E. V. B.

“ Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose—the white Iris is mine—the Fleur-de-lys of France—the lily of Florence. Nothing can be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the whiteness of other flowers. ”

“ The axe and the pruning-knife have been busy during the winter months; and many a fine Laurel, in all its wealth of glossy green, has been laid low, and with Yew and the full-foliaged Phylleria, and more than one tall Deodara,—become a burnt sacrifice to “Apollo’s sunny ray.” For the south sunshine must be let in, no matter what the cost. In certain ways the garden may be said to suffer change; and chiefly when the grace and softly rounded loveliness of various evergreens which do not bear the shears—Cryptomeria Elegans, Red Cedar, and the like—after a course of years begins to wane. ”

“ Ah, yes, “the year’s pleasant king”! and yet our spring is a beautiful spirit, and she has been hovering about us; but now, to-day, she has set her feet upon the earth, and there is a great triumph of verdure on the trees and on the grass; and Apple trees meet her in fulness of bloom, and May-buds are swelling on the Thorns to make up for lost time; and all the edges of meadow-grass are jewelled with little gems of purple, and blue, and red, and the broad fields shine in silver and gold. ”

“ How they reach out like sentient hands! and when they have found, how strong and firm their clasp! Then, who does not know and love the curious aroma of her small green flowers, bringing back to memory the smell of a Southern vineyard? Very soon, now, autumn suns will swell the clustered fruit, and purple bloom will begin to show between the leaves. A Vine is one of the only plants whose every leaf, well nigh, may be painted with care in a picture, and yet not seem too much made out. Yet rarely indeed can human hand give the fine thinness and yielding texture of a Vine leaf! ”

“ A faint delicious perfume steals out through the iron gate to the flower-garden, inviting as one passes by, to turn and peep within. There are the trained leafless branches covered thick with knots of flower. They open very deliberately, and there abide for a little happy while, self-conscious, round, and pink, and firm; then there comes a setting of delicate green around the flowers; and then the Apple tree in bloom is one of earth’s loveliest sights. Apple blossom must be added to my pharmacopœia of sweet smells. ”

“ April 9.—The garden is full of Daffodils. Yellow flowers and green leaves form a most beautiful combination of colours when laid on by Nature’s hand. Every part of the garden now has its show of single or double Daffodils, and yet there is not one too many. Lovely always, they are loveliest, perhaps, when growing in the grass. There, “the green world they live in” shows them off better than when surrounded by garden mould. Excepting one large single flowering plant under the east wall, our finest Daffodils grow in the cool north border. ”

“ It is like a beautiful carpet underneath a long row of Elms, where nothing else would grow; indeed, wherever there happen to be bits too overshadowed for grass or otherwise unsatisfactory, we put in Ivy; it is sure to understand, and to do what is required. My favourite sort is the wild English Ivy, and no other has a right to grow on the house. Its growth is slow and sure; it always grows to beauty, and never to over-richness. The loveliness of its younger shoots and of the deeply cut leaves might inspire either poet or painter! ”

“ Round the windows the Vines are yellowing, with green fruit ripening fast. These are unusually sweet for outdoor Grapes, and have yielded a fair wine in their time. Large green Apples (Reinette du Canada) , in the walled garden, are nearly as beautiful as the trees of Blenheim Orange which are reddening in the orchard.
Very pleasant and Arcadian in the mellow autumn sunshine are these days of Apple gathering! There is no undue haste; the man on the ladder up in the tree leisurely fills his basket. Baskets, half full of fruit, stand near, upon the leaf-strewn grass. ”

“ I wonder if the Riviera Broom would live in this climate. I mean the Broom that grows something like a Rush, with the flowers set all round its polished stem. [5] In the orchard border an immense luxuriantly rounded bush of Weigela replaces the Pyrus of last month, the lovely pink of its blossom set off by the tender green around it. These are all beautiful bits of colour, and yet they are only samples, as it were, of what I wish and may partly hope for some day; for a Laburnum colonnade is in contemplation, and lilac closes, and golden cloisters of Genista, some day, there must be! ”

“ Among the pleasant sights of this mid-summertide, perhaps the pleasantest of all is the great thicket of wild Roses growing within the wire network that bounds the tennis-lawn on the garden side. The east, shining full upon it every morning, brings forth hundreds of new-blown Roses. Very often, as you pass into their sweet presence from under the Plane trees, the air is redolent of a subtle perfume—not always, though, nor every day, for Roses are capricious of their scent. ”

“ There will be no church for the tired harvestmen whom we saw yesterday lying on the dusty grass by the roadside. They are too tired, and too ragged and dirty; but we may hope for them also some restful influences from the quiet of the day, under such a blue sky.
The early morning is always the time of all others for the garden, while the flowers are refreshed with the dew and darkness and cool of night, and are rejoicing yet in the light of a new sun. ”

