Part 5

Those little brown pin points, of which you hold hundreds in a pinch on your palm, each one has its "celestial" body ready to spring into life through the dark gateway of death. Surely St Paul must have had his garden as a little boy, and sown his seeds, and marvelled, even as Jim and I did, with eyes opening to the wonder of it all. A wonder that is passed over in the matter-of-course way of the daily round, but that startles one, almost as a revelation, when one's own hand holds the seed, sows it, and then watches for the result.

To say it is just "life" or the "force of nature" or "the energy that is behind all things," these are but words, the marvel remains. Irresistibly the thought arises, "With what body shall _we_ come?" Not with the old earth body for sure, if my seeds are to teach me anything.

So I sowed first the forget-me-nots, as this year they must come from seed. Another year I will take the little shoots that are round the old plant and, separating them, will prick them out in a nursery spot, and so shall my plants for the following year be more mature, stronger, and therefore better flowering; a first year's forget-me-nots are apt to be straggling. Then the sweet-Williams, the wallflowers, red and gold, Canterbury bells, silene, the little bright pink edging that with forget-me-nots makes a border so gay in spring time, these were my first year's venture in biennials; for though some of them may be considered perennials, the best results may be hoped for from a continuously fresh store.

The big sunflower seeds I placed just where I wanted them to come up, sometimes a single one, so that the plant should have all its own way, and wear as big a head as it knew how, and others in groups of four or five.

Nasturtiums also I placed as a border to a lonely shrubbery. Some of the seeds had been got forward in the impromptu frame, but those were for my tree stumps and for creeping up the verandah. Canariensis the same; the convolvulus also were planted freely to cover up deficiencies wherever a creeping thing could grow.

It is wise to sow your perennial seeds early; they get settled in life before they are called upon to face their first winter. So in another spot, judiciously cribbed from cabbage-room--crib I had to for my nursery ground--I sowed in like fashion the perennials, those which had not already begun their career in wooden boxes and frame. There were the big Oriental poppies, red and orange, for my impatience had so far succumbed to the gardening spirit that I could bear to contemplate sowing seeds with the hope of no immediate return, Brompton stocks, penstemons, foxgloves and gaillardias; campanulas, too, short and tall, white and blue; and those already started in boxes, the polyanthus and columbines, nice sturdy little plants by now, were moved to this division a little later, when frosty nights were a thing of the past.

These for my first batch of perennials; others would surely follow with succeeding years. The thought of their permanence delighted me. Dear, nice things! they would not need sowing year by year, but would yearly grow more and more "in favour with God and man." So I hoped, even as a mother hopes it for her children.

That long herbaceous border should one day be full of good stuff, one day blooming with a succession of flowers; but face the fact, one day is not to-morrow. The plants must grow; so, patience, patience, though mine was threadbare.

* * * * *

My other nursery of annuals sown in early March were growing apace and the sweet peas needed sticking. It certainly spoils their appearance for a time but is very necessary. I noticed all my seedlings growing in bits of kitchen garden filched from his Reverence's province grew with greater vigour than those down my own borders.

I suspected that amongst much neglect the vegetable ground had suffered least, and so, in spite of his Reverence's outcry that I was robbing him of at least a sack of potatoes, I continued to make little inroads on his property. And thus I was brought in contact with the fruit-trees bordering the pathways. They had been renewed, many of them, when first his Reverence came to Fairleigh. They looked healthy enough, but very few blossoms and no fruit ever accounted for their existence. I pointed this out to his Reverence, and, full of newly-acquired knowledge, asked him if he had heard of tap-roots. "Griggs planted them, so you may depend that is what is the matter with them, and in the autumn we will have them up."

"You are poaching," said his Reverence.

"You ought to be full of gratitude, but I can't take them in hand myself, I only give you some of my overflowing knowledge. And we should all like to eat our own apples and pears!"

Jim was much interested in tap-roots; he promised himself quite a good time hacking away at them in the autumn. He wondered if the barren fig-tree had a tap-root, but I could not enlighten him.

Everything was growing, we had had some good rain. I can feel for the farmers now; I know what it is to _want_ rain. One of the Others said she wished we would keep quiet, all we gardeners and farmers who hankered after rain. She thought perhaps if we ceased the weather might get a little settled and the sun shine week in week out. To her mind that was far better than fields of corn or beds of even luxuriant flowers. There were sure to be _some_ corn and _some_ flowers anyhow, "so do let other people enjoy the sunshine in peace." Certainly if the English climate is the result of conflicting desires, it would be a good thing to have a national creed on the subject and make it obligatory.

After the rain, however, in that particular month of April, came the sun, and things grew apace.

Though not only my seeds and flowers. The enemy, who for many a long year had sown, or allowed to be sown, weeds in my garden, had his crop likewise.

