“E. V. B.”
“God Almighty first planted a garden; And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”
BACON.
_NINTH EDITION._
LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1896.
TO
RICHARD CAVENDISH BOYLE.
WHOSE LOVE FOR NATURE AND FOR ART, YEARS HAD NOT CHILLED NOR TROUBLE CHANGED, THESE RECORDS OF OUR GARDEN WERE INSCRIBED BY E. V. B., IN 1884.
PREFACE.
If for a sixth reprint of DAYS AND HOURS IN A GARDEN a new Preface was deemed advisable, still more so, perhaps, should there be something new prefixed to the Seventh Edition, although, indeed, it contains nothing that in any sense is new. Neither new words nor any new vignettes appear therein. Nevertheless we venture to hope that perhaps new readers may be found. Since the last edition was published some three years have come and gone, with their world-old roll of seasons and their burden of inevitable change. The garden has three times slept beneath the rains and the snows of winter, and has awakened in spring with the birds and the bees. Meanwhile, the shrubs are taller and larger, and the trees have extended their roots and stretched out their branches over lawns and gravel paths. And the summer shade, so coveted in other days, has broadened, while, on the other hand, it has become more hard to maintain in their wonted brilliancy our borders and flowerful closes. The axe and the pruning-knife have been busy during the winter months; and many a fine Laurel, in all its wealth of glossy green, has been laid low, and with Yew and the full-foliaged Phylleria, and more than one tall Deodara,--become a burnt sacrifice to “Apollo’s sunny ray.” For the south sunshine must be let in, no matter what the cost. In certain ways the garden may be said to _suffer_ change; and chiefly when the grace and softly rounded loveliness of various evergreens which do not bear the shears--Cryptomeria Elegans, Red Cedar, and the like--after a course of years begins to wane. Even to the upward-pointing Cypress middle life in an English garden is not becoming. And as the larger trees increase in size, so the overshadowed lawns diminish. And thus the slower progress of some of our trees has given place to a rapid growth, which bids fair to overstep all bounds of such limited space as ours. The Douglas Fir and the branching Cedar of Lebanon keep growing into one another, while Excelsa touches them both, and wants to reach across to the clump of Yew and Laburnum. Their near neighbour the Sequoia already rises to the height of fifty feet, and measures over nine feet round at some two feet from the ground. Nordmaniana alone (most beautiful of all), through having five times lost his leader, is forced to greater moderation. Still, although no future of green maturity can ever compensate the earlier, expectant delight of watching our young trees’ youth, all is not lost; for the pleasures carried away by Time, Time itself replaces by others to the full as sweet. It may be that favourite plants become established and yield a larger harvest of beauty, or that deep-laid plans ripen into bright perfection, while a thousand garden joys arise fresh each year, nay, well-nigh every day. As to the living frequenters of the garden, whose presence there for the most part enhances our enjoyment of it, the tomtits and nuthatches, are as busy with the cocoanuts which hang for their use all winter from the Rose-arches as the mice and the sparrows are with the crocuses; the white pigeons still circle in the air and settle upon the gables, or preen their feathers in the sunshine amongst the yellow stonecrop at the base of the old grey pillar in the parterr; the swallows return year by year to their nests within the porch; but the faithful satin-coated Collie lies still for ever under the turf by the ivied wall, and the earth lies heavy on his noble head. For these thirteen summers past he had taken his pleasure in the garden--had chased marauding cats, or bounded after apples with any playfellow of the hour, while his glad bark rang again; or as in later days, had gravely followed the steps of his mistress about the walks, or rolled upon the grass, or watched with lazy but unfailing interest his friend the Gardener at work. Four words graven on a little white marble tablet that shines amidst the dark ivy-leaves on the wall record his name and character:--
Already the Snowdrops are giving way before impatient Hepaticas and Primroses, the bare Elms are thickening with purple, and we begin to count the Gentian buds. Everywhere Nature repairs herself in ceaseless round. Only in our human lives some vacant spots there may be, where the grass will not grow green again.
