Part 9
This beautiful place offers so few details that can be adversely criticised that these few are the more noticeable. The sundial has a handsome shaft, but should stand upon a much wider step. The introduction of pyramid fruit-trees at concentric points, both here and in other parts of the design, is an experiment of doubtful value, that will probably never add to the pictorial value of the design. The garden critic may also venture to suggest that the pergola, which is well placed at the eastern end of the parterre, deserves better piers than its posts of fir. Here would be the place for some simple use of specially made bricks, such as a pier hexagonal in plan built of bricks of two shapes, diamond and triangle, two inches thick, with a wide mortar joint. Each course would take two bricks of each shape, and their disposition, alternating with each succeeding course, would secure an admirable bond.
The great parterre has main divisions of grass paths twelve feet wide, each subdivision--four on each side of the cross-walk and sundial--of eight three-sided beds disposed Union-Jack-wise, with bordering beds stopped by a clipped Box-bush at each end. Narrow grass walks are between the beds. The borders are roomy enough to accommodate some of the largest of the good hardy flowers, for the garden is given to these, not to “bedding stuff.” Here are some of the tall perennial Sunflowers, eight feet high; the great autumn Daisy (_Pyrethrum uliginosum_); bushes of Lavender with Pentstemons growing through them--a capital combination, doing away with the need of staking the Pentstemons; the last of the Phloxes; for the time of the picture, which was painted in this part of the garden, is September.
This bold use of autumnal border flowers invites the exercise of invention and ingenuity; for instance, August is the main time for the flowering of Lavender, and, though a thinner crop succeeds the heavier normal yield, yet the bushes then look thin of bloom. Clematises, purple, lilac and white, can be planted among them, and can easily be guided, by an occasional touch with the hand, to run over the Lavender bushes. The same capital autumn flowers should be planted with the handsome white Everlasting Pea. The Pea is supported by stout branching spray and does its own good work in July. When the bloom is over it is cut off, and the Clematis, which has been growing by its side with a support of rather slighter spray, is drawn close to the foliage of the Pea and spreads over it.
The working out of such simple problems is one of the many joys of the good gardener; and every year, with its increased experience, brings with it a greater readiness in the invention of such happy combinations.
PALMERSTOWN
The Earl of Mayo’s residence in County Kildare, Ireland, lies a few miles distant from the small market town of Naas. The house is of classical design, built within the nineteenth century. Around it is extensive park-land that is pleasantly undulating, and is well furnished with handsome trees both grouped and standing singly. In the lower level is a large pool with Water-lilies, and natural banks fringed with reeds and the other handsome sub-aquatic vegetation that occurs wild in such places.
There was an older house at Palmerstown in former days, whose large walled kitchen garden remains. It is a lengthy parallelogram, divided in the middle into two portions, each nearly a square, by a fine old yew hedge with arches cut in it for the two walks that pass through. The paths are broad, and some width on each side has been planted as a flower border, giving ample space for the good cultivation and enjoyment of all the best of the hardy flowers, so willing to show their full growth and beauty in the soft genial climate of the sister island.
It is a place that shows at once the happy effect of wise and sure direction, for Lady Mayo is an accomplished gardener, and the inclosure abounds with evidences of fine taste and thoughtful intention. One length of border is given to Lavender and China Rose, always a delightful and most harmonious mixture. There is a length of some twenty yards of this pleasant combination--the picture shows one end--with a few groups of taller plants, such as Bocconia, behind. Fruit-trees, trained as espaliers, form the back of the border, or sometimes there is a hedge of Sweet Pea. Vegetables occupy the middle portions of the quarters. The flower-bordered paths pass across and across the middle space, with others about ten feet within the walls and parallel with them. Quite in the middle the path passes round a fountain basin, and there are four arches on which Roses and Clematis are trained.
Such flower borders give ample opportunity for the practising of good gardening. The task is the easier in that only one of the pairs of borders can be seen at a glance, and a definite scheme of colour progression can easily be arranged. Such schemes are well worth thinking out. The writer’s own experience favours a plan in which the borders begin with tender colourings of pale blue, white and pale yellow, with bluish foliage, passing on to the stronger yellows. These lead to orange, scarlet and strong blood-reds. The scale of colouring then returns gradually to the pale and cool colours.
It is by such simple means that the richest effects of colour are obtained, whether in a continuous border or in clump-shaped masses. A separate space of flower-border may also be well treated by the use of an even more restricted scheme of colouring. Purple and lilac flowers, with others of pink and white only, and foliage of grey and silvery quality, the darkest being such as that of Rosemary and Echinops, make a charming flower-picture, with a degree of pictorial value that any one who had not seen it worked out would scarcely think possible.
