Part 7
And now, at this very time, has come a new burst of Irises--the narrow-leaved kinds. Not the real Spanish Irises; their time is not yet. We have a few old plants whose flowers are deep bronze, flame-centred, in yellow gold, and a stronger, commoner kind, of full lilac colour. One little plant, growing in a pet corner by the iron gate in the south wall, has a delicate primrose and lilac-tipped bloom. And there is the great white Flag Iris, whose grand leaves stand four feet high. The right place has not yet been found for this fine plant. For three years past he has just borne with us, and no more; I fear he dislikes us--and he shows it. By the watercourse the yellow Flags are as yellow as possible, in rich contrast with their dark green leaves; and in the Fantaisie, where the China Tulip stood last month, showing bright against the dusky Cryptomeria Elegans, is now a fine root of Iris (_Sibirica alba_). The blue Sibirica is good, but this white variety is most lovely. One could not pass it by without remarking the peculiar whiteness of its small shapely flowers, set on such long slender stalks. How wonderful are the contrasts of white in flowers! Of those now in bloom together, one hardly knows which to call the whitest of them all. This little Iris retains through its whiteness a dim remembrance, as it were, of blue.
There is the kitchen garden, too! The fresh and brilliant beauty that just now it holds within its walls will soon be past, giving place to richer, more sober colours. Looking through the old ironwork of the gate, up the straight middle walk, there is such a splendour of brightly blended colour in the flowers on either side! As yet, they are in their prime; the key-note of colour is white--double Rockets, double white Pyrethrums, and white Pinks. Then, bending down over the walk, mixing in with the whiteness, glowing through leaf and branch in brilliant intervals of colour, are Roses--pink, crimson, blush; Annual Poppies, tender or dazzling in their hue; clouds of pale blue Delphinium, with spires of deepening blue over-topping all the rest. Just midway between the pink and crimson Roses, a Briar, wreathed about with small yellow blooms, hangs over the cross walks at the corner. Masses of low blue Campanula fill in below or between the larger flowers. Right at the end, another iron gate lets in the glimmering of cool shades beyond. A little wren’s nest is there, ensconced snugly in a bowery Clematis, half-way up the pillar; the nest cannot be seen so far off, but I know well how the small entrance hole is quite filled up with greedy little yellow beaks and gaping mouths! The little mother is hard at work for them, somewhere near--hunting the bark of an Elm, most likely. The golden wrens have brought out their families--two nestfuls. We found the nests hanging in the Yews, and now the garden seems to be full of little elfin scissors’ grinders, busy all day long.
I have a fancy to open the gate and go all round the kitchen garden quite prosaically. The other garden will seem still sweeter, after. Here, on the left, is a breadth of wonderful Lettuces, round and close like small round Cabbages, with milk-white middles; and beyond, some taller and tied-up--more like Salad. Near the Lettuces are tall ranks of Peas, hung all over with well-filled pods. I think I like these beautiful green Peas, growing here, as much as when served up in a dish for dinner. There seems always to be something attractive to Art of all kinds in pea pods; from the pods sculptured on the great bronze gates of the cathedral at Pisa, or the raised needlework of the sixteenth century, to the ornaments in the jewellers’ shops of Paris or the portraits of Marrowfats or Telegraph Peas in the advertisement-sheets of gardening papers--these last being really pictures, though not meant so. I remember once being shown a white satin spencer of Queen Elizabeth’s, embroidered in butterflies and Green Pea pods half-open, to show the rows of peas within.
