Part 9
Then I explained fully to the Young Man the glories and delights of a pergola and vistas; and he is quite ready to help fix the iron arches, fasten overhead the wire netting, train the clambering roses, vines and clematis, and--cut down the holly hedge.
His Reverence's education will take a little time, I expect. In the meanwhile the archway made in the broad gap cut in his holly hedge will help to train his eye to the beauty of vistas.
But how the Visitor would despise my compromising soul!
It was judicious of me to give his Reverence the direction of the new border. I heard nothing of expense, and, once started, he went ahead in thorough fashion.
The gravel was carted away, and some feet of stony earth. Then we came to a layer of good though light soil. The backs of shrubberies, a small wood at the bottom of a field, a bank in the kitchen garden were all taxed for their share of the best soil we could get, and this, finally mixed in with some old turf and manure, made a border that looked promising. There was no need to begin with a layer of broken china and sardine tins, for the drainage in my soil was more than sufficient, and this disappointed Jim, who said he was ready with a fine collection, had that substratum been necessary.
And then, my new border ready, I launched out.
It was to be partly herbaceous, partly for bulbs and annuals.
The promised plants, which began to come in, supplied me with some delphiniums and small perennial sunflowers. I moved there some of my young plants of oriental poppies, planting them near together until they should have expanded. Then I selected my lilies. The auratum and other delightful varieties I had to leave out, but the white Madonna lily would thrive, and croceum, an orange-coloured bloom, and the soft apricot shade of an elegans promised to be hardy. These were placed in front of the delphiniums and room left for big sunflowers in the spring. Half forward the Canterbury bells, sweet-Williams and tall campanulas were placed in clumps, and in front of them, well buried, were groups of the Spanish and English irises, meant, as they succeed each other, to keep bright patches of yellow, purple and white flowering there for some time. They are not very dear--five shillings a hundred--and I now began to reckon on a new five pounds. Montbresias, too, I launched into, and left spaces for groups of gladiolas to join them in the spring. Then for early flowering I introduced my thriving young wallflowers, always in groups, not rows, and some of the dear narcissi and gorgeous tulips would, I thought, be admired before other things had a chance. To end up with, and be gay to the verge of gaudy, I had forget-me-nots and pink silene.
Even the thought of the Visitor could not disturb my satisfaction over my new border. He had not given me his views on flowers.
* * * * *
The archway where the holly hedge was sacrificed for my vista was formed of two iron staves bent into arches and joined with wire netting of eighteen inches wide. The village blacksmith supplied the staves; they measured some fourteen feet when they arrived, but were cut and buried until the archway was at its highest point seven feet; and the wire netting was fastened on by my usual assistants. The Young Man was very neat-handed. Then we consulted as to its covering, and, had all suggestions been taken, it would have had to bear a vine on account of its foliage; a virginian creeper for the red leaves in autumn; a Gloire de Dijon since it seemed to prosper in my soil; clematis, both montana and flamulata, and any number of the coloured varieties; a wisteria, as we had none; a pink and a white banksia; a W. A. Richardson and a crimson rambler. My arch having but two sides I was obliged to offend a good many voters, and, despite jeers as to my former failures, I decided on giving the crimson rambler another try. I chose also a white banksia and a clematis montana, with free promises of introducing other clematis and annual creepers later on, and carrying out all ideas when once I had my pergola.
* * * * *
Even after this supreme effort my autumn's work was only just beginning. There was the verandah with its failures to tackle. The beginning of November I unearthed the ramblers that even still refused to ramble, and soon the cause of their stunted condition was laid bare.
"Pot bound! Whoi," said Griggs, "so they are! Curious! I don't moind 'avin' see'd 'em look like that. Maybe I was drefful 'urried at the toime and never paid no 'eed."
As he spoke he tore at the poor roots, confined with a web-like substance just the shape of the pot they had come in.
Anyone, absolutely _any_ Ignoramus, must have seen the hopelessness of planting a rose-tree with its roots cramped like that. It was impossible for the poor plant to strike out, make itself at home, and get enough nourishment to grow on. How it had managed to live was the marvel. And they were all the same, W. A. Richardson and the other ramblers yellow and red; the standards had not come in pots, so their fate had been better.
It was soon done, and I felt that prisoners had been released. We gave them turf mould and manure mixture to strengthen them.
But it was not only the roses; all the creepers, excepting one clematis, had made but poor growth. At last the mystery was solved.
A spreading beech threw its grateful shade over half the house and grew within three yards of one end of the verandah. How far-reaching were its roots I now discovered, and their greedy feelers taking every bit of nourishment, both deep and near the surface, my creepers fought an unequal fight for their daily bread. The condition of the roots of a poor honeysuckle reminded one of prisoners of the Bastille.
But how to circumvent the tree? how to teach it manners? For there it must stay, and so must the creepers and plants. We could cut the roots, but they would come again.