"They're overmastering us agin," said Griggs, who had his friendly moments; and sometimes, if we were working hard, quite enjoyed standing near and pretending to help us.

"It's your fault that, you know," said Jim, who minced matters with nobody. He was doubled up over the border surrounded with all kinds of implements, for Jim liked everything handy. There was a big clasp knife and a spade and rake, a trowel and little fork, and then he generally used his hands. He was now "tracking home," as he said, that evil-minded weed called, I believe, the ground-elder, and pointed out with some heat, quite excusable under the circumstances, that Griggs, who had just calmly and coolly cut off the head of the plant, had done not a "blooming bit of good."

If you should ever want a really good back-aching job, take a trowel or a little hand fork and begin a fight with those innocent-looking, many-fingered leaves growing in and out in so friendly a fashion with your flowers. You turn up the root, but its hold is still on the earth; you pull a bit and find it belongs to that other cluster of leaves some little distance off. You attack that, very careful not to lose your underground connection, it also has sent long stringy branches in all directions. Then you pull and tear and say "Oh, bother!" and "What a brute of a weed!" Jim and I are careful not to say anything stronger, though he has been known to indulge in "hang," but I feel sure Griggs gives us the character of using "most horful languidge you never heard." Still it goes on, and quite a heap of potato-like roots will be out and yet its hold is not slackened. Finally it lands you in an iris or lily root; it is not particular, but I find it prefers a solid root, and there you get sadly mixed as to what is root and what is weed. But if the job is to be done finally, these roots must be all taken up and carefully disentangled, for all are twined together. This radical measure is best, or rather least injurious to lilies and irises, when their flowering time is over--July and August--and moving or dividing does not disturb them.

Never in all old Griggs's reign of twenty years had he tracked a ground-elder weed home; but I now know the look of those potato-like roots better than any other in my garden.

I cannot say I like doing it. Boys are more invertebrate and do not get so red in the face; and this I pointed out to Jim, suggesting a division of labour.

"You do get jolly red," said Jim, "but really, you know, I expect it's your stays."

"Jim!"

"Well, you needn't get up the steam. I only know when I was dressed up for those theatricals as a beastly, I mean, as a girl, the fellows got hold of some stays, I suppose they bagged their sister's, a precious tight pair, too! and I just tell you, in confidence, they made me absolutely sick. I had to retire looking like an unripe lemon. My! never again!"

"You squeezed too much, Jim."

"That girl must have squeezed more; and you all do, that's my private opinion."

In consideration, therefore, of the infirmities to which a rigorous convention condemns my sex, Jim said he would do the thinning out for me.

My promising annuals, designed for grand duty in the cutting line, godetias and larkspurs and chrysanthemums and Shirley poppies, were all most flourishing, but coming much too thick. They ought to have been thinned out sooner, of course, but we had been too busy, so Jim devoted his early morning hours to them, before the five minutes' rush on his bicycle which took him to the station for Gatley, where he and some other fellows were being crammed to pass the examination for the Royal Navy.

Jim's days were always filled. He never neglected cricket, nor, in its good time, football and hockey; but he was going to see me through with my garden for the first year, he said, and his help and ideas were never-failing.

On the thinning-out mornings Jim got up early; very early it seemed to me when he bounced into my room and sent a flood of light full on my face, or placed a damp sponge there.

"Now I am going to thin, and I can't do it with any satisfaction if you are asleep. What you have to do is to think out any blooming thoughts for this blooming essay on courage. Why the blooming idiot gives us such rotten subjects I can't think. But you must jot down some headings and be ready with them when I come back."

"Jim, what a worn-out old subject. I shall go to sleep over it."

"This won't do," and Jim strode to the washing stand and plunged the sponge in water.

"Oh, don't, Jim, I am awake! There was 'the boy who stood on the burning deck,'" I shouted hurriedly.

Jim came back and stood over me.

"Open your eyes then wide, so. You see you are wasting precious time with your sluggishness."

I thought of those thickly-sown seedlings growing up so leggy, and I roused myself.

"Well, 'the boy' will do, then; he is a good old stager."

"Yes, so he mustn't be left out. All the other fellows will have him in for sure, and if I don't, 'old Joe' will think I don't know about him. They don't want any originality, these chaps; they want you just to stick on and learn what they learnt, then you see you can't put them in a corner. So just rout out good old standing dishes."

Jim turned to go.

"All right; but, Jim, remember to leave the strongest plant."

"'Survival of the fittest,' yes, I've heard that before."

"And don't forget about eight inches apart."

"I prefer six; you turn your thoughts to courage."

"Primitive instinct, difference between man and woman, one has more of the physical variety and the other of the moral," I shouted after him.