E. V. B.
HUNTERCOMBE MANOR, _February_, 1890
_OCTOBER._
Fas est hic, Indulgere Genio.
I.
OCTOBER 17, 1882.
Of Nuns and White Owls; Yews, Thrushes, and Nutcrackers.
THE GARDEN’S STORY. It is only eleven years old, though the place itself is an old place--an old place without a history, for scarce a record remains of it anywhere that we have ever found. Its name occurs on a headstone in the parish churchyard, and on one or two monuments within the chancel of the parish church. There is brief mention of it in Evelyn’s _Diary_. It is there described as “a very pretty seate in the forest, on a flat, with gardens exquisitely kept, tho’ large, and the house, a staunch good old building.” It seems George Evelyn (the author’s cousin) was amongst the many who have lived here once. At that time eighty acres of wood surrounded the house, where now there lies a treeless stretch of flat cornfields. Quite near, across the road, are the ruins of an ancient nunnery. Our meadow under the high convent wall is called the Walk Meadow, because here the nuns used to walk. The great Walnut tree, which they might possibly have known, only died after we came. It was cut down for firewood, and its hollows were full of big chestnut-coloured “rat bats,” very fierce and strong. At that time also white owls lived in the ruins, and used to come floating over the lawn at twilight--until the days of gun licenses, since when, they have disappeared. Dim legends surround the place, but nothing clear or certain is known or even said, and there is not a ghost anywhere. All we know is, that since taking possession, wherever a hole is dug in the garden to plant a tree, the spade is sure to strike against some old brick foundation of such firm construction that they have to use the pick to break it up. Bones of large dogs also are found all about the place whenever the ground is broken--remains of the watch dogs, or hunting dogs, of the olden time--also quaintly shaped tobacco-pipes. I know of nothing to support the tradition that monks abode here once. There were signs of an upstairs room having at some remote time been used as a chapel; a piscina in the wall and a narrow lancet window having been found and destroyed, when the house was in the builder’s hands eleven years ago. Broken arches, also, and mouldings in chalk and stone, were dug up out of the foundations of some outhouses at the same time. “They say” there is an underground passage between the Abbey and the house, but we do not believe it, and we do not believe in the murder of a monk for his money, said to have been committed by a nun in the upper room now a guest-chamber. Such vague traditions are sure to hang around old walls, like mists about a damp meadow. Very distinct, however, and carved in no vague characters, are certain initials and dates still visible on the stems of the trees in the Lime avenue. For in old times--
“Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.”
When the trees are bare and the western sky is bright, you can see them quite plainly--large capital letters, often a pair, enclosed in a large heart with the date. The dates run from 1668 on to late in 1700. Those old village lovers must have had sharp pen-knives, which cut deep! They and their names have long passed away and been forgotten; but, for so much as is traced in the living bark, these Limes have proved as good as any marble monument; much better than the long wooden “rails” which are still in fashion hereabouts. Since the place was ours this short avenue of twenty-four trees has been taken in from the public road; and now the Limes give us cool shade and fragrance and many midges in the hot summer days. I fear there is nothing more to be discovered about the past history of the House than we now already know. We must be content, and follow as we best may George Herbert’s concise admonition--
“When you chance for to find An old house to your mind, Be good to the poor, As God gives you store.”
We have had the great pleasure of making the garden. The feature of the place was, and is, two symmetrically planted groups of magnificent Elms in the park field, in which every season we hope the rooks will build. There was everything to be done in the garden, to which these Elms form a background. We found hardly any flowers; a large square lawn laid out in beds, with unsatisfactory turf and shrubberies beyond, a long, broad terrace walk, old brick walls, with stone balls on the corners, two or three old wrought iron gates in the wrong places, dabs of kitchen garden and potato plots, stable-yard and carriage entrance occupying the whole south front, with a few pleasant trees, a young Wellingtonia, a Stone Pine, a Venetian Sumach (_Rhus cotinus_), and a very large red Chestnut (from a seed brought from Spain in the waistcoat pocket of one of our predecessors here, fifty years ago, and said to be the first of the kind raised in England). Such was our new playground in 1871. Here we brought a skilful Gardener, possessed of common sense and uncommon good taste--can one say much more in a few words?--and aided by our own most unscientific but exceeding love for flowers and gardening, we set to work at once. These “gardens on a flat” are transformed.