I think there is Beetroot, and a fine lot of young Cabbages, beyond the Peas--in which no one can feel any particular interest; and oh! such a sweet patch of seedling Mrs. Sinkins white Pink. I wish that Pink did possess a more poetical name--Arethusa or Boule de Neige! but the thing is done, and to the end of time Mrs. Sinkins will be herself. Next comes a little square of Japanese Iris, the tall stems tipped with swelling buds whose grand unfolding I long to see. Rows of young Sage plants grow near, quite unlike sage-green, so-called, in colour; and a nice little plantation of healthy-looking Fennel. That is for broiled mackerel; but there is to me another interest connected with Fennel, that lies in a lurking hope, always unfulfilled, of finding upon it a caterpillar of the rare _Papilio regina_. Caterpillars of another sort are only too multitudinous on the Currants growing up the walls. The increase of them, and of the sawflies belonging to them, is not short of miraculous. One may stamp out whole families and clear the bushes, and next morning they will be beginning again. Yet invariably in the act of destroying there creeps in a sort of questioning, whether the caterpillars have not full as good a right to the Currants as we have--except, indeed, that we, and not they, planted them. But the sawflies would seem to have at least a right to live--a greater right, perhaps, than we to have tarts; yet they are spared none the more for such-like uncomfortable reflections. On the south wall the fruit trees seem to be more or less flourishing. An old Nectarine is covered with fruit. Then comes Apricot tree No. 1, on which I find no Apricots; Nos. 2 and 3 the same, 4 dead, and 5 with “a good few” on it. Then we come to Peaches, plenty of them; then a beautiful dark-leafed Fig tree; and then the Cherries, well fruited and well netted. And so on round the walls. Near the wren’s nest there is another large patch of Pinks, commoner and better than any, with the neatest lacing of purple-madder or lake. And here a powerful fragrance stops one short; it is the strawberries, smelling deliciously. They are littered down with clean straw, and netted close, for the discomfiture of blackbirds. The scent takes me back a very long way--back to an inconceivable time, when this old smell of Strawberries, borne across the hedge in the hot noontide of some summer holiday, was reason enough to set us wild vagrants of the garden scrambling through the thorns to seize the exquisite delight of spoiling our neighbour’s Strawberries--a joy that was never marred, for we were never found out. Sun and rain have both been kind, and this is our second week of immense red Presidents, one of the oldest and best of strawberries--the older Caroline being now quite forgotten. The espaliers are showing plenty of Apples and Pears. Three Pear trees, standing at the four cross-ways, are curiously in bloom; the blossoms are all sickly-looking and undersized, but the trees are covered with them up to the very top, while fruit is set at the same time. I dislike this unnatural blooming, for the mind will persist in reverting to foolish sayings and superstitions connected with trees bearing fruit and flower at the same time.
Among the pleasant sights of this mid-summertide, perhaps the pleasantest of all is the great thicket of wild Roses growing within the wire network that bounds the tennis-lawn on the garden side. The east, shining full upon it every morning, brings forth hundreds of new-blown Roses. Very often, as you pass into their sweet presence from under the Plane trees, the air is redolent of a subtle perfume--not always, though, nor every day, for Roses are capricious of their scent. The yellow-stamened centre of each flower glows like a tiny lamp of gold, and the soft petals surrounding it are rose-pink of the tenderest dye. Were these the canker-blooms of Shakespeare? If so, and if in his day they could be said to “live unwooed, and unrespected die,” surely now the tide has turned, for the wild Rose is beloved of all; while we must confess that garden Roses now-a-days do not always “die sweet deaths.”
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_July_ 22.--
“It is not growing like a tree In bulk that makes man better be. The Lily of a day Is fairer far in May: Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light.”
_Ben Jonson._
Once more our favourite old Ben! Roses are gone, and the memory of them is as of something too beautiful for words. And Lilies, too, are over; the fairest of them, the tall white Lily, with her shining head--_nil candidius_--pure as the shining robe of saints in heaven--better than Solomon in his glory. She, too, is past; nothing of her remains but long dismal stems, with down-hanging shrivelled leaves and melancholy pointals undrest of beauty--to tell of her former pride.
The character and features of the Lily would seem to be well marked enough; and yet, sometimes, the popular idea of it is certainly a mixed one. In former days flower-hawkers in the streets of London may be remembered crying, “Lilies, fine white Lilies!” with their barrow-loads of white Thorn, or May blossom, from the country. Some botanical reason there must have been for the Lilies in Ferrari’s “De Florum Cultura” (1633) being named Narcissus! I have been studying an odd volume of this curious old book, and the unmistakable Lilies represented in the plates are all “Narcissus Indicus.” Even the Water-lily-like Blood Flower is a Narcissus. Very likely these remarks may only show my ignorance.
July must be all retrospect, for all is over--or so it seems to me. After an absence of a few days, on returning to the garden, I find there is a change--an almost autumnal feeling in the air, and withered leaves are blown across the lawn. Faint perfumes linger still about the Limes, and though no song birds are there, the sound of bees is heard in the green depths above. But we no longer would breakfast under the Limes, as we did so short a while since, in summer days departed. Wind and rain have done their worst amongst the flowers, and yet there is consolation in all that remains. The best are passed away, but beautiful new things are coming on. The Evening Primrose (_Ænothera_) already lights up the garden ways. Variegated Maples, with their foliage white as ivory, look their best against the darkening Elms.[6] The hedge of Sweet Peas is for the moment in beauty. Sweet Peas go off too quickly in our light warm soil, so we try to prolong their blooming to the latest limit by cutting off their pods as fast as they appear.
[Footnote 6: A small branchlet in one of these white Maples has returned to the original green, and this is also the sole bit of the tree that bears a _bunch of keys_.]