Griggs scratched his head. "It's Natur', that's wot it is, an' that ere tree 'ave been 'ere longer than any of us. So you can't do nothink."
"We must do something. Young Man, are you thinking?"
"Hard," was the answer.
"Let's build an underground wall," suggested Jim. But we all shook our heads and thought again.
"Let's sink something," said the Young Man.
"Oh! a tub, an oil tub!" I almost shouted.
"Why, yes," said the Young Man. "I was thinking of zinc, but that sounds so airtight and stuffy."
"Wouldn't a wooden tub rot away, though? A coffin goes to pieces pretty quick," said Jim.
"Well, it will give them a better chance, and perhaps the roots will get accustomed to going round. Anyway they can be renewed," said the Young Man, cheerfully. "If no other idea is forthcoming, let us go and find some tubs."
Now, how long wooden tubs will last under ground I cannot say, but we did then and there sink four tubs beneath the gravel, and filled them with good mixture, making holes and placing stones at the bottom for drainage, and there the roots of the poor starvelings had, at least for a time, a good meal, and when growing time comes I expect the honeysuckle, the roses and the clematis to do justice to their fare.
The further end of the verandah was almost out of reach of the greedy roots, as the long white streamers of the flamulata proved.
It is a satisfaction when things grow and flower and flourish as books and catalogues have led you to expect.
* * * * *
Two of my green tubs were now emptied of the still rampant leaves of the nasturtium and the strong-growing geraniums. It seemed a pity to cut short any vigorous life at the dying season of the year, but Jack Frost would feel no compunction, and I might as well try and live up to the Master's maxim of "getting forward"; so after refilling my tubs with as wholesome a mixture as I could, I planted in each four good roots of my old friend hellebore, and had them placed just under the verandah.
The Others at first looked askance. "Will they flower?" I bade them examine the already formed buds. For I bought my hellebore in promising condition at one shilling and sixpence each, and by moving them with a good solid lump of earth round the roots I hoped not to check their development. I bought the common kind of white Christmas rose, niger, and also a pinky-purple kind, with tall graceful heads called atrorubens.
And when the robins, the snow, the sunshine and my Christmas roses all came together, my verandah realised a very pretty Christmas-card effect, and the Others said, "That is not at all bad." Then the jasmine growing under the verandah burst also into golden stars, its growth of one year having been carefully left alone, and I received as much praise as though I had done something wonderful, which is often the way of the world.
"Luck was with glory wed."
This, however, is very previous, and I must go back to the end of October.
* * * * *
I determined the Others should not complain next spring of lack of colour. The sturdy little forget-me-not plants were placed all round the narrow verandah border, and bright red tulips, I allowed myself fifty for that purpose, were buried between their roots a foot apart. That effect ought to be gay.
In the small inner border between the windows that open on to the verandah I placed the violets from their too shady bed. By taking them up with good balls of earth I hoped not to check any flowering aspirations they might have, and as this was done in October they did recover, and in November and December they kept the verandah sweet, and ought to do even better in March.
Under the study windows I planted a good mass of my red and yellow wallflowers, not only to delight the eye but to send up the fragrance that fills one with the joy of life and spring, and that his Reverence might open his windows in April and say, "Well, the garden _is_ growing;" I also gave him a touching border of forget-me-nots.
Then, too, the desolate front border needed attention. It was always a trial, for it was the poorest of my poor soil, and much robbed by laurels, laburnum and may in the background. I knew I ought to re-make the whole border, and treat it as I had treated the new one; but prudence bade me lie low and leave it for another year. I removed the old things, the clumps of seedlings, marigolds, zinnias and the gallant little antirrhinums, who had now marched their last march, also geraniums and dahlias; the latter being carefully dried and stored in an open wooden box in the potting-shed.
Griggs kindly gave it "a bit of a dig," and removed the stones that struck even him as being rather heavy for a border. I wish the worms could be taught to carry their useful work a little further and not only dig up the stones but place them in piles by the wayside.
We supplemented the poverty of the border with a little of our manure heap diet, and here I may remark that our savoury heap was composed of all kinds of material besides that derived from the stable. The grass mowings, border trimmings, leaf sweepings, also all refuse of roots and vegetables, after having formed a bonfire, were carefully added to this store. The bonfire reduces the bulk but makes valuable diet without the danger of sowing unwelcome seeds. Though to the owners of big gardens worth writing about, and limitless gardeners and purse, my one poor means of improving the soil may seem very inadequate, still it was much better than nothing at all, and about suited to my other equipment of Griggs and ignorance and five pounds.
Griggs, who regarded me more and more as an interloper, gave grudgingly of this store. "And wot 'ull I do for _my_ wegetables?" It was always "_my_ wegetables" and "_your_ flowers." "The Rector 'ull be at me if I let you finish hoff that 'ere 'eap. 'E thinks a lot more of 'es wegetables than you do. An 'e's right. You can _eat_ wegetables. So I ain't a-going to let you have no more."