The right choice of treatment depends in great measure on the environment. When this, as at Palmerstown, consists of old walls and a grand hedge of venerable yews, a suitable frame is ready for the display of almost any kind of garden-picture.
The yews are ten feet high and six feet through. Over a seat one of them is cut into the form of a peacock. To the left of the green archway in the Lavender picture, the yew takes the form of the heraldic wild-cat, the Mayo crest. Outside the garden is a yew walk of untrimmed trees; they show in the picture to the right, over the wall. Here, in the heat of summer, the coolness and dim light are not only in themselves restful and delightful, but, after passing along the bright borders, where eye and brain become satiated with the brilliancy of light and colour, the cool retreat is doubly welcome, preparing them afresh for further appreciation of the flower-borders.
ST. ANNE’S, CLONTARF
There is perhaps no place within the British islands so strongly reminiscent of Italy as St. Anne’s, in County Dublin, one of the Irish seats of Lord Ardilaun. This impression is first received from the number and fine growth of the grand Ilexes, which abound by the sides of the approaches and in the park-land near the house. For there are Ilexes in groups, in groves, in avenues--all revelling in the mild Irish air and nearness to the sea.
The general impression of the place, as of something in Italy, is further deepened by the house of classical design and of palatial aspect, both within and without, that has that sympathetic sumptuousness that is so charming a character of the best design and ornamentation of the Italian Renaissance. For in general when in England we are palatial, we are somewhat cold, and even forbidding. We stand aloof and endure our greatness, and behave as well as we are able under the slightly embarrassing restrictions. But in Italy, as at St. Anne’s, things may be largely beautiful and even grandiose, and yet all smiling and easily gracious and humanly comforting.
As it is in the house, so also is it in the garden; the same sentiment prevails, although the garden shows no effort in its details to assume an Italian character. But apparent everywhere is the remarkable genius of Lady Ardilaun--a queen among gardeners. A thorough knowledge of plants and the finest of taste; a firm grasp and a broad view, that remind one of the great style of the artists of the School of Venice--these are the acquirements and cultivated aptitudes that make a consummate gardener.
The grounds themselves were not originally of any special beauty. All the present success of the place is due to good treatment. Adjoining the house, at the northern end of its eastern face, is a winter garden. Looking from the end of this eastward, is a sight that carries the mind directly to Southern Europe; an avenue of fine Ilexes, and, at the end, a blue sea that might well be the Mediterranean. Passing to the left, before the Ilexes begin, is a walk leading into a walled inclosure of about two acres. Next the wall all round is a flower-border; then there is a space of grass, then a middle group of four square figures, each bordered on three sides by a grand yew hedge that is clipped into an outline of enriched scallops like the edge of a silver _Mentieth_; a series of forms consisting of a raised half-circle, then a horizontal shoulder, and then a hollow equal to the raised member.
The genial climate admits of the use of many plants that generally need either winter housing or some special contrivance to ensure well-being. Thus there are great clumps of the blue African Lily (_Agapanthus_); and Iris Susiana blooms by the hundred, treated apparently as an ordinary border plant.
The picture shows a portion of a double flower-border in another square walled garden, formerly a kitchen garden, and only comparatively lately converted into pleasure-ground. Yews planted in a wide half-circle form a back-ground to the bright flowers and to a statue on a pedestal. The intended effect is not yet finished, for the trellis at the back of the borders is hardly covered with its rambling Roses, which will complete the picture by adding the needed height that will bring it into proper relation with the tall yews. There is a cleverly invented edging which gives added dignity as well as regularity, and obviates the usual falling over of some of the contents of the border on to the path; an incident that is quite in character in a garden of smaller proportion, but would here be out of place. A narrow box edging, just a trim line of green, has within it a good width of the foliage of Cerastium. The bloom, of course, was over by the middle of June, but the close carpet of downy white leaf remains as a grey-white edging throughout the summer and autumn.
Though this border shows bold masses of flowers, it scarcely gives an
idea of the general scale of grand effect that follows the carrying out of the design and intention of its accomplished mistress. For here things are done largely and yet without obtrusive ostentation. They seem just right in scale. For instance, in the house are some great columns; huge monoliths of green Galway marble. It is only when details are examined that it is perceived how splendid they are, and only when the master tells the story, that the difficulty of transporting them from the West of Ireland can be appreciated. For they were quarried in one piece, and bridges broke under their immense weight. At one point in their journey they sank into a bog, and their rescue, and indeed their whole journey and final setting up at its end, entailed a series of engineering feats of no small difficulty.