Purple draperies of Clematis (Virgin’s Bower), in many shades, from the deepest violet softening into grey, make the old brick walls beautiful; or the same Clematis droops from trellises, or clambers up the trees in many parts of the garden. Almost always it so happens that the tender green of Vines mingles with the purple. There is something almost unpleasing in the arrangement of the four petals of Clematis Jackmanni! but much must be forgiven for the sake of such grand colouring. No climbing plant comes near the Vine, perhaps, in perfect grace and beauty of line. The fruitful Vine gives delight to the eye in far larger measure than Virginia Creeper, or any other of our green hangings upon the walls of a house. The Vine is more obedient and yet more free, and its intelligence is greater. Thinking of the Vine as of a person, one would say that her foliage shows all the variety of genius. Scarcely will you find two leaves alike, in shape, or size, or colour. The youngest leaves are half-transparent and golden-green, or reddened by the sun; on some the light lies cold and grey. If the Vine is trained round the window, the leaves seen from within outspread against the light glow like green fires. The very shadiest recesses of the Vine are full of light. And then the tenderness and strength of her slender beautiful tendrils! How they reach out like sentient hands! and when they have found, how strong and firm their clasp! Then, who does not know and love the curious aroma of her small green flowers, bringing back to memory the smell of a Southern vineyard? Very soon, now, autumn suns will swell the clustered fruit, and purple bloom will begin to show between the leaves. A Vine is one of the only plants whose every leaf, well nigh, may be painted with care in a picture, and yet not seem too much made out. Yet rarely indeed can human hand give the fine thinness and yielding texture of a Vine leaf!
We are never without Portulaca and Mesembryanthemum (how far more simple is the old name--Fig Marigold) about this time, and the two beds of them now flowering are especially brilliant. Cool colours tell beside the scarlet and orange that mostly prevail, and in this way nothing could be more refreshing than the dwarf Ageratum and blue Lobelia, mixed with honey-scented Koniga Maritima Variegata, near the Carnations and Portulaca. The deep blue, with bronze foliage, of the Lobelia beds in the parterr is almost hot beside the cooler blues beyond. The Sumac this year is not in beauty--not as if a sunset cloud had settled down upon it. The multitude of new green shoots would seem to overpower the crimsoned fluff.
_AUGUST._
The Garden is a mute Gospel. The Garden is a perpetual Gala.
XI.
AUGUST.
“My Sunflower”--Of a Garden Sunday--Of Ghosts in the Twilight--Magnolia Grandiflora.
_August_ 6.--The Lime avenue is pleasanter than ever now, on these bright afternoons when the low sun strikes amber shafts through the branches, and light shadows lie on the parquet of brown and yellow leaves beneath. With every breeze hundreds of the winged sea-vessels, like queer little teetotums, come twirling down. The wrens are busy with their second or third nests--without counting the cock-nests at the beginning of the season; the porch swallows are thinking of a second brood, and scatter straws of hay and patches of wet mud untidily upon the stones underneath their nests; thrushes go about the lawn followed by two or three great awkward young ones (their third family this season), too foolish to pick up worms for themselves. As for the sparrows, they are hard at work with probably the sixth or seventh nest of their series. Roses are coming on in their second bloom; low bushes and standards of La France show large buds and attar-scented blossoms; while crimson Roses of many names glow in richest bloom here and there all over the garden. Precious as are these late Roses, the chord of colour has changed so much since Roses were in their prime, that fresh pink or crimson seem almost misplaced among the fiery reds and scarlet. White Roses are seldom so beautiful as one feels they ought to be; but a small plant of the Japanese Rosa Rugosa, in its first season with us, has been a great pet this summer, with its large white petals; the Macartney also is welcome, flowering as it has for the first time in its life here. The buds have hitherto always fallen off, without an attempt at unclosing, and it has only kept its place on the wall for the sake of the lovely evergreen leaves and yearly promise of abundant bloom. But the only perfect white Rose, the White Moss, remains still for me a dream and nothing more. There are tall old bluish-pink Roses at the back of the Beechen close which have been blooming in almost rank luxuriance. They, with a few Cabbage Roses and Maiden’s Blush, and a yellow Banksia, were all of Roses the garden had when first we came here, eleven years ago. At that time they were thought too ugly almost to live, and were banished to the outskirts. But time has brought them round to the front again; and now these relics of a bygone Rose age are beloved for their redundant and perfumed bloom, and for their most uncommon colour, the red in them being so largely mixed with cold blue. The York and Lancaster Rose--long lost and long coveted--will, I hope, ere next season be established with us. For the other day in Somersetshire we found one growing near a ghostly house in a deserted garden, and from this plant we have some healthy suckers. I cannot keep pace with the new Roses; they are mostly too large and heavy. They seem to run too far from the flatness of a really typical Rose type.