"No twaddle," said Jim, striding back. "Think of what _I_ should be likely to say. Of course we all may pick up ideas outside as we have to write the blooming thing in form, but it must sound like me, not you."

"It will, Jim, after it has been through your mill, never fear. And I think eight inches produces strongest plants."

And then Jim slid down the bannisters and I heard him whistling in the garden; but that soon ceased, for you can't whistle when you are bent double.

I must say the row looked very nice when I reviewed it after breakfast. Jim had selected with great care! but the heaps of rejected plantlets lying on the gravel path caused my motherly heart a pang. What a shocking waste! Every tiny seed had come up and ten were growing where but one could find sufficient support for full development, so out must come the nine. Nature is wasteful, and so is human nature, but we can't weed out the overcrowded families; and do the fittest there always survive? Truly it would need courage to tackle that problem.

* * * * *

A little later, in May, I found an employment in which I tried to interest the Others, but it was no good. The only one I brought up to the scratch, or rather the rose tree, fled with horror when I showed her what was needed, and vowed she would rather never smell a rose again than do such disgusting work. But his Reverence took quite kindly to the job, I am glad to say, and it was a good sight in my eyes when I saw his wideawake carefully bent over the standard roses, and then a certain look of victory rose over his spectacles as he spotted the enemy. This new enemy is a very vile-looking little green grub; one variety is brown and fat, and then indeed I have felt inclined to flee myself. I suppose his mamma lands him in an invisible stage on the tender young rose leaves and he curls them round him for a cradle. Then in some mysterious way, which I heartily wish Dame Nature had never taught him, he rocks his cradle to the side of a juicy young bud, glues himself to it and enjoys it. Not much bud is left. So his Reverence unfolds the green cradle and carefully ejects the baby. I simply cannot do that, I pick off the leaf; but in either case the end is rapid and final.

And how prolific is that abominable butterfly! You may, in fact, you _must_, visit your rose trees daily if you would hope to see a goodly show.

At least, so it is in my garden. I can but speak from a limited experience. I have often thought others may be more blessed than I am, but you may not be one of them, friend Ignoramus.

Then there is the green fly, thickly swarming all over banksia or cluster roses, at least, more especially favouring them. Jim would have little to say to the green grub, though occasionally even he and the Young Man had their steps gently led in that direction; and seeing his Reverence's absorption, they too began and then somehow went on. A kind of fatal fascination, I suppose, "Just one more!" The Others would never give the spell a chance, but Jim grew to take the greatest interest in green fly.

The Young Man suggested smoke for their destruction, but his cigarettes did not seem to effect much, though he blew round a bush for quite a long time while I picked the cradle leaves off another, and of course my work was the most effectual. Jim was very keen on trying this remedy too. I said the effect would be worse than his experience with the stays, at which he asked me with dignity if I supposed he was as green as all that! However, Griggs came out with an old syringe, and Jim said that was the work for him. Soapy water and a good shove, and the Young Man was simply deluged.

All Jim said was, "What a mercy it was only you. Think if it had been his Reverence! Winkie! what a shine there would have been."

I thought the young man behaved beautifully, for a man, though he did catch Jim and hold him upside down until he was gurgling.

But when the green fly got the douche very strongly given they too objected, and vacated their position.

Afterwards I obtained a recipe for a douche which had even more effectual results.

Take two ounces of quassia chips (you get them from a chemist for a very small sum) and one ounce of soft soap, and pour on them about a pint of boiling water. Leave it till cold and then add water to the amount of two gallons. With this concoction syringe your green fly, and its extreme bitterness will make them lose all fancy for your rosebuds.

* * * * *

The lilacs were out, and the white guelder rose and the ash tree; may and syringa and laburnum were soon to follow. Truly even a poor neglected little garden has its happy moments!

I would rest some days looking around and enjoying the green so new and fresh everywhere, and trying to shut the reformer's eye. But it was growing too strong for me; the only way to shut it was to reform. The shrubberies were terrible. Laurel was rampant everywhere. A nasty greedy thing, it cannot live and let live, for it takes the nourishment needed by its better brethren. I would have no laurel in my garden, none, but that is a dream for the future. The elder tree too has no manners, it shares this failing with its namesake weed; it shoves and pushes all more gentle growth to the wall. It must be cut back hard. And the syringas also, they need the judicious knife to prune out the old wood and so give strength to the young shoots. And so does the yellow Japanese rose, more learnedly called Kerria Japonica, which in late March and April had given but a poor little show of bloom. I guessed that its treatment had been that of the yellow jasmine. It had been clipped in the autumn on the hedging and ditching principle, and the young shoots with the promise of buds had disappeared beneath Griggs's shears. Better for the plant to have razed it to the ground after flowering, said the Master, for the vigorous young shoots would soon have appeared; so following his instruction I this spring cut the old stems right away, leaving only the new green ones springing from the ground. I am hoping here, too, for next year.