AUCHINCRUIVE
The mild climate of south-western Scotland is most advantageous for gardening. Hydrangeas and Myrtles flourish, Fuchsias grow into bushes eight to ten feet high. Mr. Oswald’s garden lies upon the river Ayr, a few miles distant from the town of Ayr. The house stands boldly on a crag just above the river, which makes its music below, tumbling over rocky shelves and rippling over shingle-bedded shallows. For nearly a mile the garden follows the river bank, in free fashion as befits the place. Trees are in plenty and of fine growth, both on the garden side and the opposite river shore. Here and there an opening in the trees on the further shore shows the distant country. The garden occupies a large space; the grouping of the shrubs and trees taking a wilder character in the portions furthest away from the house, so that, mingling at last with native growth, garden gradually dies away into wild. Large undulating lawns give a sense of space and freedom and easy access.
That close, fine turf of the gardens of Britain is a thing so familiar to the eye that we scarcely think what a wonderful thing it really is. When we consider our flower and kitchen gardens, and remember how much labour of renewal they need--renewal not only of the plants themselves, but of the soil, in the way of manurial and other dressings; and when we consider all the digging and delving, raking and hoeing that must be done as ground preparation, constantly repeated; and then when we think again of an ancient lawn of turf, perhaps three hundred years old, that, except for moving and rolling, has, for all those long years, taken care of itself; it seems, indeed, that the little closely interwoven plants of grass are things of wonderful endurance and longevity. The mowing
prevents their blooming, so that they form but few fresh plants from seed. Imperceptibly the dying of the older plants is going on, and the hungry root-fibres of their younger neighbours are feeding on the decaying particles washed into the earth.
But whether lawns could exist at all without the beneficent work of the earthworms is very doubtful. Every one has seen the little heaps of worm-castings upon grass, but it remained for Darwin, after his own long experiment and exhaustive observation, partly based upon and comprehending the conclusions of other naturalists, to tell us how largely the fertility of our surface soil is due to the unceasing work of these small creatures. Worms swallow large quantities of earth and decaying leaves, and Darwin’s observations led him “to conclude that all the vegetable mould over the whole country has passed many times through, and will again pass many times through the intestinal canals of worms.” This, indeed, is the only way in which it is possible for a person with any knowledge of the needs of plant-life, to conceive the possibility of any one closely-packed crop occupying the same space of ground for hundreds of years. The soil, as it passes, little by little, through the bodies of the worms, undergoes certain chemical changes which fit it afresh for its ever-renewed work of plant-sustenance.
There are some who, viewing the castings as an eyesore on their lawns, cast about for means of destroying the worms. This is unwise policy, and would soon lead to the impoverishment of the grass. The castings, when dry, are easily broken down by the roller or the birch-broom, and the grass receives the beneficent top-dressing that assures its well-being and healthy continuance.
The only part of the garden at Auchincruive that is obedient to rectangular form, is the kitchen garden and the ground about it. The kitchen garden lies some way back from the house and river, and, with its greenhouses, is for the most part hidden by two long old yew hedges which run in the direction of the river. One of these appears in the picture, with its outer ornament of bright border of autumn flowers. Here are Tritomas, Gypsophila in mist-like clouds, tall Evening Primrose and Campanula pyramidalis, both purple and white, with many other good hardy flowers.
The red-leaved tree illustrates a question which often arises in the writer’s mind as to whether trees and shrubs of this coloured foliage, such as Prunus Pissardi and Copper Beech and Copper Hazel are not of doubtful value in the general garden landscape. Trees of the darkest green, as this very picture shows by its dark upright yews, are always of value, but the red-leaved tree, though in the present case it has been tenderly treated by the artist, is apt to catch the eye as a violent and discordant patch among green foliage. Especially is this the case with the darker form of copper beech, which, in autumn, takes a dull, solid, heavy kind of colour, especially when seen from a little distance, that is often a disfiguring blot in an otherwise beautiful landscape.
The same criticism may occasionally apply to trees of conspicuous golden foliage, but errors in planting these, though often made, may easily be avoided by suitable grouping and association with white and yellow flowers. Indeed it would be delightful to work out a whole golden garden.
YEW ARBOUR: LYDE
It is not in large gardens only that hardy flowers are to be seen in perfection. Often the humblest wayside cottage may show such a picture of plant-beauty as will put to shame the best that can be seen at the neighbouring squire’s. And where labouring folk have a liking for clipped yews, their natural good taste and ingenuity often turns them into better forms than are seen among the examples of more pretentious topiary work.
The cottager has the undoubted advantage that, as his tree is usually an isolated one, he can see by its natural way of growth the kind of figure it suggests for his clipping; whereas the gardener in the large place usually has to follow a fixed design. So it is that one may see in a cottage garden such a handsome example as the yew in the picture.