We have not made _pot pourri_ this summer; but the Lavender harvest is gathered in, with spikes unusually fine. I am not sure that they smell much the sweeter for their great size. It is a pleasant time when the Lavender is laid out in trays, and the house is full of the sweetness of it. On these bright windy mornings the Broad Walk looks its best. Looking up from south to north, the end of the walk, framed in with trees, is bounded by a low Quickset hedge, beyond which lies meadow-land, with glimpses of yellow corn-fields. Beyond all is the soft blue of distant wood. Along the Yew hedge, on one side, are long borders in the turf of single Dahlias, in succession to Sweet-williams (Bearded pink); and the other side under the wall is enriched with scarlet, the scarlet of those tall Lychnis which the children call “Summer Lightning” (_Lychnis chalcedonia_, flower of Bristow and Constantinople). And there are sheaves of finely dyed rose-red Phloxes, pyramids of blue and white Campanula, and clumps of dark blue Salvia; grey and feathery Gypsophila Paniculata also--priceless for the setting off of delicate Poppies and other refined and frail kinds when cut. Yet the mass of colour would be far more brilliant but for the bulbs which lie hidden under the earth. They must not be disturbed by planting in amongst them, so all that is in the border has its place there perennially.
Spaces in the wall behind--where the ancient Pear trees may have perished from old age--are sometimes dressed in spreading Vines. Last month a tall blue Larkspur, near one of these Vines, was caught by the wandering tendrils, and so they grew together, the Larkspur upheld by her friend the Vine with a strong and tender grasp. Green streamers of this Vine also wreathe the head of an iron gate empurpled with intermingling Clematis. Here also, close to the old wall, at regular intervals, are our Sunflowers; some of them grow to nearly ten feet in height. After many trials of other spots, we think they seem to do best planted thus. The shelter saves them all conflict with wind and rain, and they are tall, and straight, and full, having no cares of weather to divert their gradual growth to beauty. There was a time when I did not love Sunflowers. Their constant repetition as a kind of æsthetic badge can scarcely fail to tire. In those days they had no place in the garden, or only in some out-of-the-way obscure corner. But once I found a little song of William Blake’s, and ever since, for the music of it, the Sunflower has been beloved, with the feeling that to know her is to give her your heart.
“Ah, Sunflower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the sun, Seeking after that sweet golden prime Where the traveller’s journey is done, Where the youth pined away with desire, And the pale virgin, shrouded in snow, Arise from their graves and aspire Where my Sunflower wishes to go.”
Perhaps there is not much of common sense in the words! but they surely are most musical. How grand these Sunflowers are! and there is a sweet and gracious look in the Sunflower’s open face. With all her grand mien and stately stature, she never stares up direct at her god; the golden head half bends down; downward also point the symmetrically set broad leaves, delicately shaped _en cœur_. The whole aspect is one of contemplation, or at least one fancies it to be so. There is also a sort of majesty in the one strong single stem, from which proceeds so fine a show of buds, and flowers, and leaves. Yet I have never been happy enough to see her act the part of the poet’s Sunflower--the real Sunflower of our earthly gardens could never turn her head so fast; all that I know she does is to bloom on whichever side of her the sun rises. Poets, nevertheless, are the true seers, and without doubt they know what they say. The French name, “Tournesol,” would seem to imply a popular belief that the flower follows the sun.
The silly Dahlia would turn her face to the wall or any way. Brilliant as are these single Dahlias, they are rather trying in their ways; so much rank leaf and stalk, and so little flower; the plants sometimes too large and bushy, sometimes too thin; and then it is so irritating when their backs are turned as one passes along the walk! The so-called Cactus Dahlia is not at all tiresome; it is beautiful both in form and colour.
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_Aug_. 26. _Sunday Morning._--After a hundred years, if the Seven Sleepers awoke on an English Sunday morning, they would certainly at once know what day it was. There is nothing else like it for the feeling of intense repose. No other stillness can compare with the deep calm of a Sunday morning such as this. No leaf stirs; there is no cloud moving about in the hot hazy blue; the clatter of the iron road has ceased; the very birds are still. Swallows alone are ever on the wing, and the silence is so profound that the beat of their wings can be heard as they dart by in rapid course. The busy corn-fields lie empty in a golden rest. Only here and there, where the harvest is not yet gathered in, the sheaves, like praying hands, stand together on the field. In the green pastures the grazing cattle seem to tread with hushed and silent step. And there is a sound of church bells on the air, coming clear yet faint across the level country. There will be no church for the tired harvestmen whom we saw yesterday lying on the dusty grass by the roadside. They are too tired, and too ragged and dirty; but we may hope for them also some restful influences from the quiet of the day, under such a blue sky.