It seems a gardener must always be living in the future, "possessing their souls in patience," and "hoping all things." Truly it is a liberal education, and I hope may prove very valuable to Jim and the Young Man--and other persons.

It has done no good to Griggs.

* * * * *

Spring slipped into summer. The sun shone longer and melted the iciness in the wind's breath; the tender green of the trees gave place to "leafy June" and the shade was grateful.

Jim found a waistcoat superfluous, and the head gardener donned a shady hat and tried to wear gloves.

Yes, the spring was gone, and even with summer's glories to come one turns a regretful glance back to the months when "Behold, He maketh all things new."

SEASON III

Summer

"Knee-deep in June."

And knee-deep in work, too, for June will not give you anything for nothing if you are running a garden. I had my hands full, not only with the legitimate work of June, which is great, but May is sure to have left you in the lurch; this "getting forward" process so much preached by the Master is not seconded by May with at all a whole heart.

"March ain't never nothin' new! Apriles altogether too Brash fer me, and May--I jes' 'Bominate its promises. Little hints o' sunshine and Green around the timber-land, A few blossoms and a few Chip birds, and a sprout or two-- Drap asleep, and it turns in 'Fore daylight and snows agen!"[1]

[1] James Whitcomb Riley.

My poet is an American, but the complaint may be raised also in the old country; only I do not "'bominate" promises. I love them, and as I am perforce a gardener it is a good thing, for I often get nothing else.

But be the garden forward or not, how lovely a garden can be, even a neglected garden, these last weeks of May and first of June.

The chestnuts are scarcely over, the laburnum is raining gold, the may trees are like snow, a delicious reminder when the sun is doing its duty brilliantly; the roses are just breaking from the bud, and now we can congratulate ourselves on the wholesale slaughter of green grub and green fly, without, however, giving up the pursuit.

But what was the matter with those newly-planted rose trees? The crimson rambler, for one, that was to ramp up the verandah, had not ramped an inch; it had only put forth some miserable, half-starved leaves and not one bud. The Others derided it freely. William Allen Richardson looked unhappy too; the new standards seemed more contented, and the Reine Marie Hortense, who also was destined to cover the verandah as rapidly as might be with pink Gloire de Dijon roses, had really begun her work with a will. Why then had my much-vaunted crimson rambler failed me? I had been told they disliked a wall, but not a verandah. "A worm i' the root," suggested One; but I held to certain laws of the Medes and Persians, and one was to leave the roots alone until the right time; so if my rambler wished to flourish elsewhere it must bide until the autumn; though in the front, over an old stump, and down in the kitchen garden it was the same tale, the ramblers refused to ramble.

* * * * *

But the business of the month must not be kept waiting a day, in fact, we began the last week in May, and that was promoting the nurslings from their shelter to the open borders.

The two large round beds that were generally devoted to Griggs's semi-red geraniums and scraggy calceolarias, and which were the only regular planting-out beds the garden possessed, were now a subject of much disquieting thought to me.

They were so terribly important. By them I felt my reputation must stand or fall. They were plainly visible from everywhere. They needed to be a brilliant mass of colour from June to October; no easy problem for one lot of flowers to solve. I had set my face against Griggs's geraniums bordered with calceolarias and lobelias, the refuge of the destitute; any other refuge was to be mine, I resolved. And since it had been no silent resolve, it had perforce to be kept.

At present those beds were an eyesore, but one for which I did not feel responsible. Before I took in hand the reins of garden government, Griggs had buried there a mixture of tulips and edged them with alternate polyanthuses--the poorest of specimens--and forget-me--nots that had weathered the winter in what Griggs termed a "spotty" way. It was certainly a suggestive phrase for those particular plants. But I had been able to join the Others in their chorus of condemnation. Now the time had arrived for a change, and the responsibility appalled me.

I had had visions of those two beds with many various inhabitants. At first the dream had been of violas, pale mauve deepening into the dark purple, but to complete that idea some tall things with a strong colour--red salvias or good red geraniums--were needed; these, planted some eighteen inches apart, would bring out the delicate background. But the dream vanished perforce. Apart from the lack of good red anything, my violas had failed me, and some few dozen little plants were all I could reckon upon. Why, I do not know; it was just this, the seeds had not come up.

So then I dreamed of all my straight little antirrhinums; they would surely make a fine glaring effect. I had red, yellow, white and a good quantity. Jim liked the idea; red was to be the centre, and yellow and white alternate, a broad border.

Griggs took his arrangement away. The dilapidated tulips were saved, of course, and kept in a dry place stored for the autumn planting out.