There now are close-trimmed Yew hedges, some of those first planted being 8 feet 6 inches high, and nearly 3 feet through, while others are kept low and square. There are Yews cut in pyramids and buttresses against the walls, and Yews in every stage of natural growth. I love the English Yew, with its “thousand years of gloom!” (an age that ours, however, have not yet attained). The Wellingtonia, planted in 1866, has shot up to over forty feet high, and far outgrown its youthful Jack-in-the-Green look. The Stone Pine, alas! has split in two, and been propped up; and although half killed since by frost, it yet bears a yearly harvest of fine cones, chiefly collected for use as fire revivers--though the seeds ripen for sowing, or eating. The borders are filled with the dearest old-fashioned plants; the main entrance is removed to the north side; the stable-yard is removed also, and instead thereof are turf and straight walks, and a sun-dial, and a parterre for bedding-out things--the sole plot allowed here for scarlet Pelargoniums and the like. In this parterre occurs the only foliage plant we tolerate--a deep crimson velvet-leaved Coleus. The centre bed is a raised square of yellow Stonecrop and little white Harebells; with an old stone pedestal, found in a stonemason’s yard, bearing a leaden inscription--“to Deborah”--surmounted by a ball, on which the white pigeons picturesquely perch. There are green walks between Yew hedges and flower borders, Beech hedges, and a long green tunnel--the _Allée Verte_--so named in remembrance of a bower-walk in an old family place, no longer in existence. There are nooks and corners, and a grand, well-shaded tennis-lawn, and crown of all, there is the “Fantaisie”! This is a tiny plantation in the field--I mean the Park--date 1874, connected with the garden by a turf walk, with a breadth of flowers and young evergreen trees intermixed, on either hand. Here all my most favourite flowers grow in wild profusion. The turf walk is lost, after a break of Golden Yew, in a little wood--a few paces round--just large enough for the birds to build in, and with room for half-a-dozen wild Hyacinths and a dozen Primroses under the trees; with moss, Wood Sorrel, and white and puce-coloured Periwinkles, and many a wild thing, meant to encourage the delusion of a savage wild! I am afraid I never can be quite serious about a garden; I always am inclined to find delight in fancies, and reminiscences of a child’s garden, and the desire to get everything into it if I could. This “Fantaisie” was a dream of delight during the past summer--from April, when a nightingale possessed in song the half-hidden entrance under low embowering Elm branches and Syringa--through all the fairy days and months, up to quite lately. Yes, even last week, it was fragrant with Mignonette and Ragged Jack (I mean that Alpine Pink _Dianthus Plumarius_), gay with yellow Zinnias and blue Salvia in rich luxuriance, with a host of smaller, less showy things--with bunches of crimson Roses, and pink La France, blooming out from a perfect mist of white and pinkish Japan Anemones, white Sweet Peas, and a few broad Sunflowers towering at the back--their great stems coruscating all over with stars of gold; and here and there clusters of purple Clematis, leaning sadly down from a faggot of brown leaves and dead, wiry stalks,--or turning from their weak embrace of some red-brown Cryptomeria Elegans. Even last week the borders throughout the garden looked filled and cheerful--brilliant with scarlet Lobelia and tall deep red Phloxes, and bushes of blue-leaved starry Marguerites, and the three varieties of Japan Anemone, with strange orange Tigridias and Auratum Lilies and Ladies’ Pincushion (_Scabious_, the “Saudades” of the Portuguese language of Flowers), and every kind of late as well as summer Roses, the evening Primrose (_Œnothera_) making sunshine in each shady spot, with here and there the burning flame of a Tritoma; though these last have not done well this autumn.