I felt reference to his Reverence just then might be injudicious, so I soothed Griggs and put up, or the border did, with pauper fare. The hardiest things were placed here. Foxgloves in clumps, and white and purple Canterbury-bells. Further forward I tried sweet-Williams and lupins. I bought some of these, both white and so-called blue, at five shillings a dozen, rather small plants, but though my friends fulfilled their promises and sent me hampers, I had so much room, and all the long border to think of. Some of my tulip bulbs from last year came in handy, and I edged off with pink silene.
To get a border bright in May and June did not seem an impossibility to me now, but to continue the array through the summer was brain-splitting. But though looking forward and calculating is the very essence of gardening, one must also remember that one cannot get two seasons' work into one, and I tried resolutely to put the summer from my mind and reckon only with the spring, leaving February and March to tackle the further future.
I turned then to my two round beds. They had been a consolation even after our Visitor had insulted them. "_Si on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a."_ Theoretically I hate compromises, practically I live by them. And so I prepared two beautiful Persian carpets, nothing to do with carpet bedding, for March, April and May. My polyanthuses just filled in those two round beds, and Jim and I took up the yellow harmony with feelings of regret.
"It was a jolly good idea," said Jim, "and you and I concocted it together, you know, Mary. But, would you believe it, his Reverence was talking the other day as though _he_ had evolved the whole blooming show. I said, 'You had better let Mary hear you.'"
"Why, that is the biggest compliment the beds could have had, Jim. He would not have claimed them unless they had been a success. I hope my Persian carpets will come off as well; I am only going to give the plants six inches to expand in. They are very neat and trim, and some are forming buds already, which is foolish of them. Nip them off. But things don't grow rampantly in this soil, it is no use deceiving oneself."
"I never did," said Jim; "'excepting weeds' you should add."
Those beds had to be refreshed, and as Griggs was busy down the kitchen garden, Jim enlisted the Young Man as he left the study and made him help to wheel a barrowful of the "heap" on to the scene of action.
"I tell him it's a healthy smell," said Jim; "fancy, he didn't want to come."
"Didn't he? Then, Jim, it is very forward of you to make him. His Reverence's Young Man ought not to be worried. He has _much_ more important things to do than plant polyanthuses."
"Oh, I dare say! but I wasn't going to lug all this smelly stuff about alone, and you know _you_ won't do it, and Griggs wouldn't let you have it if I had told him to do it, so who was there?"
"I am very pleased to be of any service to you, Mistress Mary, but I didn't want to intrude," said the Young Man, and there was an east wind in his voice.
"When a fellow was caught by the press-gang he didn't apologise for intruding," said Jim, scornfully.
So the Young Man chased Jim round, and after the latter had screamed _"Peccavi!_" they both came back heated and consequently thawed, and I wondered over the boyishness of men.
I don't think I am a very good hand at digging; I let Jim feel the superiority of his sex to the full when it comes to hard manual labour, and I have to retract a great deal that I have said in less guarded moments about the masculine hands and feminine head. Jim tried to lure the Young Man into the discussion, but when the opponent lies down flat there is nothing to be done. Jim said it was sneaky, and the Young Man said, "No, feminine diplomacy," with a look that meant "that will cause a rise"; but I was giving all the little brain I had to the work in hand, and my only answer was,
"Oh, do dig that in quickly; if Griggs comes he will cart it all away for those rapacious cabbages of his."
Jim is sometimes the Young Man's mouthpiece.
"Ha, ha! you funk having it out with him."
"Perhaps Mistress Mary is merciful because she is strong," said the Young Man.
"You don't know her as I do, that's all. She is 'Mary, Mary, quite contrairy.'"
I ignored Jim and turned to the Young Man.
"And why did you need the press-gang to make you come and help this nice hard-working kind of an afternoon?"
Then the reason for the east wind became clear.
"I could hardly flatter myself you really wanted me. I have not seen you, not been in the garden, I mean, for five days."
"Oh! but whose fault is that?" I asked mildly, for the heinousness of the omission did not startle me.
The Young Man straightened up all his six foot and looked tragic.
"I offered to come last Thursday, you may remember, and I was told, most politely, that I need not trouble myself."
"Now really that is scarcely fair! I only said, I know I said how kind you were, but that you ought not to work too hard, and that, I remember I said quite a number of nice and considerate things."
"I heard through all only the 'No,'" said the Young Man, giving a free translation of a favourite German quotation.
"You know I value your help. The garden is much indebted to you, but of course I don't like to bother people."
"That is quite a new idea," interrupted Jim, scraping his muddy little hands and then plunging them in among the roots again. "I can't say I have seen much result from it myself!"
