Part 3
There were several lead foundries in London early in the eighteenth century for the making of these garden ornaments. The foremost was that of John Van Nost. Mr. Lethaby in his book on Leadwork tells us that this Dutch sculptor came to England with King William III.; that his business was taken in 1739 by Mr. John Cheere, who served his time with his brother, Sir H. Cheere, who made several of the Abbey monuments. The kneeling slave, bearing either a vase, as at Melbourne, or a sundial as in the Temple Gardens in London, and in other pleasure grounds in different parts of the country, was apparently a favourite subject. The figure, not always from the same mould in the various examples, but always showing good design, was evidently of Italian origin. Towards the end of the century, designs for lead figures became much debased, and such subjects as people sitting round a table, painted like life, could not possibly have served any decorative purpose. The natural colour of lead is so good that no painting can improve it. In Tudor days it was often gilt, a much more permissible treatment.
In the old days there was probably a parterre at Melbourne, now no longer existing. The figures of kneeling slaves were possibly the centre ornaments of its two divisions, on what is now the upper lawn. This portion of the garden is rather liberally, and perhaps somewhat injudiciously, planted with a mixture of conifers, put in probably thirty to forty years ago, when the remains of good old garden designs were not so reverently treated, nor their value so well understood, as now. Some of this planting has even strayed to the banks of the Great Water. The pleasure ground of Melbourne is a precious relic of the past, and, even though the ill effects of the modern planting of various conifers may be less generally conspicuous there than it is in many places, yet it is distinctly an intrusion. The tall trees inclosed by massive yew hedges, the pools and fountains, the statues and other sculptured ornaments, all recall, with their special character of garden treatment, the times and incidents that Watteau loved to paint. Such a picture as his _Bosquet de Bacchus_, so well known by the engraving, with its gaily-dressed groups of young men and maidens seated in the grassy shade and making the music of their lutes and voices accompany that of the fountains’ waters, might have been painted at Melbourne. For here are the same wide, green-walled alleys, the pools, the fountains and the ornamental details of the great gardens of courtly France of two hundred years ago acclimatised on English soil; not in the dreary vastness of Versailles, but tamed to our climate’s needs and on a scale attuned to the more moderate dimensions of a reasonable human dwelling.
BERKELEY CASTLE
This venerable pile, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited houses in England, stands upon a knoll of rising ground at the southern end of the tract of rich alluvial land known as the Vale of Berkeley, that stretches away for ten miles or more north-eastward in the direction of Gloucester. Within two miles to the west is the Severn, already a mile across and rapidly widening to its estuary. On the side of the higher ground the town creeps up to the shelter of the Castle and the grand old church, on the lower is a level stretch of water-meadow.
Seen from the meadows some half-mile away it looks like some great fortress roughly hewn out of natural rock. Nature would seem to have taken back to herself the masses of stone reared by man seven and a half centuries ago.
The giant walls and mighty buttresses look as if they had been carved by wind and weather out of some solid rock-mass, rather than as if wrought by human handiwork. But when, in the middle of the twelfth century, in the earliest days of the reign of Henry Plantagenet, the castle was built by Robert, son of Harding, he built it with outer walls ten to fifteen feet thick, without definite plan as it would seem, but, as the work went on, suiting the building to the shape of the hillock and to the existing demands of defensive warfare.
When the day is coming to its close, and the light becomes a little dim, and thin mist-films rise level from the meadows, it might be an enchanted castle; for in some tricks of evening light it cheats the eye into the semblance of something ethereal--sublimate--without substance--as if it were some passing mirage, built up for the moment of towering masses of pearly vapour.
So does an ancient building come back into sympathy with earth and cloud. Its stones are carved and fretted by the wind and rain of centuries; tiny mosses have grown in their cavities; the decay of these has formed mould which has spread into every joint and fissure. Here grasses and many kinds of wild plants have found a home, until, viewed from near at hand, the mighty walls and their sustaining buttresses are seen to be shaggy with vegetation.
These immense buttresses on the meadow side come down to a walled terrace; their foundations doubtless far below the visible base. The terrace level is some twelve feet above the grassy space below. The grass then slopes easily away for a distance of a few hundred feet to the alluvial flat of the actual meadow-land.
Large fig-trees grow at the foot of the wall, rising a few feet above the parapet of the terrace, from which the fruit is conveniently gathered.
It is in the deep, well-sheltered bays between the feet of the giant buttresses that the most interesting of the modern flower gardening at Berkeley is done.
White Lilies grow like weeds in the rich red loam, and there are fine groups of many of the best hardy plants and shrubby things, gathered together and well placed by the late Georgina Lady Fitzhardinge, a true lover of good flowers and a woman of sound instinct and well-balanced taste respecting things beautiful both indoors and out.