Out near the carriage drive are Golden Rod and crimsoned patches of Azalea, and a second blow of late and self-sown Himalayan (so called) Poppies. In one narrow bit of south border one finds that pretty blue daisy (_Kaulfussia Amelloides_)--such an odd, pretty little thing. I remember a bed of it in the garden of my childhood, and I possess a portrait of it, done for me by my mother; and then, never met with it again till a year or two ago, when unexpectedly it looked up at me, somewhere in a remote country churchyard. I am afraid our present stock comes from that very plant. Until now, the long border of many-coloured Verbenas was still rather gay, and the three east gables of the house were all aflame with Virginian Creeper. But two days of rain spoilt us entirely. The variegated Maple slipped its white garment all at once in the night, causing a melancholy gap. In the kitchen garden a bright red Rose or two remains, but along the east border the half-blown buds are rotted away. In the centre of one drenched pink bloom I saw a poor drone, drowned as he sat idly there. Small black-headed titmice are jerking about among the tallest Rose trees, insect hunting; and still tinier wrens flit here and there, bent on the same quest. Great spotted missel thrushes are now haunting the pillar Yews, beginning to taste the luscious banquet just ready for them. While thus perched amongst the sweet scarlet Yew berries and dark foliage, the thrushes always bring to one’s mind a design in old tapestry.
And this reminds me of the good and abundant fruit-feast we have ourselves enjoyed this season. Strawberries and Raspberries were not much, but such Gooseberries, Apricots, and Nectarines! Peaches, plenty enough, but no flavour. Figs, enough to satisfy even _our_ greediness,--though we have but one tree, on a west wall. Pears, especially Louise Bonne, first-rate and plenty. Apples, a small crop, but sufficient. Wood Strawberries have been ripening under the windows till within the last few days: I planted them there for the sake of the delicious smell of the leaves when decaying--a smell said to be perceptible only to the happy few. Nuts (Filberts and Kentish Cobs) were plentiful, but we were only allowed a very few dishes of them. A large number of nuthatches settled in the garden as soon as the nuts were ripe; they nipped them off, and, carrying them to the old Acacia tree, which stands conveniently near, stuck them in the rough bark and cracked them at their ease (or rather punched holes in them). The Acacia’s trunk at one time quite bristled over with the empty nutshells, while the husks lay at the roots. The fun of watching these busy thieves at work more than made up for the loss of nuts. We had a great abundance of large green and yellow wall Plums, also a fair quantity of purple. Of sweet Cherries, unless gathered rather unripe, my dear blackbirds and starlings never leave us many. But there were a good lot of Morellos; they don’t care a bit for them. Whilst on the subject of fruit, let me say that never a shot is fired in the garden, unless to destroy weazels. Our “garden’s sacred round” is free to every bird that flies--the delight of seeing them, and of hearing their music, compensates to the full any ravages they may indulge in. Thanks to netting without stint, and our Gardener’s incomparable patience and longsuffering, I enjoy the garden and my birds in peace; and if they ever do any harm, we never know it; fruit and green Peas never fail us!... Here is a sunny morning; and the cows are whisking their tails under the Elms, as if it were July. But indeed the last lingering trace of summer has vanished: the garden is in ruins, and already the redbreast is singing songs of triumph.
_NOVEMBER._
“The True Pleasure of a Garden.”--BACON.
II.
NOVEMBER, 1882.
Of Blossoms, Buds, and Bowers--Of May and June and July Flowers.
_November_ 3.--The ruin is complete! and cleared away, too.... Yet there is consolation, and something very comfortable, in the neatness of the dug borders, and the beds made up for the winter.