"Don't you know it is no bother to me," continued the Young Man with fresh earnestness. "Don't you know--"
"Oh, no, really I don't. I have been working so hard these last few days, and I seem able to think of nothing but roots and bulbs and--practical things like that."
"I am sure I wish to be practical. I wish for nothing better," he exclaimed energetically.
"Then do finish that row of polyanthuses," I said, looking up with a forgiving smile.
"The first sensible word either of you have spoken for the last five minutes," remarked Jim, with decision. "The way you two palaver while _I_ go steady ahead!"
But the Young Man interpreted my smile in his own way and went on cheerfully, "That's all right, then. Now, Jim, look to your laurels; these plantlets are going in with a rush!"
Weeks after, when contemplating the neat, regular little roots, my thoughts went back, as thoughts will, to the conversation attached to them, and I wondered what he meant by its being "all right." I had never felt anything was wrong. Words are such clumsy mediums, and sometimes even thoughts are too definite. There is a kind of inner consciousness, vague and mystical, full of colour and sensation, but without form or sound, and I think women develop it more strongly than men.
The Young Man has a very definite character. His energy next took the form of a large hamper of plants from his mother's garden, a godsend for that half-empty, long border.
And my conscience, growing with my garden, I suppose, found a safety-valve in ornamenting the window boxes of the Young Man's sitting-room, lately filled with Mrs Jones's screen of geraniums, with some spare bulbs. I do think they will look rather nice, but his gratitude was quite absurd, for really Jim did most of the work.
* * * * *
I am aware that to form a proper herbaceous border you should have a colour scheme, or rather several colour schemes, in your mind's eye from the very beginning. This is a counsel of perfection to which I humbly hope I may some day attain. I confess to being still at the stage where all flowers, all colours, and plenty of everything holds great attraction for me. But, Ignoramus as I am, I do not want disorder to reign; one must at least grasp the height and the flowering time of each plant, and strive after a succession of bloom fairly well represented over all the border and all the months. I thought therefore of my background, the tall varieties; my middle distance of less exalted growth, and my foreground of humble height. And then I took a large sheet of paper and drew on it a long border with three divisions, and proceeded to fill in these divisions with what flowers I already had planted, and others yet to come.
Then I tried to imagine the plants in bloom, and what colours would look well next each other, and how to repeat them as the eye follows the length of the border.
In early spring, as in late autumn, yellow is the most prevalent colour; but in spring the yellow mixed with all the budding green has a most bright and young appearance. It is the sunrise, the promise of the day that is to be; whereas in autumn, with the rich tints of departing glory surrounding it, the suggestion is of "mellow fruitfulness."
The yellow doronicum in the middle distance will probably be the first to break the greenness of the herbaceous border, unless there are clumps of daffodils hidden, but I think the border may be full enough without them, and they can be massed in so many places unfit for border plants. Patches of polyanthus and even snowy London pride are useful at that early season, and can be placed near the edge. I saw one lovely effect, but cannot myself undertake to repeat it; it would answer better in a more favoured garden. Instead of the usual box edging the whole length of the border was given to violets, and a delightful purple line as well as delicious scent was the result. It needs more care than the trim box, but the close green leaves form a very effective edging after the flowers have departed. The "bleeding heart" should follow the doronicum very quickly, it also belongs to the middle division; but the colour scheme is still mostly green, with just these occasional breaks.
Then the paper border was quickly filled with a bright procession for June and July. At the back delphiniums in numerous successive clumps and all degrees of blue; valerian, several of the strong little roots placed together to form a good show of delightful rosy red blossoms. Foxgloves should rear their effective spotted heads between, and later on lilies--Madonna's white and tiger's yellow--would take their place. Lupins were also in this division, but a little more forward, each division naturally sub-dividing itself into tall and taller. Galega, both white and mauve, were to grow here, but hollyhocks well at the back. The sunflower also, soleil d'or, with the thought of the annual variety to follow in spring, and therefore a space to be left. The smaller kind I kept for the middle division; it is a useful, neat little bush, rigidus by name, and cost me sixpence a plant. Spiræa, a strong, herbaceous variety, should come as a kind of break to the regularity; it should grow so bushy and tall that it must be given two divisions in which to expand. The phlox must be placed at the back, also the hardy white daisy, several old plants of which had weathered Griggs's reign; also the bright and useful golden rod, and some welcome clumps of Japanese anemones. My friends dealt in larger clumps than the mercenary florist, I found. We left a good space here and there for the dahlias, and thus my background seemed fairly full.
I considered the iris roots for some time, and then determined to give the German variety a place all to themselves. Strained political relations had nothing to do with my decision, but when not on show the knife-like leaves and twisting roots are not particularly pleasing; so, before his Reverence could forbid, I had my iris row down a side border. The kitchen garden is cut by a most convenient number of paths, and Griggs has no objection to my taking from his space.