The chief relic of the older gardening at Berkeley is the remains of the yew hedge that inclosed the bowling-green on three sides; the fourth side having for its boundary the high retaining wall that supports the entrance road beyond the outer gate. The yews, still clipped into bold rounded forms, may have formed a trim hedge in Tudor days, and the level space of turf, which is reached from the terrace by a flight of downward steps that passes under an arch of the old yews, lies cool and sheltered from the westering sun by the stout bulwark of their ancient shade.
The yew arch in the picture shows where the terrace level descends to the bowling-green. The great buttresses of the main castle wall are behind the spectator. A bowery Clematis is in full bloom over the steps
to the shorter terrace above, and near it, on the lower level, is one of the great pear-trees that have been trained upon the wall, and that, with others on the keep above, brighten up the grim old building in spring-time. _Campanula pyramidalis_ has been sown in chinks on the inner side of the low parapet, and the picture shows how handsomely they have grown, supported only by the slight nutriment they could find among the stones. But, like so many of the Bell-flowers, it delights in growing between the stones of a wall. It should be remembered how well this fine plant will succeed in such a place, as well as for general garden use. It is so commonly grown as a pot-plant for autumn indoor decoration that its other uses would seem to be generally overlooked.
SUMMER FLOWERS
The end of June and beginning of July--when the days are hot and long, and the earth is warm, and our summer flowers are in fullest mass and beauty--what a time of gladness it is, and of that full and thankful delight that is the sure reward for the labour and careful thoughtfulness of the last autumn and winter, and of the present earlier year!
The gardens where this reward comes in fullest measure are perhaps those modest ones of small compass where the owner is the only gardener, at any rate as far as the flowering plants are concerned; where he thinks out good schemes of plant companionship; of suitable masses of form and stature; of lovely colour-combination; where, after the day’s work, comes the leisurely stroll, when every flower greets and is greeted as a close friend, and all make willing offering of what they have of scent and loveliness in grateful return for the past loving labour.
This is the high tide time of the summer flowers. It may be a week or two earlier or later according to the district, for our small islands have climatic diversities such as can only be matched within the greater part of the whole area of middle Europe, though inclining to a temperate average. For the Myrtle of the Mediterranean is quite hardy in the South and South-West, and Ivy and Gorse, neither of which is hardy in North and Middle Germany, are, with but few exceptions, at home everywhere. Given, therefore, a moderately good soil, fair shelter and a true love of flowers, there will be such goodly masses as those shown in the pictures.
Advisedly is the word “true” lover of flowers used, for it is now fashionable to like flowers, and much of it is pretence only. The test is to ascertain whether the person professing devotion to a garden works in
it personally, or in any way likes it well enough to take a great deal of trouble about it. To those who know, the garden speaks of itself, for it clearly reflects individual thought and influence; and it is in these lesser gardens that, with rare and happy exceptions, the watchful care and happy invention of the beneficent individuality stamps itself upon the place.
There is nothing more interesting to one of these ardent and honest workers than to see the garden of another. Plants that had hitherto been neglected or overlooked are seen used in ways that had never been thought of, and here will be found new combinations of colour that had never been attempted, and methods of use and treatment differing in some manner to those that had been seen before.
There is nothing like the true gardening for training the eye and mind to the habit of close observation; that precious acquirement that invests every country object both within and without the garden’s bounds with a living interest, and that insensibly builds up that bulk of mentally noted incident or circumstance that, taken in and garnered by that wonderful storehouse the brain, seems there to sort itself, to distribute, to arrange, to classify, to reduce into order, in such a way as to increase the knowledge of something of which there was at first only a mental glimpse; so to build up in orderly structure a well-founded knowledge of many of those things of every-day out-door life that adds so greatly to its present enjoyment and later usefulness.
So it comes about that some of us gardeners, searching for ways of best displaying our flowers, have observed that whereas it is best, as a general rule, to mass the warm colours (reds and yellows) rather together, so it is best to treat the blues with contrasts, either of direct complementary colour, or at any rate with some kind of yellow, or with clear white. So that whereas it would be less pleasing to put scarlet flowers directly against bright blue, and whereas flowers of purple colouring can be otherwise much more suitably treated, the juxtaposition of the splendid blues of the perennial Larkspurs with the rich colour of the orange Herring Lily (_Lilium croceum_) is a bold and grand assortment of colour of the most satisfactory effect.