The symmetrically banked-up Celery--crested with the richest green, in the kitchen garden--rather takes my fancy; so also does the fine bit of colour in some huge heaps of dead leaves, that I see already stored in the rubbish yard. The dead leaves have to be swept away from lawn and garden walks--but I believe we do not consider any except those of Beach and Oak to be of much service. It is my heresy, that leaves do not fall till the goodness of them has decayed. They are of use, however, when left to cover the ground above tender roots. In the Fantaisie the earthy bed can scarce be seen, so close lies this warm counterpane of leaves! The great Elms, on the greyest days, now make sunshine of their own. Their lofty breadths of yellow gold tower above the zone of garden trees. When the sun illumines them, and the light winds pass, it is a dream to watch the glittering fall of autumn leaves. The ancient times return, and Jove once more showers gold around some sleeping Danae! During the first days of the month, the parterr was done, Tulips put in, and a lot of Crocuses in double row. In a few beds the dwarf evergreens, which had been removed for the summer, are planted in again--just to make the parterr’s emptiness look less cheerless from the dining-room windows. Between these small evergreen bushes, in their season, will come up spikes of Hyacinths, of varied hue. I do not care for a whole bed of Hyacinths or Tulips; they give me little real pleasure unless the colours be mixed. One chief charm of a garden, I think, depends on surprise. There is a kind of dulness in Tulips and Hyacinths, sorted, and coming up all one size and colour. I love to watch the close-folded Tulip bud, rising higher and higher daily--almost hourly--from its brown bed; and never to be quite certain of the colour that is to be, till one morning I find the rose, or golden, or ruby cup in all its finished beauty; perhaps not at all what was expected. And then, amid these splendours, will suddenly appear one shorter or taller than the rest, of the purest, rarest white. How that white Tulip, coming as it were by chance, is valued! And so, again this year a mixed lot are planted. There was a time when we had only one Tulip in all the garden. I used to look for it regularly in a certain shady border under a Laburnum tree; an old-fashioned, dull, purple and white-striped flower, but it never failed to show, at the very end of every season. I had a regard for that Tulip, and last summer it was a disappointment vainly to wait for its appearance in the accustomed spot. Many there were of its kind, surpassing it in loveliness; but then they were not the same.
Hyacinth beds will be a new thing here, but I doubt if they will make us quite so happy as has hitherto the unexpected advent of some stray pyramid of small odorous bells, pink, blue, or creamy-white, in out-of-the-way places about the garden. After their flowering is over, the pot-bulbs are always turned out somewhere in the borders. When a plant has lived with us for a time under the same roof, or even in the green-house, giving out for us its whole self of sweetness or of beauty, it seems so cruel that it should at last be thrown away as if worthless and forgotten! Some Narcissus that have had their day have just been put into a round bed on the further lawn, mixed with the “Mrs. Sinkins” white Pink; and there is a rim all round of double lilac Primroses. I have long wished to have plenty of that dear old neglected Primrose; so now we have a number of healthy roots from an old garden in Derbyshire. In the centre of this bed is a very tall dead Cupressus, one of our few failures in transplantation last spring. A Cobæa, which was to have grown up quick and made a “bonnie green gown” for the poor bare tree, proved failure number two. It absolutely refused to grow, or do anything but look stunted and miserable, till one day, late in October, there it was running up the tree as fast as possible, clothing every twig with leaves and tendrils, and large, deep, bell-like blossoms! Its day must be short, however, at the wrong end of the year, and even now its bells are chilled to a greenish hue. A fine red climbing Rose on one side, and one of the old Blairii on the other, will make a kinder and more beautiful summer garment.
We have made a new Lavender border, and now I hope to have enough for the bees, and afterwards enough, when dried, to lay within the drawers and wardrobes, and give us “all the perfume of summer, when summer is gone;” enough, too, for pot-pourri, though we do not always make this fresh each year. It takes time, and there is so little time in these days! and often the Roses are too wet, and the Lavender too scarce. The recipe we use is an old one: the paper is yellow, and the ink faded. But our best pot-pourri of these days comes not near the undying fragrance of some Rose leaves--three generations old--that we still preserve in one or two old covered jars and bowls of Oriental porcelain. Along the south wall, an oblong bed is planted with dark purple Heartsease, and two more with yellow. There are six beds, and in the spring they will glow resplendently with a setting of Crocuses, white, yellow, and lilac; meanwhile a good layer of cocoanut fibre gives a look of comfort for the winter; and moreover, rather annoys the field-mice.