CHAPTER XIV

FERNS AND WILD FLOWERS

“Wood-sorrel and wild violet Ease my soul’s fret.”

“How I do envy you your bank of Ferns” is the remark made to me almost daily during the summer months when the green background of our outdoor fernery looks so pretty as it throws up the colours of the flower-beds on the little lawn that flanks it. This is the brightest bit of the whole garden, and its beauty is very largely due to the Ferns. Then we get talking about Ferns, and everybody says, “What a pity Ferns are out of fashion.” This is what I think. There was a Fern-craze about five and thirty years ago, when crinolines were worn, and long riding-habits, and every drawing-room had its tank of sea-flowers; but times have changed, and the day of the outdoor fernery is over. One reason given for its disappearance is what people say is its untidiness. “We cannot have Ferns near the house, because they look ragged in autumn and winter.” This is what I am told so constantly, but do not agree with at all. In the first place, to my way of thinking, Ferns are picturesque all the year round, not less so when they are brown and yellow than at the time of their greenest luxuriance, and hardy Ferns are the very best things in the world for Londoners to cultivate, because their foliage is so tolerant of smoke-poison, even in the most aggravated form of it known as “urban fog.” No town nor suburban garden, however unfavourably placed, need be without its Ferns.

It was against a blank wall facing east, in a brand-new garden of the suburbs, that our own fernery was started, and turned despair into delight. This part of the garden had looked so hopeless. What were we to do with it? We knew that flowers would not bloom there, and yet we wanted something cheerful to look at, because the door-windows of our favourite sitting-rooms “gave on to it,” as the French say, and it would always be in sight. Then some one suggested ferns, and it was felt at once the right note had been struck. Between the house and the wall there was chaos for about sixty-five feet; then the bare wall. Behind that in the next-door garden were an Oak and one or two Apple trees, that gave some shelter. Beside the house we made a terrace, high and dry, and planted a Magnolia against the wall, and Rose trees. Then came a gravel path, and beyond the path we laid a little lawn; this left room for a four or five-foot border by the wall. Here was to be the fernery.

Good drainage was secured by digging down and filling up with crocks and broken tiles and cinders. Then we got together a goodly store of stones, tree-stumps, and gnarled roots, choosing Oak when possible, because of all woods it is the least liable to decay. Oak will even resist damp, though damp is a thing a fernery should never be. That is the mistake most people make. Ferns want a great deal of water, but never to be water-logged--always dewy, fresh, and sprinkled. Now it was time to think about the soil. We got in leaf-mould, loam, and a little peat, which in those days was easier to get than it is now. The building up of all these good materials was a pleasant task. It is so nice to work _with_ one’s gardeners. We cannot expect them to have the same cultivated tastes as some of ourselves, who have travelled, and read, and thought, and got out of old grooves; but they can do the hard work, and are quick to take ideas. Our Fern-bank was not allowed to be grotto-y. Not a scrap of clinker, nor a flint, nor a shell--least of all a fossil--was permitted to come near it. We waved the border up and down in quite irregular fashion with hills and dales and comfortable crannies to hold the plants when they should come. A month or two had to pass before we could plant, and this was fortunate in a way, as things could settle down. We had made the fernery in the spring, and in the autumn we furnished it--a good time for doing so, for in the autumn holidays one finds so many treasures to bring home in box or basket. This was what we did; and besides that, had ordered a good many beautiful and hardy Ferns from some growers in the south of England.

I do think this is such a good plan. The more frequented country places have been so depleted by the careless Fern-hunter and the over-zealous field-class, that really there are now few wild Ferns to spare. Whenever I come across any, growing in all their beauty, my impulse is to leave them, not to take them away, especially delicate Ferns like Tricomanes, or the Sea or Bladder Spleenwort; nor would I ever rifle a lake-side of the Royal Osmunda, unless in Ireland, where it might be growing like a weed. Quite common things we may take a portion of, with care--not the whole root--the Male and Lady-Fern for instance, the Blecknums, the Hart’s-tongues from the well-side, and the Polypodies of the wood and hedgerow. Ferns can be moved and planted with safety either in spring or autumn. In the garden for dividing and replanting, we find February the best month.

In making a Fern-bank it must never be forgotten that, though the hardy kinds stand cold well, they do hate draught. We carried our border round a little at both ends, and planted shrubs so as to make it quite a cosy corner. The wall itself had been stocked with climbers--Ivy, Virginian Creeper, and some Briar Roses and Honeysuckle--the latter not with the hope of flowers, but for a change of foliage. In October the brown and yellowing fronds, with green and gold and red and crimson leaves behind them, are splendid. Our ugly patch is now the best part of the garden--the flower-beds on the turf a little formal, perhaps, but always bright either with spring or summer flowers. Both grass and blossoms are in clover here; they get a sideways benefit from the constant spraying of the bank, and the close-cut turf grows very fine and soft, keeping its greenness through the hottest weather.

Has any one noticed the beauty of the growth of fresh young pale-green Fern-fronds, among the old dark foliage? Sometimes we secure this by leaving the Fern-bank for a dry hot day or two without much water, then we give it a deluge over-night. Next day new growth begins to show, and the fernery, so far from being cross at so much teasing, puts on its fairest smiles, and looks prettier than ever.

But one of the greatest delights of a fernery in London or suburban gardens is the opportunity it gives of growing wild flowers. There are so many of these one longs to have, but there is no room for them. In the herbaceous border they would be pulled up as weeds, and on the rockery they would overgrow the other things. What the dear weeds want is a place where they can rest harmless and unmolested. The outdoor fernery is their Promised Land; there they are good and happy. Many a wilding has a home in ours.