This fine Lily is one of those easiest to grow in most gardens. The true flower-lovers, as defined above, take the trouble to find out which are the Lilies that will suit their particular grounds; for it is generally understood that the soil and conditions of any one garden are not likely to suit a large number of different kinds of these delightful plants. Four or five successful kinds are about the average, and the owner is lucky if the superb White Lily is among them. But Lilies are so beautiful, so full of character, so important among other flowers or in places almost by themselves, that, when it is known which are the right ones to grow, those kinds should be well and rather largely used.
The garden in which these fine groups were painted has a good loamy soil, such as, with good gardening, grows most hardy flowers well, and therefore the grand White Lily also thrives. A few of the Lilies like peat, such as the great Auratum, and the two lovely pink ones, Krameri and Rubellum. But the garden of strong loam should never be without the White Lily, the Orange Lily, and the Tiger Lily, an autumn flower that seems to accommodate itself to any soil. The Orange Lilies are grandly grown by the Dutch nurserymen in many varieties, under the names _bulbiferum_, _croceum_, and _davuricum_, and their price is so moderate that it is no extravagance to buy them in fair quantity.
Flowers of pure scarlet colour are so little common among hardy perennials that it seems a pity that the brilliant _Lilium chalcedonicum_ of Greece, Palestine, and Asia Minor, and its ally _L. pomponium_, the Scarlet Martagon of Northern Italy, should be so seldom seen in gardens. They are some of the most easily grown, and are not dear to buy. Another Lily that should not be forgotten and is easy to grow in strong soils is the old Purple Martagon; not a bright-coloured flower, but so old a plant of English gardens that in some places it has escaped into the woods. The white variety is very beautiful, the colour an ivory white, and the flower of a waxy texture. They are the Imperial Martagon, or Great Mountain Lily of the old writers; the scarlet _pomponium_, of the same shaped flower, was their Martagon Pompony. The name “pompony,” no doubt, came from the tightly rolled-back petals giving the flower something of the look of the flattened melons of the Cantaloupe kind, with their deep longitudinal furrows; the old name of these being “Pompion.” Another name for this Lily was the Red Martagon of Constantinople. It is so named by that charming old writer Parkinson, who gives evidence of its
popularity and former frequency in gardens in these words: “The Red Martagon of Constantinople is become so common everywhere, and so well known to all lovers of these delights, that I shal seem unto them to lose time, to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a flower, and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth his place and commendations, howsoever increasing the plenty hath not made it dainty.”
One more of the Lilies, indispensable for loveliness, should be grown wherever it is found possible. This is the Nankeen Lily (_L. testaceum_). It is a flower as mysterious as it is beautiful. It is not found wild, and is considered to be a hybrid between the White Lily and the Scarlet Martagon. Whether it occurred naturally, or whether it was the deliberate work of some unknown benefactor to horticulture, will now never be known; we can only be thankful that by some happy agency we have this Lily of mixed parentage, one of the most beautiful in cultivation. The name Nankeen Lily nearly, but not exactly, describes its colour, for a suspicion of pinkish warmth is added to the tender buff-colour usually so named.
Many other Lilies may be grown in different gardens, but the tenderer kinds from Eastern Asia are not for the hardy flower-border, and the vigorous American species have not yet been with us long enough to be familiar as flowers of old English gardens.
A July garden would not show its true character without some masses of the stately blue perennial Larkspurs. No garden plant has been more widely cultivated within the last fifty years, and our nurserymen have produced a large range of beautiful varieties. They have, perhaps, gone a little too far in some directions. The desire to produce something that can be called a novelty often makes growers forget that what is wanted is the thing that is most beautiful, rather than something merely exceptionally abnormal, to be gaped at in wonderment for perhaps one season, and above all for the purpose of being blazoned forth in the trade list. The true points to look for in these grand flowers are pure colour, whether light, medium or dark, fine stature and a well-filled but not overcrowded spike. There are some pretty double flowers, where the individual bloom loses its normal shape and becomes flattened, but the single is the truer form. They are so easily raised from seed that good varieties may be grown at home, when, if space may be allowed for a line of seedlings in the trial-ground, it is pleasant to watch what they will bring forth. Such a good old kind as the one named “Cantab” is a capital seed-bearer, and will give many handsome plants. They must be carefully observed at flowering time, and any of poor or weedy habit in their bloom thrown away. Some will probably have interrupted spikes, that is to say, the spike will have some flowers below and then a bare interval, with more flowers above. This is a fault that should not be tolerated.