The lower part of the tree is nearly square in plan, with a niche cut out for a narrow seat. There is space enough between the top of this and the underside of the great mushroom-shaped canopy, to allow the upper surface of the square base to be green and healthy. The great rounded top proudly carries its handsome crest, that is already a good ornament and will improve year by year. The garden is raised above the road and only separated from it by a wall which is low on the garden side and deeper to the road. It passes by the side of the yew, so that the occupier of the seat commands a view of the road and all that goes along it, and can exchange greetings and gossip with those who pass by.
The cottagers of the neighbourhood--it is in Herefordshire, about four miles from Hereford--have a special fancy for these clipped yews; many examples may be met with in an afternoon’s walk. Not very far from this is a capital peacock excellently rendered in conventional fashion. It stands well above a high pedestal, one side of which is hollowed out for a little seat.
One may well understand what a pride and pleasure and amusing interest these clipped trees are to the cottage folk; how after each year’s clipping they would discuss and criticise the result and note the progress of the growth towards the hoped-for form. A pile of cheeses is a favourite pattern, sometimes on a square base, with the topmost ornament cut into a spire or even a crown.
The English peasant has a love for ornament that always strives to find some kind of expression. In many parts the thatcher makes a kind of basket ornament on the top of his rick; and the pattern of crossed laths, pegged down with the hazel “spars” that finishes the thatched cottage roof near the eaves, is of true artistic value. The carter loves to dress his horses for town or market, and a fine team, with worsted ribbons in mane and headstall, and quantities of gleaming highly-polished brasses, is indeed a pleasant sight upon the country high road.
Now, alas! when cheap rubbish, misnamed ornamental, floods village shops and finds its way into the cottages, the cottager’s taste, which was always true and good as long as it depended on its own prompting and instinct, and could only deal with the simplest materials, is rapidly becoming bewildered and debased. All the more, therefore, let us value and cherish these ornaments of the older traditions; the bright little gardens and the much-prized clipped yew.
A usual feature of these cottage yews is that the seat is for one person alone. The labourer sits in his little retreat enjoying his evening pipe after his day’s work, while the wife puts the children to bed and gets the supper. Probably he has been harvesting all day, and his strong frame is tired, with that feeling of almost pleasant fatigue that comes to a wholesome body after a good day’s work well done; and when the hardly-earned rest is thoroughly enjoyed. So he sits quite quiet, with one eye on the possible interests of his outer world, the road, and the other on the beauty of his flower-border. And what a pretty double border it is, with its grand mass of pink Japan Anemone and well-flowered clump of Goldilocks (one of the few yellow-bloomed Michaelmas Daisies), looking at its near relation in purple over the way.
A graceful little Plum-tree shoots up through the flowers; its long free shoots of tender green seem to laugh at the rigid surface of the clipped yew beyond. Don’t be too confident about your freedom, little Plum; it is more than likely that you will be severely pruned next winter. But you need not mind, for if you lose one kind of beauty, you will gain others; the pure white bloom of spring-time, and the autumn burden of purple fruit; and be both handsome and useful, like your neighbour the old yew.
AUTUMN FLOWERS
How stout and strong and full of well-being they are--the autumn flowers of our English gardens! Hollyhocks, Tritomas, Sunflowers, Phloxes, among many others, and lastly, Michaelmas Daisies. The flowers of the early year are lowly things, though none the less lovable; Primroses, Double Daisies, Anemones, small Irises, and all the beautiful host of small Squill and Snow-Glory and little early Daffodils. Then come the taller Daffodils and Wallflowers, Tulips, and the old garden Peonies and the lovely Tree Peonies. Then the true early summer flowers.
If you notice, as the seasons progress, the average of the flowering plants advances in stature. By June this average has risen again, with the Sea Hollies and Flag Irises, the Chinese Peonies and the earlier Roses. And now there are some quite tall things. Mulleins seven and eight feet high, some of them from last year’s seed, but the greater number from the seed-shedding of the year before; the great white-leaved Mullein (_Verboscum olympicum_), taking four years to come to flowering strength. But what a flower it is, when it is at last thrown up! What a glorious candelabrum of branching bloom! Perhaps there is no other hardy plant whose bulk of bloom on a single stem fills so large a space. And what a grand effect it has when it is rightly planted; when its great sulphur spire shows, half or wholly shaded, against the dusk of a wood edge or in some sheltered bay, where garden is insensibly melting into woodland. This is the place for these grand plants (for their flowers flag in hot sunshine), in company with white Foxglove and the tall yellow Evening Primrose, another tender bloom that is shy of sunlight. Four o’clock of a June morning is the time to see these fine things at their best, when the birds are waking up, and but for them the world is still, and the Cluster-Roses are opening their buds. No one can know the whole beauty of a Cluster-Rose who has not seen it when the summer day is quite young; when the buds of such a rose as the Garland have just burst open and the sun has not yet bleached their wonderful tints of shell-pink and tenderest shell-yellow into their only a little less beautiful colouring of full midday.