“ As to the living frequenters of the garden, whose presence there for the most part enhances our enjoyment of it, the tomtits and nuthatches, are as busy with the cocoanuts which hang for their use all winter from the Rose-arches as the mice and the sparrows are with the crocuses; the white pigeons still circle in the air and settle upon the gables, or preen their feathers in the sunshine amongst the yellow stonecrop at the base of the old grey pillar in the parterr; the swallows return year by year to their nests within the porch ”

“ Still, although no future of green maturity can ever compensate the earlier, expectant delight of watching our young trees’ youth, all is not lost; for the pleasures carried away by Time, Time itself replaces by others to the full as sweet. It may be that favourite plants become established and yield a larger harvest of beauty, or that deep-laid plans ripen into bright perfection, while a thousand garden joys arise fresh each year, nay, well-nigh every day. ”

“ The broad border by the side of the walk along the Holly hedge is filled with Rhododendrons and Azaleas; as yet only the common—yet always beautiful—yellow and creamy-white Azalea, filling all the air with its peculiar scent. The success of this border is especially pleasant, for the young Americans made one rather nervous at times during the early spring—on days when the weather did not exactly suit them they would look so pitiable and dejected, with their leaves hanging straight down. Into this border were moved most of the aged drawn-up Rhododendrons, that used to crowd the shrubberies. ”

“ One only hopes this abundant autumnal bloom may not interfere with their blossoming in the spring; it is certainly finer than I ever remember in former seasons. A rockwork of big flints was quite gay with Virginian Stock and Primroses. To-day the frost is most severe. The Marigolds look unlike themselves, with a white cap border of frost, quilled round their orange faces; the half-opened buds in a Tea Rose bed are like fancy Moss Roses; only the moss is white, and every leaf is fringed with little sharp-pointed crystals. ”

“ Yet in a good apple year the fruit still clusters from the top of the tree down almost to the ground. And growing on its green lawn thus, one dreams a passing dream of the apples of the Hesperides, and the red Virginian climber is the great fiery scaled dragon gliding up through the leaves to gaze with dull eye seawards. But there are no maidens dancing in a ring, and I have just seen three hungry thrushes attack the apples unforbidden.
Nothing is so uncertain as pears. There has been a first-rate lot on a young Flemish Beauty, growing against the Gardener’s cottage. ”

“ In the Fantaisie the earthy bed can scarce be seen, so close lies this warm counterpane of leaves! The great Elms, on the greyest days, now make sunshine of their own. Their lofty breadths of yellow gold tower above the zone of garden trees. When the sun illumines them, and the light winds pass, it is a dream to watch the glittering fall of autumn leaves. The ancient times return, and Jove once more showers gold around some sleeping Danae! During the first days of the month, the parterr was done, Tulips put in, and a lot of Crocuses in double row. ”

“ Purple draperies of Clematis (Virgin’s Bower) , in many shades, from the deepest violet softening into grey, make the old brick walls beautiful; or the same Clematis droops [Pg 174] from trellises, or clambers up the trees in many parts of the garden. Almost always it so happens that the tender green of Vines mingles with the purple. There is something almost unpleasing in the arrangement of the four petals of Clematis Jackmanni! but much must be forgiven for the sake of such grand colouring. No climbing plant comes near the Vine, perhaps, in perfect grace and beauty of line. ”

“ The white rags on our palings were spiders’ webs both new and old, a marvellous number, thus crystallized, as it were, into existence by the frost, where scarcely one had been before. In open weather the webs are as good as invisible to human eyes; but now that frost had thickened the minutest threads to the size of Berlin wool—though in beauty of texture they resembled fine white velvet chenille—there was a sudden revelation of these wonderful works of art! One feels, if the nets show only half as large and thick to a fly’s eye, the spider’s trade must be a poor one. ”

“ I have been told of a great bouquet of Everlasting Flowers, in a Dutch gentleman’s drawing-room at the Cape, which was affirmed to be two hundred years old. We have sheaves of Honesty, also—“Money in your Pocket,” as the poor say—which are to gleam like flakes of mother-o’-pearl in the firelight of December’s dusky afternoons. We left plenty in the garden, however, where they will stand a good deal more of rough weather before they fall to pieces. Honesty is always handsome, in all stages of its growth; and like the people who take things easily, it thrives everywhere. ”

“ The Beeches, on either side the Allée Verte, embower the walk, while along the outmost line their slender drooping shoots stretch themselves to meet and embrace more staid and slow young Elm branchlets, spreading from the great old trees. The nightingale’s old White Thorn shone white like a great snow mountain for about ten days, surpassing all the rest in beauty; and not far from it, deep in a thorny thicket of Dewberry mixed with Ivy and Nettles, we found the nightingale’s nest. ”

“ With the first hot shafts of April’s sun it startles into bloom, shaken out in snow-wreaths all over the tree, a waste of most lavish loveliness. It is something gained, once in the twelvemonth’s round of commonplace, if only for a moment to stand beside a Cherry tree in blossom. The blue sky looks infinitely far off, seen through such a maze of flowery myriads. ”