The Monkshoods (_Aconitum_) are related to the Larkspurs (_Delphinium_); indeed, it is a common thing to hear them confused and the name of one used for the other. It is easy to understand how this may be, for the leaves are much alike in shape, and both genera bear hooded flowers on tall spikes, mostly of blue and purple colours. For ordinary garden knowledge it may be remembered that Monkshood has a smooth leaf and that the colour is a purplish blue, the bluest of those commonly in cultivation being the late-flowering _Aconitum japonicum_, and that the true pure blues are those of the perennial Larkspurs, whose leaves are downy.
The great Delphiniums love a strong, rich loamy soil, rather damp than dry, and plenty of nourishment.
There is a handsome Monkshood with pale yellow flowers that is well used in the garden of the White Lilies, and most happily in their near companionship. It is _Aconitum Lycoctonum_; a plant of Austria and the Tyrol. The widely-branched racemes of pale luminous bloom are thrown out in a graceful manner, in pleasant contrast with the equally graceful but quite different upright carriage of the White Lily. The handsome dark green polished leaves of this fine Aconite are also of much value; persisting after the bloom is over till quite into the late autumn.
Many of the charming members of the Bell-flower family are fine things in the flower-border. The best of all for general use is perhaps the well-known _Campanula persicifolia_, with its slender upright stems and its numbers of pretty bells, both blue and white. There are double
kinds, but the doubling, though in some cases it makes a good enough flower, changes the true character so much that it is a Bell-flower no longer; and we think that a Bell-flower should be a bell, and should hang and swing, and not be made into a flattened flower set rather tightly on an ungraceful, thickened stem.
Another beautiful Campanula is _C. latifolia_, especially the white-flowered form. It is not only a first-rate flower, but it gives that pleasant impression of wholesome prosperity that is so good to see. The tall, pointed spike of large milk-white bells is of fine form, and the distinctly-toothed leaves are in themselves handsome. Like all the Bell-flowers, the bloom is cut into six divisions--“lobes of the corolla,” botanists call them. Each division is sharply pointed and recurved or rolled back after the manner of many of the Lilies. This fine Campanula is not only a good plant for the flower-border, but also for half-shady places in quiet nooks where the garden joins woodland, in the case of those fortunate gardens that have such a desirable frontier-land; the sort of place where the instinct of the best kind of gardener will prompt him to plant, or rather to sow, the white Foxglove, and to plant the white French Willow (_Epilobium_).
Nothing is more commonly seen in gardens than wide-spread neglected patches of _Campanula grandis_. The picture shows it better grown. It spreads quickly and in many gardens flowers only sparingly, because the tufts should have been oftener divided. It is perhaps the most commonly grown of all, and though, as the picture shows, it can be more worthily used than is ordinarily done, it is by no means so pretty a plant as others of its family.
In good soils in our southern counties the tall and beautiful Chimney Campanula (_C. pyramidalis_), commonly grown in pots for the conservatory, should be largely used in the borders; it also loves a place in a wall joint. It is a plant that we are so used to see in a pot that we are apt to forget its great merit in the open ground.
Of the smaller Bell-flowers, _C. carpatica_, both blue and white, is one of the very best of garden plants; delightful from the moment when the first tuft of leaves comes out of the ground in spring till its full blooming time in middle summer. No plant is better for the front edge of a border, especially where the edge is of stone; though it is just tall enough to show up well over a stout box-edging.
The biennial Canterbury Bells are well known and in every garden. Their only disadvantage is that they flower in the early summer and then have to be cleared away, leaving gaps that may be difficult to fill. The careful gardener, foreseeing this, arranges so that their near neighbours in the border shall be such as can be led or trained over to take their places. It should not be forgotten that the Canterbury Bell is an admirable rock or wall plant, where the size of a rock-wall admits of anything so large. The wild plant from which it came has its home in rocky clefts in Southern Italy.
ROCKINGHAM
In large gardens where ample space permits, and even in those of narrow limits, nothing is more desirable than that there should be some places, or one at least, of quiet greenery alone, without any flowers whatever. In no other way can the brilliancy of flowers be so keenly enjoyed as by pacing for a time in some cool green alley and then passing on to the flowery places. It is partly the unconscious working out of an optical law, the explanation of which in every-day language is that the eye, being, as it were, saturated with the green colour, is the more ready to receive the others, especially the reds.
Even in quite a small garden it is often possible to arrange something of the sort. In the case of a place that has just one double flower-border and a seat or arbour at the end, it would be easy to do by stopping the borders some ten feet away from the seat with hedges of yew or hornbeam, and putting other seats to right and left; the whole space being turfed.
The seat was put at the end in order to give the whole view of the border while resting; but, after walking leisurely along the flowers and surveying their effect from all points, a few minutes’ rest on one of the screened side seats would give repose to the eye and brain as well as to the whole body, and afford a much better preparation for a further enjoyment of the flowers.