Sometimes we wonder how they get there, for generally they are not of our own planting. Some, of course, are “stowaways”--vagrants that have travelled with Fern-roots sent from far; others may be wind or bird-sown--there is no lack of bird-life in suburban gardens. Any way, the weeds are welcome. Amongst the strangers are Wind-flowers, wild Hyacinth, Wood-violets, and Celandine. Enchanter’s Night-shade is a visitor that is inclined to be too pushful, but we like a little left, to study its life-history as related so delightfully by Grant Allen. Under the Osmundas there is a carpet of Oak and Beech Fern, but below the hardy common Ferns we let the Alpine Strawberry run about--how bright its scarlet berries in the cool green leaves!--and Wood-sorrel, that most engaging weed, claimed by many as the true Shamrock of St. Patrick. There is no wild flower more interesting; its triune leaflets are so sensitive, closing if startled, or if the wind be chill, and on hot summer afternoons it is amusing to listen for the cracking of its tiny artillery as the seed-pods burst, to fling their harmless contents all around.

In very early spring Blue-bells and the constant Primrose find warm corners on our Fern-bank, and show bright faces sooner than elsewhere. It is here the “spotted Orchis takes his annual step across the earth”--why is this plant so walkative? Wood-sanicle is another weed we allow no one to pull up; it is to us a living lyric of copse and woodland. Such simple plants are doubly sweet when growing in the small suburban garden, houses to right of us, houses to left of us, and houses over the way.

And now a word or two to those who fear to make a fernery too near the house. Here is an extract from my garden log-book, written in December 1901: “The Fern-bank against the Ivied wall is looking almost as well as in August. The plants are simply revelling in the moist still air. The undergrowth of Oak, Beech, Limestone and Bladder Fern is gone, and some of the Lady Fern is yellowing, but the Hart’s-tongues are greener than ever; their bosses show up well, and the Male Fern and hardy Polystichums and Polypodies are still flourishing, many of them growing from a centre like gigantic shuttlecocks. The Osmunda is a little withered, but in its golden yellow stage is very lovely.” The present prevailing fashion of a lingering autumn and mild December leaves the Fern-bank beautiful through October, November, and the months that follow, till the very hard frosts come, which nowadays is generally not till the days have begun to lengthen. In sheltered corners many plants are green the whole year round. So things go on till January, when some few heads are lying low, but even then the bank is quaintly pretty. February is, I admit, the least attractive month for the Ferns themselves, but by that time the little lowly flowers that grow among them are coming up, and a careful look will show how fast the fronds are spreading and thickening amid the Wood-violets’ gentle blue and the pale stars of the Primrose. May is here the most amusing month; in their growing-up stage Ferns are funnier than schoolboys, and more uncouth. How tall and lanky is this pale Osmunda; he has shot up too quickly, and there is nothing but a little bullet head at the top of every attenuated stalk. He bends this backwards, the colour changes, and lo! the round ball opens into the splendour of branching leaves. Warm rain of a day or two will do this and many another miracle will it work; the rolled-up, wriggling snakes and viperlings that hid away in white and woolly fleeces, and seemed so frightened of coming out too soon, one by one now show themselves to be the Scolopendriums, Aspleniums, Polypodiums and Polystichums that were so beautiful last July--it would really be mean to remind them in summer-time of how they looked while yet unfledged.

The great charm of a fernery, well kept and long-established, is now forgotten by most, for it is seldom seen. What we do see in many a London and suburban garden is the extinct or neglected fernery, an arid spot, most likely under a tree or trees, which have drained every drop of moisture from the soil. People have such odd notions about Ferns; they do not discriminate. All kinds are lumped together, and expected to look after themselves and do all right, if they are given a few stones or a clinker or two to play with. I do not think under trees the very best place for Ferns, for the trees get all the moisture. When we know that one fair-sized Oak tree will draw up as much as a hundred and twenty-three tons of water in a season, we cannot wonder that there is not much left to nourish the plants beneath; and then the rain, the kindly rain that drops from heaven upon the earth beneath, how are the poor overshadowed Ferns to get that? Speaking generally, all Ferns like shade and moisture, but different members of the Fern family show as many individual tastes and likes and dislikes as we should find in any school or nursery. Some are for the cool depths of the woodland, some for the breezy heath or open moor; others sun themselves like chameleons on a dry and stony wall, where they live on nothing but lime and light; and there are the lake-lovers, who, poet-like, would sit with their feet in the brook, and gaze at the blue of the sky; and the mountain-climbers who hide under the slates of Skiddaw; and the roadside Ferns that grow beneath, and sometimes upon, the bossy branches of Elms and Oaks. These hardy hedge-haunters were for a long time the only Ferns that would not grow for us; at last we discovered the reason why. They will not drink anything but soft water, sooner would they die.

All the other Ferns I have mentioned live as happily in a suburban garden as they did in their native haunts, and attain to an even greater size and luxuriance. They give no trouble, most of them do not mind hard water, but this is much better if sprayed or sprinkled than if hosed. Sprinklers can be bought for a shilling or two at any ironmonger’s shop, and are most useful. Even the Holly fern, and the Hay-scented, and the pretty _Polystichum-proliferum_ that most people consider a greenhouse plant, come up every year, punctual as the morning sunshine, and want nothing but water, and some fresh leaf-mould to grow into, now and then. Sometimes in the autumn we scatter them with dead leaves, and always leave the fronds to wither as they will; no tidying up is allowed. Here Nature holds her sway, and the touch of wildness in an otherwise well-ordered garden is refreshing.